Veterans: They Fought for Freedom. Now They're Guinea Pigs for the Surveillance State.

The UK government launched digital Veteran Cards on 17 October 2025, hailing it as a breakthrough in "making public services work around people's lives." Nearly 1.8 million veterans can now download proof of service to their smartphones via the GOV.UK One Login app, accessing everything from GP registration to housing support "at the touch of a button."

Digital Government Minister Ian Murray was explicit about the real agenda: veterans serve as "a really good case study" before mandatory digital ID for all workers by 2029.

But is it fair to use citizens who defended freedoms to become the instruments for restricting them? Can the government be trusted to use these systems responsibly? Labour's current conduct suggests not.

A Moral and Political Crossroads

This is not merely a technical upgrade, it is a fundamental choice about the relationship between citizens and state. Do we build irreversible infrastructure for comprehensive population monitoring before establishing democratic safeguards? Or do we pause to consider what we're creating and who controls it?

HMRC has already admitted it uses its Connect system to monitor citizens. It cross-references the facts in tax returns against property records, vehicle registrations, social media posts, and lifestyle indicators. Algorithms assess whether your declared income matches your holidays, purchases, and online activity. 

The infrastructure for comprehensive state surveillance is already operational in piecemeal form. Veterans are being used to normalise integrating and expanding it.

Irreversible Systems

Oxford philosopher Toby Ord wrote in his book The Precipice: "Existential catastrophe refers to the permanent, irreversible loss of humanity's potential. A worldwide totalitarian regime, self-perpetuating through technologically enabled indoctrination, surveillance, and enforcement, would count as an existential catastrophe."

Once you build technical capacity for the state to monitor every citizen, that capacity persists regardless of who holds power tomorrow. Digital identity infrastructure combined with AI monitoring creates irreversible capability. HMRC Connect already profiles citizens based on lifestyle data scraped from social media and public records. The GOV.UK Wallet being tested on veterans will integrate employment, housing, healthcare, and benefits into one state-monitored system.

Don't Use People as Tools

Immanuel Kant, German moral philosopher, established a principle: never use people as means to ends they would reject. Veterans fought against comprehensive state control. The government is using their loyalty and need for support to normalise exactly that.

Design Without Knowing Your Position

John Rawls, political philosopher, justice theorist, asked: what system would you design if you didn't know your future position in society? 

Would you grant government AI to scrape your social media, assess your lifestyle against tax declarations, and flag discrepancies? Would you build infrastructure that cannot be reversed, knowing you cannot predict which government controls it in twenty years?

Given almost 3 million people have signed the petition against digital ID cards and the heated debates online, there are clearly many who would not build this system.

The Architecture Gets Built First

HMRC already monitors social media, property records, and lifestyle indicators to profile citizens. Other government departments can follow in their wake. Digital ID provides the architecture to scale this across all government services. Veteran cards first, then driving licences, then all credentials by 2027. The architecture gets built first. Governance, if ever, comes later, when reversal is impossible.

We'd like your views:

• Is it fair to use defenders of freedom to normalise AI surveillance infrastructure that already monitors citizens' social media and lifestyle?
• Does using veterans' loyalty and need for support as leverage to build irreversible monitoring systems violate fundamental ethical principles of good governance?
• When HMRC Connect already profiles citizens via AI, does veteran digital ID provide the architecture to scale comprehensive state surveillance across all government services?