By Jo Best, 14 December 2004 13:30
NEWS After months of opposition wrangling, the Conservatives have pledged their support to the government's ID card Bill, which the party had previously described as "deeply flawed".
Tory leader Michael Howard has quashed disagreement within the shadow cabinet to officially offer Conservative backing to Downing Street's ID card plans.
Some senior Conservatives had voiced dissatisfaction about the plans for a UK-wide identity card, with shadow Home Secretary David Davis notably against the government's proposed scheme, chiefly on civil liberties and cost grounds.
In a statement, the Tory leadership said: "The Party will give its support in principle at this stage" but the volte-face doesn't mean the Conservatives will raise no objections to the Bill's terms.
"During the course of the Bill the Conservatives will continue to hold ministers to account over our five tests: the exact purpose of the scheme; whether it will meet those objectives; whether this Home Office is capable of delivering them; the cost effectiveness of the scheme; and whether proper protection can be provided for privacy," it added.
The ID card Bill will get its second reading on Monday.
Comments
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1. Andrew Robb
Tories obviously need 5 more years in the wilderness to get their thinking straight - meanwhile civil liberties are being trodden on.
2. Richard Sarson
Where's your ID survey? In the autumn or maybe summer, silicon.com carried out a survey which showed a solid majority in favour of ID cards. I want to check what the figures were, but your editorial thought-policemen have expunged all links to the survey results. I understand why you want to forget about this unfortunate result, and make all pro-ID people nonpersons, but, please, for the sake of journalistic probity, publish a link.
[Ed note (from the 'thought policemen', 'expunging links' and creating 'non-persons'): The info you're after can be found by simply typing the words 'ID survey' into our on-site search engine. Here's the link to the story based on our research, which was done in the spring http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39120026,00.htm . Here's another link to some research from the US on the public there being pro-biometrics for ID purposes.]
3. Roger Huffadine
Its probably got more to do with who will get the contract and conservative coffers than any civil liberties consideration.
Lets say it again - ID cards will not deliver the promised goods. Whilst I can, here and now, in my study fabricate a system that does everything that the government promises - there is NO WAY that anyone can support the infrastructure required to Nationalise the system.
4. anonymous
One big point is being missed: this is a typical Labour stunt: like the Co-op that will "hatch you, match you and despatch you" (christenings, weddings and funerals a specialty), all flavours of Labour want to take total control of the individual. Shame on Howard for even considering such a political gaffe!
5. Alistair Thomas
This country used to have a national identity, and for the vast majority or ordinary people being British was something to be proud of. Millions of people worked together, fought side by side for 'King' & Country. Some amazing and some pretty apalling things were done in the name of empire by those who could harness the power of such unity for good or evil.
Today, community is frowned upon. You're taught to look after number one because nobody else will. Most Politicians seem to be self-serving, lying hypocrites with their noses in the trough. You resent paying your taxes to this shower because you couldn't trust them to buy your groceries without ripping you off let alone run the country.
People that whine about their civil liberties amuse me. Amongst their freedoms is the right to pay for People stealing benefits, claiming health and education they aren't entitled to, to fund organised criminals who defraud VAT by the million, run drugs & illegal imigration, abuse illegal workers to compete with the lowest paid, poorest people in the land. Wake up and smell the coffee! It's not about protecting our personal freedoms. It's time to start pulling together again to protect our collective freedoms.
If an ID card can enable a policeman to exclude me from his enquiries, or distinguish me from the mad bomber, or enable any doctor anywhere in the country to tend to me without killing me, or allow me to claim my social security when I have need, then I'd like such a card. Like so many of my fellow citizens, I pay my taxes, I don't fiddle my expenses, I give to charity when I can. We have nothing to hide.
Could this or any other government pull off an IT challenge of this magnitude? - unlikely. Would I trust current politicians not to misuse the information? - Not in a million years. They're too concerned trying to keep their tawdry private lives out of the public gaze. Let's start by electing some leaders worthy of the name whose private lives are an example to us all. Then we might have a chance to deal with some of these weighty issues.
6. Richard Sarson
Thanks, thought police. Your link took me back to the May ID Survey, although typing ID Survey into your search engine didn't.
The survey proved even more favourable than I remember: 60% overall in favour, 82.9% said it would help benefit fraud, and 67% thought it would stop illegal immigration. and 30% thought the civlib objectors are paranoid.
Incidentally, an American lady said to me at the weekend that she thought the whole UK debate is silly. The American police and other authorities just insist on you showing your driving licence. End of story.
PS. It was Michael Howard, then Home Secretary, who carried out the first ID-Card consultation in 1995.
7. Alistair Thomas
And another thing ...
The cards shouldn't hold any data other than ID. We should have centralised (joined up distributed anyway) police, tax, medical, etc records. This is where the real data is kept, Data Protection etc not withstanding. (ID cards aren't stopping this anyway - it's probably lack of IT competence and vision).
Of course I don't want insurance companies (for example) or hackers (no dispersion on the former) having access to any of this stuff.
But why would they? There are two levels of ID surely. An authorised policeman has access to police records. With my ID he can see who I claim to be. He can't see my tax or health records - he's not authorised.
Some people seem to think that the card will carry everything and that once 'cracked' your entire life will be an open book. Not so. Each discrete set of information will be ring-fenced with its own security .... surely?
8. Stuart Hickling
I think they know they can't beat Labours majority and don't want another humiliating public defeat.
Unfortunately the last 7 years have changed the face of British politics irrevocably and the only way to oust an unconstitutional government now is to stoop to the same dirty tricks.
e.g. controlling the media, the justice system, education, and intelligence services.
9. Ken Hall
Who have we got left to vote for? I do not believe a majority of people want the ID card that the Government proposes. Yes most people would like to have a card that contains unmistakably their ID and nothing else, but that is not what is being proposed.
Initially in the first phase (according to the Government's own published documents) there will be no compulsion on individuals or companies to have or use the cards. So During phase one, multiple identity crime, immigration etc, can carry on unhindered. The plan is to make sure that incrementally, all government services can only be accessed by card holders. So eventually, in about 4 years, you will not have to have a card, but you will not get any services or medical treatment or be able to work without one. The tax system will require your unique ID.
So multiple id fraud will continue, but you won't have access to services. then slowly after this phase 2 kicks in, which requires everybody to have and use the card. All businesses will have to have card scanners and biometric scanners too. whenever you carry out any transaction, the details will be taken and a record kept. Everything you do, everything you buy, everywhere you go, you will be tracked.
If that's not bad enough, the Government will then assess you and assign you a risk profile. This will be based on secret critria. will it be to protect us from serious crime and terrorism? Or to protect the government from supposed dissidents?
If you don't mind being tracked and rated, fine. I do. I mind considerably. This has nothing to do with having nothing to hide. but more with having nothing to prove.
Why should I have to prove myself at every transaction? Why should I have to ask the Government's permission to carry out a private transaction?
Where in the dictionary does it say that freedom (That so many of my relatives have fought and died for) means being tracked? and having to pay for it too?
The ID card scheme as proposed does NOT have a majority backing. it's about time this was tested. A clear poll should be taken with the follwing question:
Do you want to have to pay for a bio-metric ID card linked to tracking technology that builds a risk profile on you that is stored in a governemnt database, upon which your future entitlements will be based?
simple enough question, honest and to the point.
Unlike the MORI Poll that is constantly raised by supporters of the scheme. Mori, a company that went on to get the contract to recruit volunteers for the first tests of the bio-metric technology, would not consider it to be in their interests to have the results of that poll indicate that most people are vehemently opposed to the cards.
So who do I vote for now?
10. anonymous
Surveys have been simplistic.
The Govt relies on people's lack of understanding.
An ID card per se, like a driving licence, may not be a bad thing - photo, name, serial number, authentication, digital certificate and signed image data.
The embedded data links the card to the person, the certification says it's an official valid card.
What changes everything is the coupling with a searchable national biometrics database.
I have seen articles where the ID card was extolled since "a policeman could fingerprint an unwilling suspect and look him up on the database to find out who he was, even if he did not have a card with him".
This reverse-lookup capability is what infringes rights.
This is your card - this is a valid card - OK.
These are your biometrics - you are Joe Bloggs - NOT OK.