British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood before the Global Progress Action Summit and announced that digital identification would soon be mandatory for every worker in the United Kingdom. Not optional. Not a matter of convenience. Mandatory. If you want to work in Britain, you will carry a digital ID on your phone, and the government will verify your identity through its system before you can earn a living. Treasury Secretary Darren Jones was even more direct when he called the program the “bedrock of the modern state.”
That statement reveals everything. The modern state no longer rests upon law, liberty, or the will of the people. Its foundation is now digital control. The British government is openly constructing what many of us have warned about for years, a comprehensive surveillance grid operating under the guise of modernization and public safety.
Here in Tennessee, our own General Assembly decided to follow the same path. In April 2025, lawmakers passed House Bill 1316 and Senate Bill 1297, sponsored by Senator Jack Johnson, expanding Tennessee’s digital ID system far beyond its original scope. Supporters claimed they were protecting citizens by prohibiting digital IDs from being used for voting and by emphasizing privacy protections. They assured us that participation would be voluntary. Yet these same provisions built the very infrastructure that will be used by Britain to verify the employment of each of its citizens.
This was not an act of conservative governance. It was the triumph of wishful thinking over historical wisdom. Legislators are pretending to enact into law what they call a limited system, while ignoring the lesson that government power never stays limited once the infrastructure for control is in place.
Britain offers a clear warning. The British digital ID began as a voluntary convenience, full of privacy guarantees and legal assurances. Within five years, that same system became mandatory for employment. The government now plans to expand it to welfare, healthcare, banking, and childcare. Each step was justified as a simple modernization effort until the web was complete.
Every government surveillance program follows the same pattern. The United States promised that Social Security numbers would never be used as identification. The cards even said “For Social Security Purposes Only.” Today no American can work, bank, or receive medical care without one. The Transportation Security Administration provides another example. After the attacks of September 11, Americans accepted the TSA as a temporary safety measure. Two decades later, that “temporary” agency employs 60,000 people who perform warrantless searches on millions of travelers each day. Now the TSA is pressuring states to adopt digital IDs by suggesting that traditional licenses will no longer be accepted. Temporary becomes permanent. Limited becomes comprehensive. Voluntary becomes mandatory.
This is how government works. It never relinquishes control once control is granted.
The Tennessee law does more than authorize digital IDs. It empowers the Department of Safety to contract with private entities to build and manage these systems and to collect biometric data. The problem is that these contractors are not Tennessee companies. The leading vendors are foreign corporations such as Idemia, Thales, and Gemalto, which already manage digital identification programs for other states. These companies will maintain the databases and core software that hold the personal information of Tennessee citizens. In the world of cybersecurity, every major database is eventually breached. When that happens, Tennesseans will lose permanent control of their most personal data. You can replace a password. You cannot replace your face.
Even without a breach, the architecture itself is a surveillance machine. When you present a physical driver’s license to a police officer or bartender, that transaction leaves no trace. A digital ID is entirely different. Each use creates a digital record that includes the time, place, and nature of the interaction. This metadata builds a comprehensive log of your movements and behavior. Tennessee’s law contains no prohibition against this form of tracking. The international standard that governs digital ID programs, ISO 18013-5, even allows real-time retrieval of this information by the state.
Supporters of the law claim it prohibits the collection of geolocation data. That protection is meaningless. If you scan your ID at a bar in Memphis on Friday night, the state does not need GPS coordinates to know where you were. The transaction itself already provides that information. When multiplied by every verification event, the state can easily build a complete record of a person’s life.
The legislature also claimed to protect privacy by limiting biometric data collection to facial recognition. This is misleading. Facial recognition is the most invasive form of biometric surveillance because it operates without consent and can be linked to existing camera networks in real time. By authorizing its use, Tennessee opened the door to the most powerful surveillance capability available to government entities.
The underlying mistake is the assumption that a digital ID is simply an electronic version of a plastic card. It is not. A physical license is an inert object. A digital ID is a live system that interacts with servers, logs every use, and integrates with other databases. Once that system exists, the data it generates can and will be used beyond its original intent.
Forty-three states plus the District of Columbia already operate digital ID programs. Twenty states have received TSA approval for airport use. Not one state has enacted a law to prohibit adoption. Even New Hampshire, famous for its motto “Live Free or Die,” authorized mobile driver’s licenses this year. The trend is clear. Every state builds the infrastructure. Every state includes privacy language. And every state leaves the door open for expansion once the federal government or private industry demands it.
Tennessee had the opportunity to be different. Our state could have strengthened physical identification cards using advanced holograms and modern security printing, offering fraud prevention without creating surveillance infrastructure. We could have refused to let the TSA dictate policy and drawn a line in defense of liberty. Instead, our legislature folded under the pressure of federal alignment and international standards.
True conservative governance would have recognized the danger of building systems that future politicians will inevitably use for control. It would have remembered that every expansion of government power becomes permanent. Conservative governance means saying no to the siren song of technological convenience when that convenience costs freedom.
The path forward is clear. The 2025 digital ID expansion must be repealed. Tennessee should prohibit its agencies from contracting with private or foreign entities to develop digital identification systems. The Department of Safety should focus solely on secure physical identification.
Tennessee has long claimed to stand apart from the rest of the country. We value independence, personal responsibility, and distrust of centralized power. Now is the time to prove those values are more than words. We can either continue down the path Britain has taken or lead the way in defending liberty while we still can.
If our lawmakers will not act, history will. Future generations will look back on this moment and wonder how we ignored every warning. The infrastructure for surveillance is being built in front of our eyes. The question is whether Tennessee will stop it before it is too late.
Tennessee’s Digital ID Law Is Building the Control Grid While Claiming to Restrict It
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood before the Global Progress Action Summit and announced that digital identification would soon be mandatory for every worker in the United Kingdom. Not optional. Not a matter of convenience. Mandatory. If you want to work in Britain, you will carry a digital ID on your phone, and the government will verify your identity through its system before you can earn a living. Treasury Secretary Darren Jones was even more direct when he called the program the “bedrock of the modern state.”
That statement reveals everything. The modern state no longer rests upon law, liberty, or the will of the people. Its foundation is now digital control. The British government is openly constructing what many of us have warned about for years, a comprehensive surveillance grid operating under the guise of modernization and public safety.
Here in Tennessee, our own General Assembly decided to follow the same path. In April 2025, lawmakers passed House Bill 1316 and Senate Bill 1297, sponsored by Senator Jack Johnson, expanding Tennessee’s digital ID system far beyond its original scope. Supporters claimed they were protecting citizens by prohibiting digital IDs from being used for voting and by emphasizing privacy protections. They assured us that participation would be voluntary. Yet these same provisions built the very infrastructure that will be used by Britain to verify the employment of each of its citizens.
This was not an act of conservative governance. It was the triumph of wishful thinking over historical wisdom. Legislators are pretending to enact into law what they call a limited system, while ignoring the lesson that government power never stays limited once the infrastructure for control is in place.
Britain offers a clear warning. The British digital ID began as a voluntary convenience, full of privacy guarantees and legal assurances. Within five years, that same system became mandatory for employment. The government now plans to expand it to welfare, healthcare, banking, and childcare. Each step was justified as a simple modernization effort until the web was complete.
Every government surveillance program follows the same pattern. The United States promised that Social Security numbers would never be used as identification. The cards even said “For Social Security Purposes Only.” Today no American can work, bank, or receive medical care without one. The Transportation Security Administration provides another example. After the attacks of September 11, Americans accepted the TSA as a temporary safety measure. Two decades later, that “temporary” agency employs 60,000 people who perform warrantless searches on millions of travelers each day. Now the TSA is pressuring states to adopt digital IDs by suggesting that traditional licenses will no longer be accepted. Temporary becomes permanent. Limited becomes comprehensive. Voluntary becomes mandatory.
This is how government works. It never relinquishes control once control is granted.
The Tennessee law does more than authorize digital IDs. It empowers the Department of Safety to contract with private entities to build and manage these systems and to collect biometric data. The problem is that these contractors are not Tennessee companies. The leading vendors are foreign corporations such as Idemia, Thales, and Gemalto, which already manage digital identification programs for other states. These companies will maintain the databases and core software that hold the personal information of Tennessee citizens. In the world of cybersecurity, every major database is eventually breached. When that happens, Tennesseans will lose permanent control of their most personal data. You can replace a password. You cannot replace your face.
Even without a breach, the architecture itself is a surveillance machine. When you present a physical driver’s license to a police officer or bartender, that transaction leaves no trace. A digital ID is entirely different. Each use creates a digital record that includes the time, place, and nature of the interaction. This metadata builds a comprehensive log of your movements and behavior. Tennessee’s law contains no prohibition against this form of tracking. The international standard that governs digital ID programs, ISO 18013-5, even allows real-time retrieval of this information by the state.
Supporters of the law claim it prohibits the collection of geolocation data. That protection is meaningless. If you scan your ID at a bar in Memphis on Friday night, the state does not need GPS coordinates to know where you were. The transaction itself already provides that information. When multiplied by every verification event, the state can easily build a complete record of a person’s life.
The legislature also claimed to protect privacy by limiting biometric data collection to facial recognition. This is misleading. Facial recognition is the most invasive form of biometric surveillance because it operates without consent and can be linked to existing camera networks in real time. By authorizing its use, Tennessee opened the door to the most powerful surveillance capability available to government entities.
The underlying mistake is the assumption that a digital ID is simply an electronic version of a plastic card. It is not. A physical license is an inert object. A digital ID is a live system that interacts with servers, logs every use, and integrates with other databases. Once that system exists, the data it generates can and will be used beyond its original intent.
Forty-three states plus the District of Columbia already operate digital ID programs. Twenty states have received TSA approval for airport use. Not one state has enacted a law to prohibit adoption. Even New Hampshire, famous for its motto “Live Free or Die,” authorized mobile driver’s licenses this year. The trend is clear. Every state builds the infrastructure. Every state includes privacy language. And every state leaves the door open for expansion once the federal government or private industry demands it.
Tennessee had the opportunity to be different. Our state could have strengthened physical identification cards using advanced holograms and modern security printing, offering fraud prevention without creating surveillance infrastructure. We could have refused to let the TSA dictate policy and drawn a line in defense of liberty. Instead, our legislature folded under the pressure of federal alignment and international standards.
True conservative governance would have recognized the danger of building systems that future politicians will inevitably use for control. It would have remembered that every expansion of government power becomes permanent. Conservative governance means saying no to the siren song of technological convenience when that convenience costs freedom.
The path forward is clear. The 2025 digital ID expansion must be repealed. Tennessee should prohibit its agencies from contracting with private or foreign entities to develop digital identification systems. The Department of Safety should focus solely on secure physical identification.
Tennessee has long claimed to stand apart from the rest of the country. We value independence, personal responsibility, and distrust of centralized power. Now is the time to prove those values are more than words. We can either continue down the path Britain has taken or lead the way in defending liberty while we still can.
If our lawmakers will not act, history will. Future generations will look back on this moment and wonder how we ignored every warning. The infrastructure for surveillance is being built in front of our eyes. The question is whether Tennessee will stop it before it is too late.
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Gary Humble
Gary Humble