The national digital ID the government announced last year is gone. The scaffolding around it is not. That is the picture from the government’s formal reply to the Home Affairs Committee’s May 2026 report Mandatory to manageable (HC 986), published by the committee on 18 September 2026 as its Second Special Report (HC 660).

What the government says ended

  • “Since the Committee reported, the government has cancelled the national Digital ID programme. It will therefore not proceed with the programme considered by the Committee, including its proposed mandatory use for right to work checks.”
  • It will not publish an implementation roadmap for that programme.
  • Employers must still carry out prescribed right-to-work checks, but the government “will not move to require all right to work checks … to be conducted digitally.”
  • The proposal to fold eVisas into a national digital ID “no longer arises.”

What carries on

  • GOV.UK One Login, the GOV.UK Wallet and government-issued digital credentials, including the digital Veteran Card and the digital driving licence.
  • The digital verification services (DVS) regime under Part 2 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025: a statutory trust framework and register of certified private ID-check providers, run by the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes.
  • From 1 October 2026, an employer that chooses a DVS provider for a digital right-to-work check must use one certified under the trust framework and the right-to-work code, and listed on the register, to get a statutory excuse. The government says this “does not require an employer to choose the digital route.”
  • The Home Office will keep working with OfDIA and DVS providers on how intelligence from digital checks can be reported and acted on.
“The cancellation of the programme does not end the government’s wider work on digital identity more broadly.” — Government response to the Home Affairs Committee, published 18 September 2026

Still open

The Public Accounts Committee took evidence on 19 October from the permanent secretary of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and digital-identity officials. The committee’s notice says it wanted to understand “the clarity of government’s long-term plans for digital identity, including who is ultimately accountable,” with more than a dozen organisations involved and DSIT abolished. The GOV.UK page for the spring consultation on the national digital ID, which closed on 5 May, still shows no published government response.

Citizen impact: No one in the UK will be required to hold a government digital ID to work, and paper and passport-based right-to-work checks remain lawful. But the state’s digital identity system is still growing: a single government login across services, a government wallet for credentials, and a regulated private market in ID checks that employers can choose to use. Who is watching: Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, whose inquiry is still open.

What this piece refuses

Do not write that “digital ID is dead” or, the other way, that it “is being brought in by the back door.” The government’s own text says the national programme is cancelled and the other systems continue. We have not reported a cost saving from the cancellation, because the government response gives none, and the 19 October transcript was not yet published when we checked.

Bottom line

Verified from the government’s response (HC 660, published 18 September 2026) and the PAC’s 19 October session notice: the national Digital ID and mandatory digital right-to-work checks are cancelled. One Login, the GOV.UK Wallet, digital credentials and the certified DVS register continue, and certified providers have been required for digital right-to-work checks since 1 October.