Action of the Week, November 2, 2025

Disrupt the Rollout of Digital ID and Biometrics

As the UK government moves full speed ahead toward a national digital ID—which will be mandatory in order to work—a growing number of Brits recognize that they are being ushered into a digital gulag.

Over 2.9 million people signed a petition against the introduction of digital ID cards on the UK Parliament website, and thousands have marched in protest, carrying signs like “A digital prison is being built around you.” The organization Mass Non-Compliance warns, “If you accept digital ID now, it may be the last real choice you ever make.” A New Brighton pub even renamed itself “The George Orwell” to protest digital ID implementation.

The Conscientious Currency site on Substack has written about another way that individuals in the UK can push back: by submitting Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs) to any private or governmental organization “that holds their personal data—including biometric data through digital ID and facial recognition scans.” Organizations collecting these types of data then have to undergo the cumbersome process of sifting through things like their “CCTV footage, biometric logs, legal justifications, [and] secure data deliveries.”

People are legally entitled to submit DSARs under the UK’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which specifies that a response must be sent within a month and free of charge. Delayed responses are subject to fines.

As Conscientious Currency explains, a potential goal of mass DSAR campaigns could be to “make invasive systems economically unsustainable”:

“This legal right, when exercised at scale, can overwhelm systems and force transparency—or even shutdowns. If thousands of people submit DSARs regularly at different periods over a sustained time, it creates a legal and logistical bottleneck…. Sometimes, it becomes cheaper to shut down a surveillance system than to comply with thousands of DSARs.”

In the U.S., where the push for digital IDs is operating somewhat more stealthily—through measures like the REAL ID and age verification systems (“age-gating”)—there are two forms of pushback that virtually anyone can undertake:

1. Use cash. (For inspiration, see Solari’s 60-Day Cash Challenge and visit the “Team Cash” page at our Financial Transaction Freedom website.)
2. Refuse to get a REAL ID in the 45 states where a standard driver’s license is an option or, if you already have one, get rid of it and revert to a standard license. (See the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom [CCHF] resources listed below and watch Catherine’s interviews with CCHF founder Twila Brase on Financial Rebellion.]

Whether via a pub rebranding, a DSAR submission, or a cash payment, there are many creative and even playful ways to add friction and say no to digital slavery—pick the actions that give you energy!