Labour MPs have expressed concern that the government is not doing enough to combat the spread online of conspiracy theories about plans to introduce digital ID.
"We have seen a significant amount of misinformation amplified by the [social media] platforms around digital ID. I haven't seen an effective response from the government," Chi Onwurah, Labour MP and chair of the Science and Technology Committee, told PoliticsHome.
Last week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the government would bring in mandatory digital ID, in a bid to tackle illegal working, which ministers hope will in turn help curb illegal migration, as well as modernise the functions of the state.
A More in Common poll published this week found that net public support for digital ID had fallen from 35 per cent in June to -14 per cent in the weekend after the PM's announcement.
The company's executive director, Luke Tryl, said the fall in support is likely to be partly linked to the government's severe unpopularity. He told The Guardian, "In perhaps the clearest sign of the government's low standing it now seems to be suffering from a reverse Midas touch: once the government announced the plans, support dropped".
However, some Labour MPs are concerned that the drop in support has also been fuelled by the spread of misinformation and disinformation online about the proposals, and complain that the government didn't do enough to prepare the ground for the announcement.
One fake claim in particular has spread widely since Starmer's announcement: that a company run by the son of former prime minister Tony Blair, Euan, has been awarded a government contract the produce the digital ID scheme.
On Friday night, BBC comedy show Have I Got News For You aired the claim and apologised the next day after it was spotted by PoliticsHome. The episode was removed from BBC iPlayer, and then appeared again with the section containing the false claim edited out.
Speaking at the recent Labour Party conference in Liverpool after the announcement, Peter Hyman, former adviser to Starmer and Blair, said that the policy would be "dead in the water in six months" and criticised a lack of proactive government communications campaign to tackle conspiracy theories.
"No one's going out there to explain it, to talk about it, all the rest of it," he said.
"Three days later [the announcement], there are conspiracy theories all over social media about this being Big Brother and all the rest of it," Hyman said, alluding to George Orwell's novel 1984 in which the state exerts total control over its citizens and spies on them.
He continued: "If we believed in doing things in a new media way, we would be on social media now, capturing the conspiracies, and we would be communicating in different ways.
"Keir and many others, not just politicians, but influencers, would be making the case. We would be nailing down all the objections about costings and privacy and all of it."
Onwurah, the Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, echoed Hyman's concerns. She said that regardless of her personal opposition to the mandatory element of the scheme, "we need to have public trust to ensure that the government's agenda of digital transformation in the interests of the public is fulfilled."
The government plans to ramp up communications around digital ID in response to the spread of fake information, PoliticsHome understands.
In response to the BBC's error, a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology spokesperson said: "Claims that Multiverse has been chosen to develop the government's digital ID app are false. No decisions have been made on its delivery, but we expect it to be designed, built, and run by in-house government teams - not outsourced to external suppliers.
"As we said last week, we will launch a public consultation to ensure we get the best possible input on the delivery and design of the scheme."
Noah Law, the Labour MP for St Austell and Newquay in Cornwall, told PoliticsHome that he believes the government has been "a bit passive when it comes to misinformation, and this and digital ID create fertile ground for people whose political business model relies on misinformation and myth-making".
Law agreed that government communications must "separate genuine and reasonable privacy concerns from myths and conspiracies around it" as "we've got to bring people along with us".
The Labour backbencher thought that the concerns are being fuelled by a lack of trust in public institutions, something he says is low in his part of Cornwall.
"I put that squarely down to the experience of austerity that we've seen the past decade or so, and some of the damage that's been done to local government and service delivery down here in Cornwall, where we tend to always face, in a way, the worst brunt of these things and feel the most overlooked."
Alex Brocklehurst, Politics Editor at Full Fact, told PoliticsHome: "The government's plan to roll out digital IDs has been met with both genuine and mocking confusion online.
"Conspiracy theories thrive when low trust meets unclear information -- and in today's online environment, they can escalate even further, building momentum that can make false information appear plausible to people outside the original bubble."