[UK] Government U-turns on mandatory digital ID cards for workers

General News
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Relevant video:

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We must remain vigilant and continue fighting. This is not over yet. This is a mild win but a win nonetheless. Like the EU with chat control, this will come back with some changes and perhaps with another name. We must continue advocating against it.

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Good riddance for that particular requirement. We are absolutely not done yet - we need more organized opposition to two relatively recent amendments to the “Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill“ https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3909/.

Amendments 92 & 93 on pages 40-42 of the list of amendments: “HL Bill 135-I Marshalled list for Report” https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/64188/documents/7585 Introduce age verification for VPNs and mandate so called “client side scanning“ for CSAM be pre-installed in a tamper-proof fashion on essentially all mobile computational devices - a far worse overreach than the worst EU chat control proposals.

Write to your MPs and let them know this is absurd, for 93 all the chat control arguments apply so we can re-use the same open letter from hundreds of experts saying why this is a bad idea: csa-scientist-open-letter[dot]org/Sep2025 only more-so as this is the whole OS not just messages. Support the open rights group’s work on these issues: openrightsgroup[dot]org

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After Clause 27, insert the following new Clause—
“Action to prohibit the provision of VPN services to children in the United Kingdom

  1. Within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed the Secretary of State must, for the purpose of furthering the protection and wellbeing of children, make regulations which prohibit the provision to UK children of a relevant VPN service (the “child VPN prohibition”).
  2. Regulations under subsection (1)—
    (a) may make provision for the provider of a relevant VPN service to apply to any person seeking to access its service in or from the UK age assurance which is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not that person is a child;
    (b) must apply the child VPN prohibition to the provider of any relevant VPN
    service which is, or is likely to be—
    (i) offered or marketed to persons in the United Kingdom;
    (ii) provided to a significant number of persons; must make provision for the monitoring and effective enforcement of the child VPN prohibition.
  3. OFCOM may produce guidance for providers of relevant VPN services to assist
    them in complying with the child VPN prohibition.
  4. A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
  5. For the purposes of this section—
    “child” means a person under the age of 18;
    “consumer” means a person acting otherwise than in the course of a business;
    “relevant VPN service” means a service of providing, in the course of a business, to a consumer, a virtual private network for accessing the internet;
    “UK child” means any child who is in the United Kingdom.”

Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to take action to promote and protect children’s wellbeing, and to further support child protective measures in the Online Safety Act, by prohibiting the provision to children in the United Kingdom of VPN services which can facilitate evasion of OSA age-gating processes.

LORD NASH
BARONESS CASS
BARONESS BENJAMIN
BARONESS BARRAN

93
After Clause 27, insert the following new Clause—
“Action to promote the wellbeing of children by combating child sexual abuse material (CSAM)

  1. Within 12 months of the passing of this Act the Secretary of State must, for the purpose of promoting the wellbeing of children, make and bring into force regulations which require manufacturers, importers and distributors of relevant devices to satisfy the CSAM requirement specified in subsection (2).

  2. The “CSAM requirement” is that any relevant device supplied for use in the UK must have installed tamper-proof system software which is highly effective at preventing the recording, transmitting (by any means, including livestreaming) and viewing of CSAM using that device.

  3. The duties of manufacturers, importers and distributors to comply with the CSAM requirement specified by regulations under subsection (1) must be subject to enforcement as if the CSAM requirement was a security requirement for the purposes of Part 1 of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022.

  4. Regulations under subsection (1) must enable the Secretary of State, by further
    regulations, to expand the definition of ‘relevant devices’ to include other
    categories of device which may be used to record, transmit or view CSAM.

  5. A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1) may not be
    made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a
    resolution of each House of Parliament.

  6. For the purposes of this section—
    “child sexual abuse material” means images, video recordings or live videos involving child sexual abuse, including—
    (a) any indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child within the meaning of the Protection of Children Act 1978, and
    (b) any prohibited image of a child, within the meaning of section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, that is not an excluded image within the meaning of section 63 of that Act;

    “relevant devices” are smartphones or tablet computers which are either internet-connectable products or network-connectable products for the purposes of section 5 of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022; and

    “manufacturer”, “importer”, “distributor”, and “supply” is each as defined in the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022.”

Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to take action to promote and protect children’s wellbeing by mandating the installation of software which prevents the creation, viewing and sharing of child sexual abuse material on smartphones and tablets which are supplied for use in the UK.

LORD NASH
BARONESS CASS
BARONESS BENJAMIN
BARONESS BERGER

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Digital ID is still being introduced, just not compulsory for now. It will effectively become ‘mandatory’ in a decade or so when people have adopted it and became used to it, in the same sense LinkedIn is ‘mandatory’ for your career prospects.

The reality is that recruiters use LinkedIn as a quick way to validate your CV and not using it is treated as a red flag. In the same vein, employers won’t wait for candidates to bring in physical copies of documents when Digital ID will be instant.

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