I’ve had a reply from the Home Office on the subject of ID Cards, via my MP (who apparently just forwarded letters). This is not a reply to the letter sent to David Davies, the Shadow Home Secretary, but a reply to the letter sent to my MP.
Of course, the sheer fact that I’ve written to these people means that my opinion can be safely discounted - there is something rather Orwellian about that way of doing business, I find.
Nick Hawkins Esq MP
House of Commons
London
SW1 A 0AA
Our Reference: XXXXX
Your Reference: YYYYY
2nd Nov 2004
Dear Nick
Thank you for your Letter of 14 October to David Blunkett on behalf of your constituent Mr XXXX of YYYY about identity cards. Your letter has been passed to me for reply as the Minister with responsibility for identity cards.
I should explain at the outset that the Government’s decision to proceed with the introduction of a national identity cards scheme is based in part on the fact that we will have to introduce more secure personal identifiers (biometrics) into our passports and other existing documents in line with international requirements. Right across the world there is a drive to increase document security with biometrics. If our citizens are to continue to enjoy the benefits of international travel, as increasing numbers of them are doing we cannot be left behind. It is worth remembering that 21 of the 25 EU Member States (all apart from the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Latvia) have identity cards.
Identity cards will be linked to existing documents such as passports and will incorporate a biometric such as a fingerprint or iris scan. The introduction of identity cards on a phased basis will on current plans start from 2007-2008.
The necessary decision to introduce biometrics into existing identity documents has therefore already been made. Even without an identity cards scheme, the majority of the population would require to be enrolled in a biometric database via existing identity documents like passports anyway. The costs involved in this would be nearly the same as implementing a comprehensive identity cards scheme available to the whole resident population, but without the added benefits.
People’s identities are incredibly valuable and too easily stolen - ID fraud is a growing crime, costing the country more than £1.3 billion per year. Multiple or false identities are used in more than a third of terrorist related activity, and in organised crime and money laundering. Lack of clarity over someone’s identity also presents risks to the public and private sectors when providing services. It is crucial we are able to confirm and verify our own and others’ identities quickly and easily. (Consequently, we believe that there are further clear benefits to be gained from biometric identity cards.)
The Government’s proposals are designed to safeguard, not erode, civil liberties by protecting people’s true identity against fraud and by enabling them to prove their identity more easily when accessing public or private services.
So what we gain with the ID card, over and above just adding biometrics to existing documents, are the benefits flowing from secure identification and a register to hold the information, such as in tackling illegal working and fraudulent access to public services. Added to this, offering an ID card at a reduced cost for those on low incomes and the elderly will give the least well off the same means of proving their identity as those who can afford to travel abroad.
We are grateful for the time Mr XXXX has taken to comment.
Des Browne
I disagree, but it’s tricky to know how to respond - and do so in a way that appears constructive and not the ravings of a lunatic. Any ideas? Even if the thing is benign now, how can the minister guarantee that all future governments are benign? However to ask this question is to be seen as a conspiracy theorist and dismissed out of hand, lessons of history be damned.
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How about tackling along the lines of “not objecting to *voluntary* cards, but objecting to being made to pay additional money for what is, in effect, a non-voluntary card that you don’t want”?
(Edit: That’s a thought. This is an insidious and sneaky approach. Once on the system one is registered without the benefits - and would probably get one anyway as it makes little difference to the info that has been gathered. However I would not carry it, or produce it, unless I needed the benefit (e.g. ID for Bank - though I have never needed one up until now). I like my travel too much to be able to stay off the books on principle, and my passport is up for renewal in three or four years - Murk)
I love the idea that ID cards are going to protect us all from terrorism. Is this because Osama bin Laden will travel around with an ID card stating his real name? I don’t think so.
Instead it reduces everyone’s civil liberties while the criminal and terrorist elements will find ways round it and not really be affected. And to cap it all, we have to pay for the government to implement a biometric based card that hasn’t even been properly tested both through our taxes and for the ID card itself.
And the government is doing all this to “protect our identities”. Aren’t they kind?
How long before people are being stopped in the street and asked to produce ID cards?
Good luck in fighting it Murk.
> I’m at a loss to know how to respond. Any suggestions?
I’m argumentative, by nature, so I’d start by approaching the Minister
with questions from his response - I’d prolly ask:
(chevron’d (’>’) text indicating copy ‘n’ pastes from the URI)
> based in part on the fact that we will have to introduce more secure
> personal identifiers (biometrics) into our passports and other existing
> documents in line with international requirements
How much of that international pressure/requirements have been undertaken
by HMG? (according to Neil Gerrard, MP (Lab, Walthamstow, Civil Libs
Ctte), quite a lot of it at European level has been done by the UK)
> It is worth remembering that 21 of the 25 EU Member States (all apart
> from the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Latvia) have identity cards
Of those, how many have them as a remnant of the Second World
War/Extremist Régimes? How many of them contain biometric identifiers, and
have they, or have they not contributed to making ethnic minorities (for
example in France) feel even more excluded from society and alienated.
Additionally, how many of these nations have unwritten, non Code Napoleon
Constitutions.
(or so what: that’s for other countries to decide (if they all decided
Extermination Camps were a Good Idea would the UK follow)… “this
sceptered isle”)
> The introduction of identity cards on a phased basis will on current
> plans start from 2007-2008
So let’s sod Parliament, and let Parliament decide which legislation to
introduce then…
> The necessary decision to introduce biometrics into existing identity
> documents has therefore already been made.
How has it been made and by whom?
> the majority of the population would require to be enrolled in a
> biometric database via existing identity documents like passports anyway
International travel is not something that everyone does; those who choose
to travel to places where a passport is needed do so of their own
free-will. Imposing an Identity Card on them is not a matter of choice.
Thus an erosion of their/our liberties.
> The costs involved in this would be nearly the same as implementing a
> comprehensive identity cards scheme available to the whole resident
> population, but without the added benefits
None of which have been made public, due to ‘commerical confidentiaility’;
I think that’s one to dispute as no nation has ~60m people’s biometric
identifiers (and note plural) so it could just be a case that the
technology is unable to cope. And Home Office + IT projects = overspend
and catastrophe.
> People’s identities are incredibly valuable and too easily stolen
So let’s put it all in one place, with one card to be stolen and
re-appropriated, yesh?
> costing the country more than £1.3 billion
Lowest cost for ID card scheme (that I’ve seen) GBP 3,1bn; highest ~30bn
(Atos)
> Multiple or false identities are used in more than a third of terrorist
> related activity, and in organised crime and money laundering.
And a good many private, law abiding citizens. It’s my constitutional
right to be known as who I want.
How will an ID card takle terorrism - it didn’t stop things in America on
9/11, nor in Bali, nor in Spain…
Organized Crime will find ways ’round the system, it’s stupid to think
otherwise.
Money laundering - again, it’s perhaps a case of using a sledgehammer to
crack a walnut.
> Lack of clarity over someone’s identity also presents risks to the
> public and private sectors when providing services. It is crucial we are
> able to confirm and verify our own and others’ identities quickly and
> easily.
How? Why?
So ~everyone~ is now assumed not to be who they claim to be, bang goes
innocent until proven guilty (to paraphrase Karen Chouhan of Blink)
> The Government’s proposals are designed to safeguard, not erode, civil
> liberties by protecting people’s true identity against fraud and by
> enabling them to prove their identity more easily when accessing public
> or private services.
So again, I’m not who I am. Thanks. That’s a lot of trust in the public;
so why won’t the government give details and put the devil of the detail
in primary legislation, not relying on Stautory Instruments and Orders in
Council. The more people learn about ID cards, the more they oppose them
(YouGov polls, Detrica &c)
> So what we gain with the ID card, over and above just adding biometrics
> to existing documents, are the benefits flowing from secure identification
> and a register to hold the information,
So, how’s that going to happen. Who’s going to own the data held, can I
have a daily report of the audit trail please…
> such as in tackling illegal working and fraudulent access to public
> services.
So, the small employer’s really going to bother checking the ID of his
cash-in-hand employees at 2′/6 a week, yesh? Come on…
Health Tourism, I suspect. I think it’s true that the Daily Mail
(remembering Blunkett has toasted Paul Dacre) over-hype this; I’ve heard
(at Mistaken Identity, LSE May 2004) that the UK send more people abroad
than those that come here.
> Added to this, offering an ID card at a reduced cost for those
> on low incomes and the elderly will give the least well off the same
> means of proving their identity as those who can afford to travel
> abroad.
Subsidised, like Passports, by those paying top-rate; still, to adapt the
TV licensing peoples’ adverts: ‘What would you have to sacrifice’ to be
who you are (the cost of the card, photos, day off from work to attend the
biometrics center, fines when you forget to tell the Home Office you’ve
moved house (population of london changes about 40% each year I read),
fines for not knowing (and then forgetting to tell the Home Office) that
your card is damaged, fines for refusing to have one… the list goes on.
====
You could also ask the Home Office to send a non-standard response, rather
than one that follows the Home Office line…
And ask David Davis for his views on the scheme - or listen to him speak
on ID cards http://www.no2id.net/content/mistakenIdentity.html
Hope that’s of some help
Reply is here:
http://www.murky.org/blg/id-cards-a-reply-to-des-browne/