Digital ID is coming - are you ready?

Digital ID cards will be rolled out for right to work checks, before the end of this Parliament.

That means the days of rummaging for passports and driving licences, photocopying documents and filing them away, are numbered. 

Instead, every employee will have a digital ID that proves their right to work in the UK. 

On the surface, this might sound like less admin, but it also means change. 

Here’s what’s important for you as a business owner, now and when the new digital ID comes into force: 

Right to work checks are YOUR responsibility. Whether it’s a paper passport today, or a digital ID tomorrow, the duty to make sure someone is legally allowed to work rests with you, not the government.

Processes need to be watertight. At the moment, that means making sure you’re seeing original documents, checking them carefully, and keeping secure records of what you’ve reviewed.

The person doing the checks matters. It’s not just a tick-box exercise. Whoever you delegate it to needs to know what they’re looking for, and what to do if something doesn’t look right. 

Digital won’t mean error-free. When the rollout comes, you’ll need to adapt your systems quickly, train your team, and make sure you’re not relying blindly on tech to do the job for you. 

For now, nothing has changed but that’s the point.

Too many businesses are already exposed because they don’t have proper right to work processes in place.

Digital ID isn’t going to fix that for you. It’ll just change the way you carry out the checks. 

So, a good question to ask yourself today: if someone knocked on your door tomorrow and asked to see your right to work records, how confident would you be? 

And if the answer is anything less than “very”, you know you need to take action. 

Because if you can’t prove that everyone who works for you is legally allowed to? 

-        Up to £60,000 fine per illegal worker for not carrying out the checks.

-        Unlimited fines and up to 5 years in prison if you knowingly employed someone who couldn’t work. 

Digital ID or not, you need your ducks in a row on this one .

We can help, so drop us a line and we can talk it through.