A single digital ID on your smartphone will help streamline access to public services, Sir Tony Blair has said.

The former prime minister’s Institute for Global Change has today released a report calling for wholesale reform to ‘end the era of slow and cumbersome government services’.

‘The ID is a simple identifier on your phone, accessed using biometrics,’ said Sir Blair, speaking to Metro.co.uk. ‘It’s unique to you, and enables you to interact with the government system through one portal.

‘It allows you to get all the data you need about yourself in one place.’

Those without a smartphone will be able to use a physical card alternative, but Mr Blair adds: ‘The vast majority of people will use it through a phone, and that’s the best way to do it.’

Examples of how the system would function include a digital driving licence, access to medical history in one place, personalised assistance for accessing public services including benefits, and a single record of education.

The report, titled ‘The Great Enabler: Transforming the Future of Britain’s
Public Services Through Digital Identity’, follows calls in February by Sir Blair and former Conservative leader William Hague for the introduction of a national digital ID.

‘I think the challenge for Britain today is we’re taxing people more heavily than ever before in recent history and spending more with poor outcomes,’ said Sir Blair. ‘I don’t see a way around that other than hugely streamlining and making more efficient the processes that are adding to the cost.

‘There are so many ways today you can use data to make processes more efficient – and that’s happening in every part of the private sector. Think about how we shop nowadays, what we watch, how we live – and government and the public sector are lagging far behind.’

Only a handful of other governments worldwide have begun issuing digital ID cards, including Vietnam, Brazil and China. However, a working group of eight nations has drafted a set of principles for ‘mutually recognised’ digital ID systems – Australia, Canada, Finland, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, the Netherlands and the UK.

Government access to personal data is one issue often shared by opponents of the scheme – and the ability for authorities to track a person’s whereabouts.

Speaking after Sir Blair and Lord Hague’s first report, Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo said: ‘Sir Tony and Lord Hague are absolutely right about the need for the UK to take leadership in technological innovation, but this means protecting people’s rights and privacy, not reviving failed proposals for an intrusive mass digital identity system and a database state.’

‘There will be a lot of people talking about privacy, but there are all sorts of ways you can deal with that,’ said Sir Blair. ‘And in today’s world you have the ability to accumulate data, put it in the cloud and analyse it using AI that will allow us to advance it hugely.

‘For example, you could be given information about a condition you have without having to go into hospitals the whole time.’

Sir Blair is proposing the digital IDs be issued by a single government body, rather than outsourced. Considering the potential for issues or bugs within the system, as occurred at the Post Office and led to 736 people being prosecuted for crimes they didn’t commit, he admitted it would not be without problems.

‘That’s a good example of where the system wasn’t operating effectively,’ said Sir Blair. ‘But today the systems are much better. There will be mistakes and problems as you go along, but the question is whether cumulatively it will make a difference for good or not, and I think it will.’

The paper also suggests a digital ID system will help tackle the issue of migrants and refugees entering the country illegally on small boats.

As part of its recommendations, the paper states that a digital ID system would deter people from attempting the dangerous Channel crossing by making it harder for them to access services and ‘disappear into the black economy, renting and working illegally’.

‘I’m sympathetic to the people in government trying to stop it,’ said Sir Blair. ‘But the problem with the UK immigration system is that people come in for all sorts of reasons and then just stay here, and it’s not easy to know who they are, or what they’re doing.

‘There’s no answer to the immigration issue that worries people without a clear method of identification of who has a right to be here and who does not.

‘It’s not going to [entirely] stop situations where people slip through the net and find ways around the system, but I think it will give us a much better lock on what is happening.’

The introduction of national ID cards was first put forward by Sir Blair while prime minister, but the proposals were dropped by the coalition government in 2010.  

He acknowledged at present there is little political appetite for such a scheme.

‘This is a big, big change and at the moment, neither main political party is in favor of it,’ he said. ‘But I hope, at least for the Labour Party, we change our position.’

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