In the past three months, governments from Switzerland to Papua New Guinea advanced digital ID policy and introduction at speed. The details differ slightly from country to country, but the messaging and sequencing are strikingly familiar. Initially, it looked like each country was acting independent of one another, but the sheer momentum and coincidental timing beg deeper questions about global coordination. Frameworks have existed in the background for years, and vendors have built to the blueprints. The result is a wide-reaching rollout choreographed from above, even if officials in each country insist otherwise. What was once dismissed as a fringe conspiracy theory is revealing itself before our very eyes.
Coincidence or Choreography?
Switzerland approved a state e-ID in a referendum on 28 September, reversing a 2021 vote against its introduction. The European Union will capture biometrics of non-EU travellers via its new Entry/Exit System starting this month. Vietnam will use its VNeID platform, equipped with facial verification, for all domestic air travel. Costa Rica launched a mobile national ID in September. Papua New Guinea’s cabinet backed a policy that ties social media access to ServisPass, its new national ID. The United Kingdom set out a path for digital ID requirements in the name of right-to-work checks, igniting petitions and protests. Laos just ordered agencies to integrate its new national ID. Mexico finalised a biometric overhaul of the CURP (unique national ID number) ready for 2026. Ethiopia’s own version, Fayda, is being scaled up nationwide. And Zambia is beginning procurement and cooperation talks to build its own system.
In each of these countries, people think it’s a government-specific requirement. But for this many countries, touching all corners of the earth, to adopt the technology in a matter of months? There’s a common destination in mind here, and an uncomfortable realisation that this has been in the planning stages for years.
The Digital ID Playbook Was Written Years Ago
While speculations about digital identification was sidelined as conspiracy, the World Economic Forum have been publishing frameworks and travel credential concepts. Identity in a Digital World (2018), A Blueprint for Digital Identity (2016), and the Known Traveller Digital Identity (2020) sketched governance models, outlined technical stacks, and pushed cross-border use cases. Industries were reading along, and aligned as a result. So, by the time national politics opened the door, the design work was already done.
The Public Is Trying to Push Back
People tend to accept new technologies, even reluctantly, when they solve a visible problem or a potential threat, as seen in Covid-19. However, the difference here is that the trade-offs are unclear, and the scope is dangerously wide. This time around, the general population appears more awake to what’s really happening:
- Function expansion: when use-cases are limited to borders or employment, but quietly expand into banking, welfare, healthcare, education, SIM registration, transport and beyond. Once a single authoritative credential exists, every agency will want access
- Biometrics as glue: Face and fingerprint data make systems resilient and attractive to other use cases. You can change a password; you cannot change your biometrics.
- Access risk: When services depend on a single credential, errors and exclusions increase. People missing specific documents will lose access to work, payments, benefits, and state support – so they must comply.
- Free speech and association: Papua New Guinea’s plan to link social media to national ID is a clear example of how identity systems can overreach to monitor private interactions.
Quick Country Count: Who’s Already Has Digital ID?
A non-exhaustive list of the most recent changes and how they will be used.
- EU: Biometric border checks start this month and expand in 2026. Separate from the EU wallet, but a massive identity database of faces and fingerprints for those wanting to travel
- UK: Digital ID for right-to-work checks proposed, with non-smartphone options promised
- Switzerland: State e-ID approved by referendum (50.4% in favour) reversing the first vote in 2021
- Papua New Guinea: Policy binds platform access to national ID
- Vietnam: VNeID and facial verification required for domestic flights from 1 December this year
- Costa Rica: Mobile ID launched already, gaining legal force across services
- Laos: National digital ID launched with government-wide integration orders
- Mexico: Biometric CURP reform underway, with nationwide implementation in early 2026
- Ethiopia: Fayda expanding towards mass coverage and linkage to personal finances
- Zambia: Early procurement and cooperation with Ethiopia to create its own system
- Others: India’s Aadhaar, Nigeria’s NIN, Kenya’s Maisha Namba already in place
Can Digital ID Be Adopted Responsibly?
It’s obvious what’s really happening here. But policy makers must be able to answer simple questions from citizens. Who controls scope creep, as more agencies and use-cases want access? How can citizens verify it? “Optional” uses will fade over time. Are opt-outs available, practical, or just theoretical? Who controls the data? How secure is it, and who is really viewing it?
There is, in theory, a responsible way to adopt digital ID, albeit unnecessary for any current needs in society. We have passports and social security or national insurance numbers. But it would require:
- Clear purpose laws with minimal uses cemented in statute and parliamentary votes required for any expansion
- Independent oversight with technical and legal audits published in full, with the power to halt deployments if overstepping boundaries
- Data minimisation with no biometrics collected unless high-assurance alternatives have been exhausted, and total separation of databases
- Functional alternatives, allowing access to essential services without a smartphone or a single ID token
- Meaningful redress delivering fast correction, compensation for harm or overreach, and heavy penalties for misuse
Final Thought
We’re told digital ID can simplify life or fix “problems” that governments tell us can’t be solved any other way. But ultimately, it will centralise power in ways impossible to reverse once introduced. The recent wave of countries approving policy or rolling out the technology shows us how quickly a playbook can translate into real life when it’s been cooking up in the background for years before – while anyone wise to it all was told to take off their tin foil hats. Can democracies justify the scope, limit the risks, and keep the system accountable to the public – or is all of that futile?
Join the Conversation
How is your country trying to justify digital ID? What do they say it will be used for? Is there any way back from this, or will it be forced upon us until we give in? What do you plan to do about it? Share your thoughts below.
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Categories: World News
Not in the labour manifest so no mandate. Millions will say NO and it will fail. Any useful idiots will be targeted. When they spoke of vaccine passports being needed for supermarkets it was pointed out that any supermarket would suffer rat and insect infestation’ its doorways would be filled with dog poo and rubbish and certain crooked crosses would be over its windows…same applies…I noticed a curious effect during the convid hoax of people who tried to force stuff on me had serious side effects such as an inability to stay upright. Anyone asking me for papiren bitter will have similar if not worse side effects. I have drawn the line and I’m not going down this path.
Well said Reverend Scott!
I admire your integrity, strength and fortitude to stand your ground and do what has to be done.
RESPECT.
Well said Sir!
I am not complying with a government request of digital ID. Recently, Australian government social security has been hacked, bank accounts have been hacked and various other government departments and agencies have had their data hacked with many people’s information being compromised. 16000 children disappeared from a government database. They can’t keep your digital ID safe either. I have no trust in digital ID, nor the motive behind it. It is obviously being orchestrated by the globalists with the aim of gaining total control of the global population, in order to depopulate through increasing tyrannical measures. The end game is a global government that is only working for the globalists elites.
Can’t share in Substack
The only answer can be: we will not comply. Period. All the phantasized motives for introducing this rubbish go nowhere. We do not need it and we do not want it. It is our life, not theirs.