Tony Blair Proposes Digital ID to Tackle Illegal Immigration

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Washington on March 26. Andrew Biraj/AFP/Getty Images

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has recommended that the government takes advantage of new technologies to introduce a digital identity-verification system in a new report on fixing the asylum system in the UK.

The proposal follows that 4,540 people from January to March 2022 were recorded arriving in small boats reaching the UK across the English Channel. Also in 2021, the number of overall asylum applications reached 48,540, the highest number since 2003, though still just over half the peak of 2002.

Digital Identification

In the report, called Fixing the Asylum System: A Workable Plan (pdf), the former UK Labour Prime Minister’s non-profit organisation set out a plan that included a systematic focus on clearing asylum-case backlogs, speeding up processing and as well as deterring dangerous boat journeys by negotiating an agreement with the E.U.