The Labour government’s favourite Digital ID scheme was hacked

As part of its efforts to sell Digital ID to the public, the UK government has frequently drawn attention to Estonia. People have now highlighted that the Estonian scheme actually suffered one of the issues which critics have warned about:

Keir Starmer keeps saying the UK needs a digital ID system and that we should “look at Estonia.”

Ok, let’s look at Estonia 👇

In 2021, a hacker stole 286,000 IDs from the Estonian government database.

Centralised digital ID = centralised risk.
One breach, everyone’s exposed. pic.twitter.com/gYxUidi7Sp

— Dr_Rebecca (@Dr_Bekka_UK) October 10, 2025

Estonia and Digital ID

The UK government said the following in a a press release promoting the roll out of Digital ID:

In Estonia, digital ID has revolutionised parents’ lives by enabling access to child benefits, health records and applications for nursery places seamlessly, never having to provide the same information twice.

As reported by the Record in 2021, a hacker breached Estonia’s systems. By exploiting a vulnerability, this hacker was able to download the photos of 286,438 citizens.

The risk of hacking was the third point on Big Brother Watch’s ‘key arguments’ against any such scheme:

🆔 Keir Starmer is planning to force every adult in the UK to have a state-mandated digital ID to work.

Everyone in the UK should reject this.

Here are 5 reasons why⤵️ pic.twitter.com/MaCKoxT5yo

— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) October 2, 2025

While the UK government has said the scheme will prevent ‘shadow economies’ of illegal labour, they also highlighted an already-implemented Digital ID scheme in Estonia. This proved controversial, as Estonia’s shadow economy is more than twice the size of the UK’s:

Digital ID isn’t the only sphere in which critics say Keir Starmer’s Labour are creating an opportunity for hackers. As we reported on 20 October, a massive leak of user data from the messaging app Discord was linked to age verification checks which were implemented in response to the Online Safety Act.

🚨 The Discord breach is worse than expected!

– 1.5 TB of data
– Over 2 million government ID photos
– Threat actor publishes some user data due to Discord’s inaction

Sample of a user showing her face, ID, and a written note: pic.twitter.com/kSwHonS7GU

— International Cyber Digest (@IntCyberDigest) October 8, 2025

Tony Blair and his Tony Blair Institute are key proponents of the scheme. The billionaire Larry Ellison is a key financial supporter of Blair’s, and has also backed it. This has proven controversial as Ellison stands to benefit from the global roll out of Digital ID because he owns the software company Oracle:

Well this isn’t terrifying at all. Here’s Blair talking to Oracles Larry Ellison.

“Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly watching & recording everything that’s going on.”

Now you can see why Starmer is so keen on digital ID

pic.twitter.com/sZuB0tj02p

— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) September 28, 2025

Featured image via TUBS (Wikimedia)