Who is the BritCard for?

I previously reflected on the impact of the systems we design today and how they shape the civic habits of the next generation; but the deeper danger of BritCard is systemic.

If young adults grow up expecting government products to fail, they disengage from democracy ... without trust, a government cannot govern. 

But here’s the other question we need to ask:

Where did the requirements for BritCard come from?

Keir Starmer didn’t put digital ID into the Labour manifesto.

So citizens didn’t vote for it.

So where might the “requirements” have come from?

• Political optics: looking tough on illegal working and immigration.

• Administrative convenience: centralising verification across departments.

• Private sector lobbying: fintechs and identity providers with a stake in infrastructure.

• International pressure: aligning with EU or global digital ID standards.

  
  

Each of these is an institutional requirement, not a citizen one.

And here’s the risk of top-down requirements:

🔴 They miss real user needs

🔴 They duplicate instead of integrate.

🔴 They breed resistance, because citizens don’t feel consulted.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about product.

A discovery-led government would start with citizen journeys:

proving eligibility for housing, accessing healthcare, moving between jobs.

Solve for those problems first — then build.

But here’s the final twist

Requirements should always start with

✔️ a clear problem statement, validated with data,

✔️ evidence of user need,

✔️ and a strategy aligned to outcomes.

And if user testing will inevitably fall on the next generation of 16, 18, 21 year olds, then this opens a wider debate: voting age, how politics is taught in schools, and the impact of social media echo chambers.

So the question isn’t “Why is Keir Starmer pushing this?”

The real question is: 

Do the requirements for the BriCard come from the citizens who will live with this system ... or just the institutions that want to build it?