Digital government sounds modern, clean, and practical. It promises less paperwork, fewer forms, faster services, better data, and public bodies that finally speak to each other. For anyone who has waited on hold, filled in the same information repeatedly, or watched a public service lose basic details between departments, the appeal is obvious.

The problem is not the idea of better digital services. The problem is who controls the systems once public life depends on them.

The UK government has promoted digital transformation as a way to make services easier and save large sums of money. Plans for GOV.UK Wallet and digital documents have been presented as convenient, secure, and voluntary. The wider promise is that people will interact with public services more smoothly, with less paper and less friction.

That ambition is not automatically wrong. A well-designed digital service can reduce stress, save time, improve access, and stop people being forced through slow, confusing processes. Bad paper systems are not more democratic simply because they are old.

Digital government becomes politically dangerous when convenience is used to hide dependency. If the state builds essential public services around private platforms, foreign suppliers, opaque contracts, and systems officials struggle to replace, then “modernisation” may also mean loss of control.

That is the concern raised by the parliamentary criticism of Palantir’s expanding role in UK public services. The argument is not only about one company. Palantir matters because it shows the wider pattern: sensitive public systems can become tied to a supplier that becomes hard to remove.

Vendor lock-in is a dry phrase, but the issue is simple. A public body buys or builds around one supplier. Staff learn that system. Data, workflows, dashboards, integrations, and training become shaped by it. Over time, leaving becomes expensive, risky, and disruptive. The supplier then gains power because the public body no longer has an easy exit.

That is not just a procurement problem. It is a democratic problem.

Public services are not ordinary customers. They hold health data, identity data, education records, benefit records, policing data, tax data, and other information people cannot realistically keep away from the state. A citizen cannot negotiate with government like a buyer choosing a different shop.

That makes the standard higher. When a private firm becomes part of public infrastructure, the public should know who controls the system, where the data goes, how decisions are made, how the contract can be ended, and what happens if the supplier’s interests no longer match the public interest.

Digital transformation also changes where power sits. A service that looks simple on a phone may depend on complicated rules, automated checks, private software, risk scoring, identity verification, data sharing, and procurement choices that most people never see. The smoother the front end becomes, the easier it is for the back end to disappear from public debate.

This is where political language does its work.

Words such as “efficiency,” “innovation,” “joined-up services,” and “digital by default” sound neutral. They suggest practical improvement rather than ideology. Yet every system has choices built into it: who is included, who is excluded, what counts as proof, what happens when data is wrong, and how easily a human being can challenge a decision.

A digital service can be easier for many people while becoming harder for those who do not fit the expected route. Older people, disabled people, people without stable internet access, people with language barriers, people in crisis, and people whose records are already messy can be harmed by a system that assumes the normal user is calm, connected, literate, documented, and able to follow the process exactly.

The government often says digital tools will remain optional or accessible. That promise needs testing in practice. A service can be formally optional but practically unavoidable if the digital route is faster, cheaper, better staffed, or treated as the default by public bodies.

The same applies to identity systems. A digital wallet may be useful for many people. It may make documents easier to carry and harder to fake. It may reduce some forms of hassle. But an identity layer is not just another app feature. It can become the gate through which public services, employment checks, benefits, licences, and daily permissions are managed.

That kind of infrastructure needs democratic locks before it expands. Each new use should be justified, limited, and open to scrutiny. The public should not discover after the fact that a voluntary convenience has become the normal route into state services.

Supporters of digital government are right about one thing: old public systems are often wasteful, slow, and frustrating. Nobody should romanticise paper chaos, broken databases, duplicate forms, or legacy IT that costs a fortune to maintain. The choice is not between digital progress and administrative decay.

The real choice is between public digital infrastructure and public services quietly redesigned around private dependency.

A serious digital state would keep public control at the centre. It would invest in internal capability, open standards, exit plans, transparent procurement, accessible non-digital routes, independent audit, and clear limits on data use. It would treat suppliers as contractors, not as hidden governors of public life.

That is the standard to apply whenever ministers promise digital reform.

Ask who owns the system. Ask who can leave it. Ask who audits it. Ask what happens when it fails. Ask whether the state can explain the technology it has bought. Ask whether a person can challenge a wrong decision without needing to understand the software.

Digital government can make public services better. It can also make public power harder to see.

Calling something modern does not make it accountable. Calling it efficient does not make it fair. Calling it innovation does not prove the public is still in control.

Digital government is not the same as public control.

Evidence, limits, and TWIS reading

The evidence this article relies on is clear. The UK government has promoted digital public services, including GOV.UK Wallet and digital documents, as a way to improve convenience, security, and access. Reuters also reported that a government review estimated full digitisation of public services could produce more than £45bn a year in savings and productivity benefits.

Parliamentary criticism has raised concern about Palantir’s role in UK public services, vendor lock-in, and over-reliance on a small number of major technology suppliers. Palantir’s NHS Federated Data Platform contract is one major example of the public sector relying on a private technology provider for sensitive public infrastructure.

The limit is also important. This article does not argue that all digital public services are bad or that private suppliers can never support public systems.

The TWIS reading is narrower: digital transformation language can make dependency look like progress if public control, exit rights, scrutiny, and accessibility are not built in. When the state digitises public services, the public should ask whether power is becoming clearer or harder to see.

Sources and evidence

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Cite this piece

This Week in Smoke, “Digital Government Is Not the Same as Public Control,” 18 June 2026.