You don't want Palantir to be able to buy list of Uber riders traveled to/from locations near MI6. A universal government backed ID cards on signup, or worse yet used as substitute for credit cards, makes that kind of things easy.

You can have such ID card system that can produce proof of authenticity of card itself, without any digitized card-face information included. I think that's how most existing systems are implemented.

> You don't want Palantir to be able to buy list of Uber riders traveled to/from locations near MI6. A universal government backed ID cards on signup, or worse yet used as substitute for credit cards, makes that kind of things easy.

If you can purchase Uber rider's data then you already have this - you need proof to work/ID to get a job in the UK. I don't see how 'digital id' would increase the risk here.