The Royal Statistical Society has warned that the UK government’s planned digital identity scheme risks undermining public trust and degrading the quality of national statistics if it is tied too closely to immigration or law enforcement checks, in its submission to the Cabinet Office’s public consultation on digital identity.
The submission engages with the consultation that the Cabinet Office ran this spring, on the use of a national digital identity to access public services. The Royal Statistical Society’s headline concern is that pairing the rollout with politically sensitive issues will shape how the public sees the entire system. “Announcements linking digital identity to politically sensitive issues, such as illegal migration, risk shaping public perceptions,” the society wrote, warning that the framing could entrench scepticism among parts of the population that the system is intended to serve.
The statistical angle is the distinctive contribution from the Royal Statistical Society. The society argues that public willingness to participate in surveys, share data with public services, and complete official statistical instruments is downstream of trust in how government handles identity information. If a digital identity system causes some groups to disengage from public services, those same groups may be under-represented in surveys and administrative data, with knock-on effects for official statistics and the policy decisions that depend on them. “Groups that are already less engaged with public services or more sceptical about data use are likely to be most affected, potentially amplifying existing biases,” the society wrote.
The submission sets out five recommendations to the government: establish strong governance and safeguards on the system; communicate transparently about the broader public benefits; clearly distinguish between operational use of identity data and use for statistical or research purposes; apply proportionality to what data is collected at each step; and provide clear information to the public about cross-government data usage and protections.
The submission joins a broader set of responses to the Cabinet Office consultation, which is feeding into a ‘People’s Panel for Digital ID’ of about 100 randomly selected members of the public, set to produce recommendations by June 21, 2026. The Royal Statistical Society does not take a position against digital identity in principle, framing its argument around governance and communication rather than rejection of the scheme.
Sources: Royal Statistical Society
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By Ali Nassar-Smith
