By her own admission, the UK Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, aims to create a digital identity Panopticon using AI and technology to constantly monitor citizens.
The UK government’s digital identity system will use biometric data, such as facial recognition, to create unique identity tokens, enabling real-time monitoring and predictive analysis of individual behaviour.
To establish the official UK digital identity Panopticon, the government and its partners do not require us to adopt any new forms of digital identity. Though it is trying to manipulate us into submitting our biometric authentication token to its GOV.UK digital identity wallet. And once we are manipulated into adopting our digital identities, they will be made interoperable across the whole of the UK economy.
Chatting with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in December 2025, UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said:
[M]y ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times. [. . .] we’ve already been rolling out live facial recognition technology, but I think there’s big space here for being able to harness the power of AI and tech to get ahead of the criminals, frankly, which is what we’re trying to do.
The UK Home Secretary has ministerial responsibility for the Home Office portfolio. The Home Office’s purported intention is to “to keep citizens safe and the country secure.” In truth, as revealed by Mahmood, the Home Office is currently part of a public-private state that is attacking us to protect itself.
Though the official UK digital identity Panopticon will supposedly only target criminals, in order to identify them, from among millions of British citizens, the state will spy on everybody all of the time.
To be clear: The UK government’s official position is to use AI as the “eyes of the state” and to set its gaze firmly “on you at all times.” This is the openly stated purpose of the official UK digital identity Panopticon.
Jeremy Bentham’s proposed Panopticon was a circular prison with a central observation post, or watchtower, that could potentially see into every cell. Unsure if they were being watched, the theoretical prisoner was compelled to behave as ordered at all times. The envisaged Panopticon oppression stemmed largely from self-regulation.
The official UK digital identity Panopticon goes much further than Bentham could have possibly imagined. As its prisoners, there will be no reason for us to harbour any doubts. We can be certain that we will be under constant surveillance. Unlike the 18th century model, the modern AI-based digital Panopticon will not rely on self-regulation, though that socially engineered condition will still persist.
Mahmood claims the state’s Panopticon objective is to identify criminal behaviour. Of course, what the state determines to be criminal behaviour is liable to change.
For example, the newly expanded state definition of extremism determines that intolerance – meaning to reject the idea – of the UK’s “system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights” is extremist.
Despite there being no evidence to support its view, the UK state further asserts: “Extremism can lead to the radicalisation of individuals [. . .] and can lead to acts of terrorism. [. . .] [T]he government committed ‘to challenge extremist ideology that leads to violence, but also that which leads to wider problems in society’.”
Peaceful, law-abiding citizens who question if Parliament is actually the “supreme legislative authority with the ability to make or unmake any law” are among the many who represent “wider problems in society.” As we’ve just highlighted, if, as it says, it has the authority to make or unmake any law, the state reserves the right to define any behaviour as criminal at any time.
Those of us who question the state are far from alone in having reasons for concern. Even the most loyal subjects are targeted.
When Mahmood announced that the government was trying to “harness the power of AI and tech to get ahead of the criminals,” she was alluding to law enforcement initiatives like Project Nectar. The police have piloted the use of commercial analytics software – Palantir Foundry – to supposedly predict when we might be “about to commit a crime.” This averred predictive capability is based on some AI assessment of our digital identity-generated risk signal.
With legislation like the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act and the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act already on the statute books, the government’s glare is staring us in the face. Say the wrong thing online, express the wrong opinion or pose the wrong question and, using our digital identities, any one of us could find ourselves subject to AI-dictated reprisals, including incarceration without trial.
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