The Government’s proposed national Digital ID scheme was stopped. This was vital.

Without the enormous public kickback, we would now be heading towards compulsory Digital ID.

Together supporters did more than their fair share: almost 60,000 people used our online tool to email their MP; local members handed out hundreds of thousands of leaflets; we projected giant messages on to the Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge, Edinburgh Castle and Liverpool landmarks; we made the argument in the media and on social media every day; we ran rallies on the same day in all four nations; and finally we filled new Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s postbox with Pledges demanding that he scrap the scheme – which he then did.

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It is worth reflecting briefly on what we – and so many others – were concerned about:

• Being forced to prove who you are simply to take part in ordinary life.
• More information about us being connected through one central government-backed system – with greater consequences when it fails, is hacked or gets things wrong.
• Governments gaining an infrastructure that could be expanded to monitor people or make access to services and everyday activities conditional on official permission.

These were not concerns about a piece of plastic or an app icon. They were concerns about the powers and infrastructure being created.

At the same time, related platforms – including GOV UK One Login, which would have supported the proposed national Digital ID scheme – have continued to expand.

One Login now operates across more than 200 government services and interactions, with millions of people being steered into it.

Company directors have just seen how this can work in practice.

Beginning November last year, up to eight million directors have been affected by new compulsory identity-verification requirements, phased in over a year. The Government’s free verification route uses One Login. The only alternative is to use an authorised accountant, solicitor or other provider – which may charge a fee.

Directors using One Login have their verified real-world identity connected to their One Login account. The Government promotes this as a benefit because the identity check can then be reused across other government services.

But it also means that a common government login is becoming something more significant than a convenient username and password.

As One Login continues to expand, there is understandable concern and confusion about what it is, what it is not, and how it connects with the GOV UK App, Wallet and digital credentials.

So here is our plain-English guide.

What is GOV UK One Login?

One Login is the Government’s common account and identity-checking system for dealing with government online.

Work on it began in 2021, with the first government services starting to use it the following year. It has since expanded rapidly.

Instead of creating different usernames and passwords for different departments, you create one account – normally using an email address, password and security code – which can be used across services that have joined the system.

Importantly, these are not always optional services. They can include things people are legally required to do, such as verifying their identity as a company director or completing particular government processes.

Sometimes One Login is used only to sign in. In those cases, it confirms that you can authenticate yourself as the person controlling the account – it does not necessarily establish your real-world identity.

For example, you might create a One Login account using an email address, password and security code, then use it to return to an application without separately proving who you are.

For other services, One Login also requires you to prove who you are. This can involve scanning photographic identification, matching your face to it, answering questions based on government or financial records, or taking documents to a Post Office after beginning the process online.

(What’s more, every time somebody uses One Login to prove their identity – rather than simply to sign in – the process includes a fraud check by the private credit-reference company Experian. One Login sends Experian the person’s name, date of birth and address, and Experian returns a fraud score. In some verification routes, it may also check bank details or answers to questions based on credit or financial history. The Government says these “soft searches” do not affect credit scores, but it means that acceptance of your identity by the state depends partly on information held and assessed by a commercial company – with errors potentially requiring a separate challenge to Experian.)

Once that has happened, your verified identity can be connected to your account and the check may be reused when you access other government services.

The Government says One Login will eventually replace all other ways of signing in to services on GOV UK, including Government Gateway.

And the scale has become huge:

• The Government claims there are 23 million One Login accounts
• Millions of company directors are now affected by mandatory identity checks for which One Login is the Government’s only free route
• HMRC has begun replacing Government Gateway with One Login for new customers, with existing users to follow later
• One Login is intended to support digital driving licences and other official credentials
• The Government says people will ultimately be able to access any government service using the same account – and prove their identity only once.

What is the GOV UK App?

The GOV UK App is different from One Login.

It went into public testing in July 2025 and is intended to bring government information and services together on your phone.

Think of something like the NHS App, but for government more widely: rather than visiting different websites and departments separately, the aim is to provide one app through which you can find information, receive personalised content and access services relevant to you.

The current app can remember topics you have saved, pages you have visited and – with your permission – information such as your postcode. When signed in, information used to personalise the app is associated with your account and communicated to government systems providing the app.

This does not mean that every departmental record is copied into one giant database inside the app. An app is mainly the interface you see on your phone; the underlying information and services may still be held and operated by different government departments.

But One Login gives the Government a common way of recognising the same signed-in user as they move between those services.

What is GOV UK Wallet?

GOV UK Wallet was announced alongside the GOV UK App in January 2025.

It is designed to store digital versions of government-issued documents on your phone – rather like Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, but for official credentials rather than bank cards, tickets and loyalty cards.

GOV UK Wallet is being introduced in stages. There is not yet a fully launched Wallet containing the planned range of government documents.

The first function is already available: eligible users can save a digital HM Armed Forces Veteran Card in the GOV UK One Login app. A digital driving licence and other government-issued documents are planned to follow.

The Government says using the Wallet will be optional.

Credentials held in it are designed to be stored securely on the user’s phone and linked to both that device and the user’s One Login account. The government department that issued the document still holds the underlying official record.

Before a credential is added, the issuing department must confirm that it belongs to the right person. Once stored, its authenticity can be checked digitally when the user chooses to present it.

This does not necessarily mean that one central database holds every document, or that government is notified every time a credential is shown. The concern is wider: the same infrastructure could make government-backed identity, age or eligibility checks much easier to introduce across more services and everyday transactions. Clear limits are therefore needed on what is shared, recorded and connected – and on where such checks can be required.

What are digital credentials?

“Digital credential” sounds technical, but the basic idea is simple.

A credential is a digital proof that a trusted organisation has issued about you. It is the electronic equivalent of showing a document, card or certificate.

Digital credentials do not have to come from government in every possible system. A university could issue proof of a qualification, for example, while a professional body could issue proof of membership.

But GOV UK Wallet is specifically being designed for government-issued credentials, such as:

• a digital driving licence proving your identity, age and entitlement to drive;
• a Veteran Card proving veteran status;
• proof that you are over 18 without necessarily showing your full date of birth;
• or evidence that you qualify for a particular government service.

The easiest way to understand the relationship is this:

The issuing department creates the official digital proof. The Wallet would hold it on your phone. One Login helps establish that it has been issued to the correct person.

Are these all the same thing as a national Digital ID?

Not in their present form.

The Government describes them as separate services, the Wallet is optional, and One Login can sometimes be used simply to sign in without proving your real-world identity. It would therefore be inaccurate to say that every One Login user already has a national Digital ID.

But the systems are increasingly being designed to work together.

In practice, the combined infrastructure could enable a person to use one government account, verify their real-world identity, access numerous services and carry reusable government-issued proofs on their phone.

That does not make the system identical to the national Digital ID proposal that was stopped. The difference was not merely the name. Although the Government never published a complete final blueprint, Labour Together’s influential BritCard proposal envisaged a national digital credential that everyone lawfully resident in the UK would be required to have. One Login would help establish the person’s identity, the Wallet would hold the credential, and employers, landlords, banks and government bodies could check it in a standardised way.

Stopping that proposal prevented the systems already being built from being formally assembled into an explicit, universal national Digital ID.

Even without that formal scheme, however, the remaining infrastructure could reproduce several of the features people objected to – without another system ever being introduced under the name “national Digital ID”.

For example:

• more government services and legal obligations could require the same account and reusable identity check
• a government-issued credential could be used to prove your identity, age or eligibility not only to government, but to shops, banks or other private organisations
• losing access to one account – or an error in the identity attached to it – could affect several unrelated interactions
• and future governments could make more services or activities conditional on passing identity or eligibility checks through the same connected infrastructure.

This is how a Digital ID system could emerge by the back door – not necessarily through one dramatic announcement, but service by service, obligation by obligation and credential by credential.

Why is Together concerned?

The issue is not whether some people find a single login, app or digital document convenient. Many undoubtedly will.

The real questions are:

• Will people remain genuinely free not to use them?
• What information can be connected – and who controls that decision?
• Who decides which services, obligations and everyday activities require identity checks?
• What prevents future governments expanding the system much further?
• Will free, equally usable alternatives always remain available?
• What happens when an identity check fails or the system goes down?

Company directors provide an important warning.

They have not literally been given a compulsory One Login account. But they must verify their identity, the Government’s only free route uses One Login, and avoiding it may mean paying an authorised provider.

In plain English: use One Login, or potentially pay not to.

Obviously, that is not a genuinely free choice.

All this, and we are yet to talk about the serious security questions surrounding One Login.

As journalists including Andrew Orlowski have documented, serious questions have been raised about One Login’s security. Whistleblowers involved in developing the system shared ‘extreme’ concerns with ITV News, who reported:

“Multiple sources have told ITV News that during a ‘red team’ exercise (a standard security test) earlier in the year, a major security flaw was uncovered.

A remote attacker was able to introduce malware onto a device used by a system administrator and gain access to sensitive parts of One Login without triggering an alert on the security monitoring system.

As the service is already live, the whistleblowers say it is theoretically possible that a state actor like Russia or China, or organised crime groups, could have already gained access to One Login without the government knowing.

“We don’t know if the system has been compromised or not, but we have proved it can be compromised,” says one of the whistleblowers.

“The maximum damage that I can conceive is that [the government] allow digital identity to continue to roll out and onboard all government services and then at a time of [a bad state actor or criminal’s] choosing, they deny access to the services.”

ITV also reported that National Cyber Security Centre assessments had identified risks including bulk theft of personal data, identity theft and fraud.

The Government’s response is that the red team was deliberately given simulated access after initially being unable to infiltrate the system, that potential vulnerabilities are acted upon swiftly and that One Login remains secure. But the central concern raised by the whistleblowers was that the simulated intrusion reportedly went undetected. These claims and counterclaims require proper independent investigation – not simply reassurance from the programme responsible for the system.

Yet while these serious questions remain unresolved, One Login has continued to expand to tens of millions of people, without full public debate. Has the Government already allowed the system to become too big to fail?

Our position

Using One Login simply as a common email-and-password sign-in is relatively benign and may be useful to people who choose it. The concerns become much more serious when it is used to verify and connect a person’s identity, or when it becomes difficult or costly to avoid while fulfilling a legal obligation. Company directors have experienced both: they are legally required to verify their identity, while the only way to do so without One Login is through an authorised provider that usually charges a fee.

Our immediate priority is therefore to stop its further expansion, establish through independent scrutiny what has been built and how secure it is, and guarantee that nobody is forced or financially pressured into using it. If One Login cannot meet those tests, its future should be reconsidered.

That requires three immediate steps:

1. FREEZE ONE LOGIN

We call for an immediate freeze on One Login pending independent review by the National Audit Office – meaning no further rollout or expansion until that review is complete, its findings have been addressed and safeguards are in place.

2. ONE LOGIN NEEDS PROPER OVERSIGHT

Going forward, no expansion of One Login should take place before safeguards for privacy and civil liberties are established and proper parliamentary oversight is in place.

3. NON-DIGITAL GUARANTEE

We call for a clear statutory safeguard ensuring that participation in any digital identity system such as One Login remains strictly voluntary. People must retain full access to government interactions through non-digital and alternative channels – as a matter of resilience, as well as access – without penalty, additional cost, or any reduction in quality of service compared to digital routes. These alternative routes must be genuinely equivalent in accessibility and must not be indirectly weakened, deprioritised, or phased out over time.

Dealing with government is essentially unavoidable. That makes it especially important that the state cannot require people to join one centralised digital identity system simply to meet their obligations or exercise their rights.

There should be a strong presumption in favour of privacy, strict limits on what government systems can connect and genuine space for private, decentralised and non-digital alternatives.

Stopping the proposed national Digital ID scheme was a major victory – and proof that determined public opposition can change what government does. It established an important political limit around an explicit national Digital ID. Comparable limits must now be placed on the capabilities and expansion of the infrastructure that remains, so that the substance of what was stopped cannot gradually be recreated under another name.

That is why the Pledge still matters: the surest way to stop One Login becoming the default – and eventually the only – way to interact with the state is to use genuine alternatives wherever they exist and demand that this choice is protected in law.

Please share this article with someone who opposed compulsory Digital ID, and look out for important actions from Together very soon.

We stopped the national Digital ID proposal.

Now we must make sure it cannot be rebuilt by the back door.

Thank you,

The Together Team