In Malaysia, it is estimated that there are over 3 million migrants who help the country's industry. Workers from Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh do work that local people do not want to do because it is dangerous and the wages are low. Among the long-standing issues are foreigners working illegally. The UK has a similar problem and their solution is to introduce BritCard.
BritCard is a physical and digital identity card required to work legally in the UK. Employers can verify the status of employees by scanning the physical BritCard card using a smartphone application. Authorities can also do the same when conducting inspections at business premises and employees can also store it in the smartphone application.
Information such as name, photo, nationality, work permit status and driving license can be viewed quickly without having to do it manually. The BritCard system is also hoped to solve the issue of document and physical identity forgery among UK foreign workers.
Although the purpose is to monitor foreign workers, there are concerns that BritCard is being used for surveillance and will eventually prevent certain individuals from accessing NHS health services.
The UK introduced identity cards during World War II to distinguish citizens from enemy agents who had infiltrated. They were abolished in 1952 due to cost and police surveillance. In Malaysia, identity cards were allowed in 1948 due to the emergency and their use has remained until now before being recently expanded to MyDigitalID.