PrivacyPass UK
A privacy companion for UK citizens that helps them understand which government identity schemes hold their data, request minimisation, and use privacy-preserving credentials instead of handing over documents.
UK adults wary of government data collection, especially after the digital ID reversal
- Live dashboard of which government schemes (NHS, DVLA, HMRC, proposed digital ID) hold your data
- Pre-filled subject-access-request templates for each department
- "Opt-out where legal" guide updated whenever a scheme is announced or scrapped
- Privacy-preserving age/identity verification you can use for shops and websites without surrendering documents
Three million people signed a petition against digital ID; with the scheme scrapped, those privacy-conscious citizens still need tools to manage the identity sprawl that already exists across government.
Real but narrow: ~2.9M signed the anti-digital-ID petition (4th largest in UK history), yet the official GOV.UK app hit only ~600K downloads in its first year — suggesting most signatories are politically expressive rather than app-installing users.UK: Joint briefing on the 'do not introduce digital ID cards' parliamentary petition debate ↗GOV.UK App to 'deepen personalisation' in second year after hitting 600,000 downloads ↗
The government itself is filling this space: GDS is actively building GOV.UK One Login + a government-issued digital wallet (announced Jan 2026), directly competing with any third-party privacy/identity companion.Making the government's first digital wallet a reality ↗GOV.UK Wallet technical documentation ↗
UK Subject Access Requests are free under UK GDPR Art 15, undermining the core 'request minimisation' value prop; privacy-app category (Incogni/DeleteMe) charges £10-15/mo but addresses commercial data brokers, not government schemes — hard to justify subscription for a narrow UK government-data niche.A guide to subject access | ICO ↗
Government data-sharing schemes (NHS, DWP, HMRC, policing) will keep expanding regardless of the digital-ID reversal, so demand for minimisation tooling is durable; however, policy volatility (mandatory→scrapped in months) makes the political context unstable.UK Digital ID - Wikipedia ↗
SAR template generation and a data-whereabouts registry are straightforward to build, but 'privacy-preserving credentials' requires deep integration with GOV.UK One Login / verifiable credential standards — a third party has little leverage to issue or verify government credentials.GOV.UK Wallet technical documentation ↗