AWS outage "exposes critical flaw" in UK's Digital ID plans: "It's sheer madness to proceed"

THE Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage has "exposed a critical flaw" in the UK's Digital ID plans, experts have warned.

Yesterday's massive AWS outage brought down HMRC alongside hundreds of other websites and apps, leaving taxpayers unable to access their accounts. 

AWS has now "returned to normal operations", bringing an end to the 15-hour long outage.

In an earlier update the company said the underlying cause of the outage had been fixed, while noting there were still connectivity issues on some AWS services.

This comes as the UK government plans to roll out mandatory Digital ID for Right to Work checks by the end of this Parliament, with the scheme building on GOV.UK Wallet infrastructure that will sit on people's phones.

Digital ID has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum, with civil liberties groups raising privacy concerns and political opponents questioning both the practicality and the rushed implementation. 

Cori Crider, executive director of the Future of Technology Institute, warned that Europe's dependency on monopoly cloud companies like Amazon is "a security vulnerability and an economic threat we can't ignore".

Experts claimed that while the government says the Digital ID will be designed to be privacy-focused with no centralised database, today's outage demonstrates that distributed systems still depend on centralised infrastructure.

Colette Mason, Author & AI Solution Architect at London-based Clever Clogs AI, said the outage had “exposed a critical flaw” in the UK's Digital ID plan.

She added: "This morning, in the UK, you couldn't check your tax account because a server farm somewhere in the world sneezed. That's the reality of 'cloud-first' infrastructure. 

"It works brilliantly until it doesn't, and then ordinary Brits are left staring at error messages with no plan B and no way to get on with their day."

Kate Underwood, Managing Director at Southampton-based Kate Underwood HR and Training, is also worried about how the new Digital ID will be vulnerable to tech issues.

She continued: "When Amazon Web Services went down this morning, HMRC vanished with it, along with hundreds of other sites. Just like that, the system we all rely on went quiet. I love tech. I really do. But putting all our digital eggs in one basket is asking for trouble. 

“With Right to Work checks soon moving onto a new digital ID system built on the same cloud, today felt like a glimpse of what could go wrong. Technology is brilliant when it works. But when it does not, trust disappears a lot faster than the websites do.”

Omer Mehmet, Managing Director at Welling-based Trinity Finance, agreed, adding: “This outage proves that the UK’s digital foundations are far more fragile than the government wants to admit. When essential services like HMRC go offline, trust in digital systems collapses instantly. 

"Moving toward mandatory digital ID without testing for real-world failure is reckless. Accountability cannot be outsourced to cloud providers. The government must build resilient systems that can withstand outages, because convenience means nothing when the system goes dark.”

Tony Redondo, Founder at Newquay-based Cosmos Currency Exchange, said the government needs to look again at how workable the Digital ID would be.

He continued: "An outage costing AWS £50,000 might cost the UK economy millions. Completely misaligned incentives. True accountability would require meaningful liability frameworks where providers or the government face real consequences.

“Until there is in place an explicit liability framework where either the cloud provider or the government, ideally both, face meaningful consequences if citizens are harmed, then it's sheer madness to proceed with a mandatory rollout.”