By Andy McCue, 6 May 2005 15:35
NEWS The government's controversial identity cards plan looks set to be one of the first tests of Prime Minister Tony Blair's vastly reduced majority after leading the Labour Party to victory in a third successive General Election.
The majority - down from 166 seats in 2001 to a likely 66 seats as predicted by silicon.com the week before the election - means that any renewed opposition to the ID cards proposal could lead to the bill being watered down or voted down.
The Identity Cards Bill was passed by 224 votes to 64 in its third reading in the House of Commons but scrapped by the government before it reached the House of Lords after running out of legislative time before the election.
Any new bill may not face such a comfortable passage through parliament in light of Labour's reduced majority. More worryingly for Blair, most of the MPs who opposed it last time have been re-elected.
Out of the 19 Labour MPs who voted against the government, 16 have been returned to parliament (with the remaining three standing down), while all 10 of the Conservative MPs who defied Michael Howard's instruction to abstain and instead voted with the Labour rebels have been re-elected. Other anti-ID card MPs who also won seats last night include Labour outcast George Galloway and Wyre Forest Independent Richard Taylor.
Much will depend on whether the Conservatives - who first voted for ID cards and then abstained in the last vote - decide to pick their first fight with a weakened Labour government and follow the Liberal Democrats in opposing any new bill.
Eric Woods, analyst at Ovum, said the government may be forced to think again on ID cards.
"One significant casualty of the reduced majority could be the ID card programme. The government may be forced to adapt its ID card legislation significantly, if not drop it altogether, by its reduced majority," he said.
For all silicon.com's coverage of the election's technology issues click here.
Comments
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1. Chris Goodman
Federal approved ID cards are to be introduced in the US within 3 years for all residents and workers. As it is un fortunately sensible and necessary, albeit disliked, to be able to prove identity in this day and age, perhaps it would be wise for the Government department concerned with producing the UK ID card to endeavour some large degree of compatability with the US card.
I know this will bring forth a lot of nationalistic jingoes but as a matter of common sense and benefits for travellers it would seem a sensible procedure. Even more sensible would be for a common compatability across the EC and US but here the anti-America sentiment would likely prevail.
It would perhaps be sensible if those involved in such matters were themselves international travellers.
2. Karen Challinor
Thank heavens for that, I thought it would have been a done deal as it got through last time.
Time to put pen to paper
3. Ruth
Obviously not enough people voted against Labour on 05/05! Now is the time for all people opposed to ID cards to contact the Tories & try to persuade them NOT to back the measure if it does come up again. If the introduction of ID cards would actually prevent terrorism I would be willing to endure what I consider to be an attack on my civil liberties but as both the 9/11 bombers & the Madrid bombers (where ID cards are compulsory!)had all the correct documentation I am far from convinced that this is so. Personally, I think ID cards are another 'smoke & mirrors' like '45 minutes' & 'I know there are WMDS'. On a separate issue, although I did not vote for Mr Howard on 05/05 - based purely on his view on Iraq & ID cards - I am impressed that he is now standing down & showing a great deal of integrity & humility in doing so.
4. Maryon Jeane
Point taken - and I have also flagged my MP on the www.theyworkforyou.com site so if (heaven help him!) he wavers from his current anti-ID card stance, I will be grabbing him by parts of his anatomy he'd rather keep private!
However I have to disagree with the sentiment that if ID cards would reduce the terrorist threat then they would be acceptable. It reminds me of that old slogan: "Fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity" - it's absolutely pointless giving up some of the really precious things such as our freedom to live our lives without scrutiny or undue outside control to fight against domination by outside forces.
ID cards (or rather their underlying databases) are about the control of individuals by governments. They are unsafe in every respect, from their being used as was the information as to who was Jewish/homosexual etc. in Nazi Germany through to a male authority figure (policeman, civil servant) threatening a woman with the revelation of some piece of personal information (an abortion, underage sex) to force her co-operation.
It currently takes a good private detective a couple of hours to find out a subject's personal details (bank accounts, ex-directoy telephone number and personal relationships, for example). This information is for sale because it's available in databases. Can you imagine what it would be like if *all* your personal information was in one database, up for grabs to the highest bidder and/or the most knowledgeable hacker?
The idea of "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear" is a nonsense. Jewish people weren't ashamed of being Jewish in Hitler's Germany but, by heaven, they needed to hide it. I don't exactly hide the fact that I go to the loo, make love, am not a Catholic, use contraception, or whatever - but I don't necessarily want my employer, my bank, the policeman on the beat who stops me for speeding, the government or anyone with the requisite nosiness and money to know these things about me. It's known as a private life and it's one of the few things that is genuinely mine. It's also a protection, that people don't know these things about me.
The only people to benefit from ID cards and central databanks of personal information about every citizen will be governments who want to control people (and every government does), people who want to nose out others' personal lives and, of course, terrorists - who will have their lives made very easy if all the data they need is in one place...
5. anonymous
The fact that more people probably abstained than voted for B-liar, his henchmen & henchwomen. Should, to normal people, tell them something.
I am sure that the ID cards were nothing to do with combatting terrorism. Merely yet another method of suppressing the people of the UK. Intended as yet another step toward a single party dictatorship. Hence the look on B-liars face, as the results were announced, As his dream of becoming Life President B-liar ebbed away
Up the rebels.
6. Karen Challinor
It should have told them something, yes.
What it did tell them was that enough people voted to get them back in and thats the only thing they care about.
Abstention doesn't work unless everybody does it
7. anonymous
UK ID Cards. Safety or Control?
Our concerns on the introduction of ID cards should be valid, and two fold at that.
For the first thing that comes to mind we must look back in history, and remember the massive collection of files that were held by the Stasi and KGB.
These were not used for the protection of the individual but for the abuse of the states.
So we do have good cause to worry about a National database on every individual. No, and I repeat NO individual or government can or should be trusted with all this information. In addition, computer security, no matter what is claimed, is sufficient to protect information of the individual.
Whatever can be developed to protect something, can also be circumvented too!
Secondly is with the proposed “house arrest” without a court ruling, for suspicion that is also being aired by the government.
Put these two together and we have something to really be concerned and scared of.
I will not offer a conclusion, but I will leave you to your own imagination as to what possibilities would be opened to abuse of the individual.
The freedom and rights of the individual that we now take for granted would be gone. OR if not gone, then curtailed. Freedom of speech would be a thing of the past. And the rights of the individual would never be the same again.
Society at this present time is not ready for a national database history has already shown us how this could and would be abused as a means to both control and intimidate the rights and freedom of the individual.