Is anyone in the UK really complaining that it's difficult today to show you're eligible for hospital care, voting, employment, or buying a drink? I can't honestly remember a single time in my life where someone told me this was a problem for them. It's certainly never been a problem for me.

This sounds to me like fixing a problem we don't really have. At a time when we have plenty of genuine and serious problems that need fixing and aren't being fixed.

I'd rather see my tax money spent on tackling climate change, or decreasing hospital wait times, or hiring more teachers, or reducing dependence on Russian oil, or any of the other countless things that would make a genuine difference. Instead, we're going to blow a load of money on something that isn't going to improve people's lives (except maybe in a very negligible way) or make the world safer, and is probably going to erode my privacy and security.

Can't you do that with a normal ID card?

Digital ID makes it easier for governments to mandat "real name" polcies when registering online (reddit, HN, etc.), because you already have a digital ID, and if you want to make a reddit account, you'll have to link it with your real name, and this was hard until now.

> Whether we can trust our government, though, is a different matter.

(FYI Not a UK citizen) But it does matter. If I go to a protest against the government will I be rejected of all those services since someone flagged my ID?

You do need to demonstrate eligibility to take up work in the UK and that is usually done by passport or something other form of id demonstrating your nationality and right to work.

You shouldn't need id to vote or access healthcare.