A measly £9,166. That's all it took. That's the price tag for Hippo Digital to start poking around the UK Ministry of Defence's (MoD) identity systems. Now, I'm not saying this is some grand conspiracy, but doesn't it make you just a little uneasy? Interestingly enough, Hippo Digital recently received an investment from a European Private Equity firm. Now, they’re deep into a discovery process of the entire identity lifecycle within the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Creation, management, retirement – the whole shebang. And they're starting with 20,000 "secret" users. Secret? What are they hiding?
From Passports to Permanent Surveillance?
Think about it. You carry your passport, your driving licence, perhaps a loyalty card or two. Each one a fragment of your identity, spread out across hundreds of databases. Now, take all of that – your whole digital footprint – rolled up into one all-knowing, government-controlled digital wallet. Convenient? Maybe. Terrifying? Absolutely.
Hippo Digital’s Head of Identity, Jim Small, has previously written about the promise of digital wallets in the UK. As a result, he sees a unique opportunity to align regulatory and market drivers. Regulatory drivers? If it smells like government greed… production pie sounds like the government wants a piece of this pie, doesn’t it. And “market drivers” sounds like they’re talking about desire creation, making you want it. They’ll pitch you on the efficiency, the safety, the increased ease of access. But what's the real cost?
This MoD contract goes far beyond streamlining some bureaucratic processes. It's about establishing a framework. In the criminal discretion of government, this framework might otherwise be a powerful tool to surveil our every move. It can decide what services we can access and, in the end, strip away our freedom. Remember the outrage over vaccine passports? This could be that, but on steroids.
NHS to National Security: A Slippery Slope
As a startup, Hippo Digital really made its name working within the NHS on fragile patient data including sensitive medical histories. Now they're moving into national security. Am I the only one who sees future mission creep written all over this? The NHS is a gargantuan enterprise. The MoD deals with information that is much, much more sensitive, and the impact of a compromise is vastly larger.
The MoD’s stated intent with all of this is to improve identity verification and entitlement attestation. Fair enough. Let's be real: governments rarely relinquish power once they acquire it. What begins as an innocuous security improvement for our “special” users would soon enough evolve into a widespread digital ID network.
Consider the "Digital Identity for Defence Programme," which offers the option to scale the improved system for the larger "official" class of users. Option to scale? That’s government speak for “we’re already planning on it.” It's the classic bait-and-switch. Begin with small pilots, acclimate the public to the concept, and then deploy it large-scale.
Who Controls Your Digital Destiny?
Initially, it’s unclear who should decide what a valid identity even means. What’s in place if your digital ID gets revoked? What recourse do you have? These are the kinds of questions we should be asking right now before it’s too late.
Envision a dystopian world where your ability to access healthcare, open a bank account, or travel is contingent upon your digital ID. Now picture that ID, which carries all that information, being managed by a government that you trust less and less. That’s not a conspiracy theory hippy-dippy thing to say—that’s a provable concern.
We’re sold a story that digital IDs will improve our lives, prosperity, security and convenience. But at what price? The price of our privacy? The price of our freedom? We must call for transparency, accountability and a proper public debate about the future of digital identity in the UK. To be sure, this small £9,166 contract is nothing to sneeze at in and of itself. And when our fundamental freedoms feel under siege online, we need to be prepared to defend them.
