Britain to introduce compulsory digital ID for workers

What's the benefit of this over a passport? A passport is a physical thing, so you don't need to have a phone to be able to use it, proves who you are with the same details as this digital ID, and will probably require a similar amount of paperwork to get hold of

Missing the point.

A passport is the universal identity document. It's way too valuable to carry around and expediting a new passport is costly and slow. Checks need to be done in person and the passport holder needs to be told in advance about the check (so impromptu checks don't work and expired passports get through, also catching fake passports and the like is hard).

A digital ID as its name says is digital, checks can be done remotely (as often as you want) in a secure environment with physical checks possible in addition to that. Regular and unscheduled checks are possible with a digital id after the initial check both presential and remote. Online checks especially can cover for things like the same id being used in multiple places, it also means employers cannot fudge it as the actual repository of truth lies online. None of this is possible with a passport.

Citizen IDs and more recently digital IDs have been used in Europe for decades now. Having a redundant piece of ID is incredibly valuable.

The fact that the UK doesn’t allow “impromptu checks”, otherwise known as “Papers please!” is not a bug, it’s a feature that distinguishes our democracy from other states and we are pretty proud of it.

That unfortunately can, and will change.

In times of war, civil liberties get curtailed. And in 2025 when Russian and Chinese bots are interfering in our democracy at an industrial scale to destroy our countries from within, the idea of identity being overlooked for all aspects of public life is looking increasingly untenable.