The UK is debating digital ID cards ...

The reality is most of us don’t trust a digital government — we feel wary of it.

The UK is debating digital ID cards, presenting the case that ID cards are a fix for efficiency and fraud prevention.

And indeed 

📊 Ipsos polling shows 57% of Britons support a national ID scheme.

However, the real problem is

confidence in the government to deliver and manage it.

• £37bn Track & Trace left people feeling short-changed.

• GOV.UK earned awards 

the team delivered - but without investment and stakeholder buy-in even great products become one big pain-point, every login, every dead end, every clunky service erodes trust.

So when ministers announce a “BritCard,” 

The white elephant in the Governments server room

is that people are not seeing convenience, they see mistrust in the government to deliver it, and more importantly, to manage it.

Meanwhile in Portugal, the Cartão de Cidadão works because it’s a true platform: one card unifying tax, health, social security, voting, even digital signatures. It was delivered well, embedded into daily life, and seen as useful. 

That’s why citizens embraced it.

The UK, by contrast, looks like it’s about to bolt another app onto an already messy stack. 

If BritCard breaks or excludes people, trust collapses even further and recovery becomes impossible.

And here’s the impact we need to reflect on: 

The systems we design today become the civic habits of the next generation.

If the next generation experience milestones such as university, their first job, or healthcare through a clunky, mistrusted ID, we don’t just fail them in the moment, we raise a generation that expects failure from government; 

Without trust, a government cannot govern. 

Digital legitimacy is civic legitimacy.

The Question we need to ask

For me the question isn’t whether Britain needs an ID card.

It’s whether Britain has the delivery credibility to build one without breaking trust for decades to come.