UK Column News — 7th October 2026

Mike Robinson (0:16)

Good afternoon, it's Wednesday the 7th of October, 2026, just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK Column News, I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me by video link today are Charles Malet and Vanessa Beeley. Later in the program, we're going to be reporting on the new head of BBC News, the new Chief Scientific and Medical Officers for the UK Health Security Agency, the Mecca Pact as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey prepare for troop deployments. And we're going to be discussing the proportionality and war. But we're going to begin today with digital ID because the rollout of the so-called contactless e-gates at airports gives us a real insight into just how far digital technocracy has already come. And I'm mentioning this today because the UK has announced that passengers arriving in the UK will soon pass through airport e-gates securely without showing their passports. And this is being described by the Burnham regime as a cutting-edge contactless system that they're rolling out. So as of yesterday, e-gates at UK airports will gradually switch to the new contactless technology, with every e-gate set to be upgraded by early 2027

They say it works this way. Passengers will approach the e-gate and have their photo taken. The system checks this live image against verified immigration, travel and passport information. And the e-gate opens automatically once these checks are complete. And they say the system uses state-of-the-art facial technology to verify a passenger's identity before the UK's robust border security checks are carried out in full. And they say legitimate travelers can then simply walk through without needing to place their passport on the e-gate reader. It's all very convenient.

Now, the phased rollout begins at East Midlands Airport, and it's initially for British citizens only, and then it will expand to other airports and other nationalities, those that are at least that are eligible for e-gates over the coming months. And it's this last part that has me most interested, because I can understand that this is possible for UK nationals, where the passport office already handles biometric data for every passport holder. What about other nationalities? Well, looking around the world, we already know from Patrick that the United States uses this technology.

And unsurprisingly, perhaps China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau have all have it to some extent. But it's Dubai that you can see on screen here at the moment, which is leading the way on this because they're smart gates already accept facial recognition for 50 nationalities. So we can see the direction of travel here aside from the globalized nature of data collection and processing. This provides an ever greater attack service for data breaches, which are ever increasing in scale. And just the latest example, a hack on a company which has access to Denmark's Central Person Register has resulted in the theft of personal information of 8.8 million people. This is the Central Person Register. It's Denmark's national population register, and it was set up in 1968 It holds core data on everyone who lives or has lived in Denmark, including name, address, date of birth, citizenship, marital status, family relationships, dates of moves, emigration or death. But don't worry, according to their press release, a review of the hack shows that unauthorized access does not include the names and addresses of persons who have chosen to register with name and address protection.

But even if people are unconcerned about the technocratic nature of this, the potential for state control of our lives, I think we should be concerned about national government's capability to keep data safe and protect people from criminal scams and identity theft. Charles, let me welcome you to the program and just ask what your thoughts are on this, because this is being rolled out with increasing speed and too fast, in fact, for most people to keep up with the implications.

Charles Malet (4:15)

Good afternoon, Mike. Good afternoon, all. Yes, I think you're absolutely right. And exactly as you say, this is further state intrusion, but state intrusion into the lives of people who, frankly, don't merit that type of intrusion. And of course, this jars very strongly with so many events, one of the most recent ones being in Gosport on Sunday, where it's been admitted by the Police and Crime Commissioner that the policing operation on the influx of migrants then cost 200,000 pounds, for that single day. So the idea that this is bolstering the integrity of the United Kingdom's borders is a complete farce.

It's very much adding insult to injury, I would say.

Mike Robinson (4:54)

Yes. Well, in related news then, Britain's spy coin infrastructure has taken another step forward with the announcement that the Treasury has appointed six banks to run Britain's first blockchain based digital government bond. They're calling it DIGIT. This is the digital guilt instrument. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest and RBC Capital Markets will act as joint lead managers. These banks will underwrite and distribute the bonds when they're issued. This is expected to go live by the first quarter of 2027