By Steve Ranger, 25 May 2005 11:55
NEWS The UK government is preparing to reintroduce legislation paving the way for its controversial biometric identity cards.
Any ID card project would be one of the largest IT projects initiated by the government, with Home Office estimates putting the cost at around £5.5bn over 10 years.
The proposed legislation was dropped in the run up to the election but the controversial bill is set to be reintroduced by Home Secretary Charles Clarke today.
The plans face opposition from the Liberal Democrats, while the Conservatives remain unconvinced. There has been speculation that the government may find it hard to push through its plans with its reduced majority following the election - but ministers insist the project has popular support.
Speaking in the House of Commons earlier this week, junior Home Office minister Andy Burnham said ID cards will give the public a "highly secure" way of protecting against identity theft which costs the UK economy £1.3bn a year.
He said support for identity cards was running at around 80 per cent, and said much of that support is due to growing awareness of identity fraud.
"Early analysis of the scheme that is being developed has indicated that the benefits - including to the public sector in terms of cutting fraud and the improper use of services, and to the private sector in terms of cutting identity fraud - will, when the scheme is fully operational, outweigh its cost," he said in a debate.
A separate survey suggests the UK public appears to be grudgingly conceding that the government's ID card plan is the best way to prevent identity theft and protect against issues such as financial and electoral fraud, despite a vocal minority still opposed to the plans.
Research released earlier this week reveals 57 per cent of adults aged between 16 and 64 said the controversial ID card is either their first or second preference for protecting their identity.
David Porter, head of security and risk at Detica, told silicon.com the problem of electoral fraud is one issue which "throws the spotlight back onto ID cards" - most notably the problem of people voting in person with no required proof of identity.
But some critics warn that, rather than reducing identity theft, establishing a centralised identity database could actually increase the incidence of identity theft.
Comments
There are 16 comments. Join the discussion
1. Roy Opno
ID cards did nothing to prevent the attacks in Spain. ID fraud is a spurious reason to curb liberties and privacy on the scale necessary with the ID card scheme.
Government wants more control. That's the real reason for the id card plans.
2. anonymous
ID theft is an oxymoron, much like the so called "war on terror". ID theft occurs when financial institutions fail to make adequate checks on whom they are dealing with. Rather than introducing ID cards the banks, or whoever should suffer sufficiently large fines when then are conned to ensure they improve their security procedures.
3. Karen Challinor
More popular because everyone thinks it's about carrying a card and there's no problem with just carrying a card is there ?
I've had a parliamentary briefing sent to me by my MP, it talks about a central register holding key information and details some of the benefits to be derived and looks very bland and non threatening, and moves swiftly on to methods of payment.
And I'd support it if this were all there was to it, if this is what the politicians are working with then no wonder they in favour of the scheme.
But it isn't all there is, the LSE analysis, the lawyers that showed it breached the human rights act, the level of secrecy, the indecent haste with which the bill is being rushed through, the lack of debate of the issues all demonstrate that there is more to this than is being revealed.
Lets have a proper debate in the house, in public. Lets thrash out the issues of civil liberties, the levels of acceptable false positives and negatives and what happens to the wrongly identified, what actual information will be stored and how the individual can verify and correct it.
Let's not have secrets about something that will monitor and control our lives.
Lets not just rubber stamp this bill, because it's too late to fix it once it becomes law.
4. Lynda
I agree with Karen - the ID cards as propsed are a direct attack on Civil Liberties.
More and ver detailed debate is uregently needed before any of these crazy schemes are implemented.
5. David Quinn
I agree absolutely about the Civil Liberties arguments. And think of the abuses by people who have no sense. Think about the way Councils have abused parking fines and seem incapable of seeing the damage this does to people's trust in government. Think about the ASBO slapped on an autistic 15 year old to prevent him staring over the neighbour's fence. Think about the inflexibility of bureaucracy in general. We will be drowned not only in large scale constriction of our rights as citizens but in a welter of small daily abuses. And because authority never likes to admit it is wrong we will simply be traduced as whingers. We will all grow to hate these ID cards.
6. James Button
ID cards are no use unless everyone is forced to carry theirs,
and there are sufficient powers and checking authorities that are actually used to ensure that people are carrying their one, and only 1 ID card.
(If I don't have to have my card with me, it can stay in the safe, where I won't lose it)
So ID cards mean police and many government influenced people constraint systems (e.g. railway station gates) will be requiring you to present a card, and have it verified to be your card.
That implies that NOT having your card means you get taken into custody, and held until you can prove who you are, and that, having paid the penalty for not having the card with you, you are not 'wanted' for any other reason.
If you are required to have the card with you, why not have a RFID type chip imbedded in all 'UK residents', that will stop people, misplacing, losing, or having their card stolen and speed the checking process.
7. Alfred Reading
If ID cards are becoming more popular with the public, why is it that I have never met anyone who is not opposed? Perhaps its because I try to keep company with intelligent people and avoid politicians.
8. anonymous
It seems that those who believe that ID cards are a good thing have been a bit naive and trusting during a process that has involved some very old and sadly effective sales tactics. If you mention the things that people are interested in and scared of then a significant number will buy the product that you are selling, regardless of whether or not it will actually do the job, but because they think that as you have mentioned it and are selling the product the product must be right. In the case of ID cards the fear is very real, which increases the levels of gullibility. Quite how sophisticated criminals and terrorists will be stopped in their tracks by the need to provide a simple piece of plastic is an interesting question. Meanwhile absent-minded little old ladies/gentlemen will be thrown into the cells for not carrying their cards. Has anyone costed out the waste of police time alongside all these wild hopes of clearing the streets of criminals?
9. anonymous
"It's the database, stupid !" to paraphrase Clinton's remark.
No disrespect to readers !
But the database is the biggest sticking point, and no-one seems to mention it.
Again, if it was one-way (ID card matches person, ID card validated against DB), maybe OK, but if it was two-way, as some press articles have indicated (scan person's biometrics, query database - "Hello, Ms. B. Smith of 22 Acacia Avenue, age 24 !") that's quite another thing.
10. Ben Lim
ID Cards gain support.
When the media report that a certain survey show that the public support for the ID card is high or rising ... that means nothing unless these same people can explain how the ID card is going to eliminate ID theft or terrorism. I bet most of them can't.
So what does this say about the organisation that conduct the survey, the motive behind the survey and those who report the survery blindly?
11. anonymous
It seems that those who believe that ID cards are a good thing have been a bit naive and trusting during a process that has involved some very old and sadly effective sales tactics. If you mention the things that people are interested in and scared of then a significant number will buy the product that you are selling, regardless of whether or not it will actually do the job, but because they think that as you have mentioned it and are selling the product the product must be right.
In the case of ID cards the fear is very real, which increases the levels of gullibility. Quite how sophisticated criminals and terrorists will be stopped in their tracks by the need to provide a simple piece of plastic is an interesting question. Meanwhile absent-minded little old ladies/gentlemen will be thrown into the cells for not carrying their cards. Has anyone costed out the waste of police time alongside all these wild hopes of clearing the streets of criminals?
12. anonymous
Who are the people in favour of ID cards?
Other than the fascists in government, IT companies and greedy capitalists, is there space on the back of a cigarette packet to list the rest?
13. sjj
Hold on a minute, I don't think that I will rob that old lady, I forgot that I have an ID card !
Who ever believes this rubbish ???
14. Guy Herbert
"More popular" is a perverse interpretation of the published opinion statistics. The headline 80% figure for those who know nothing about the plans, imagine them to be free, and are asked just about a "card" did remain remarkable steady last year. But a repeating figure for uninterested assent, scarcely constitutes increasing popularity to anyone with a firmer grasp of reality than a Home Office minister.
There are no full-scale polls I'm aware of since one carried out for Reform in November. (Which confirmed the 80% net in favour of an unspecified card, but also showed the proportion of people prepared to pay more than £50 is a nugatory 3-6%.)
The small amount of published Home Office qualitative marketing indicates that participants tended to be less in favour at the end of the research than the beginning. That's to say that even just thinking about it for themselves in Home Office controlled conditions put them off.
The "57% prefer ID cards to prevent ID theft" soundbite (not 80%?) comes from a commercial exercise by a voice-recognition company, whose interest was not in uncovering the structure of attitudes to ID cards, but pointing out that the cards would be useless for verifying telephone and online transactions.
It would be interesting to see some professionally conducted opinion research addressing the *current* popularity of the scheme among the general public, now there's been a bit more publicity and discussion. Unfortunately none has been published.
Guy Herbert, NO2ID
15. Richard Noegel
"Land of hope and glory, Mother of the Free...". Land of the Anglo-Saxon Witan. Land of Parliament. Land of Magna Carta. Land of George Orwell. "Discussion" of this fascist scheme is not necessary because there is a difference between right and wrong; between freedom and slavery. As Benjamin Franklin observed, the people who are willing to trade away liberty for security do not deserve either. And as President Eisenhower observed, if all you want is security, you can get that in a prison. These may be called "I.D. cards" or any other euphemism, but they are Stalinist-style internal passports. Let's call things by their right name. Prevent fraud? Absurd! These cards are meant for one thing only: to control and subjugate YOU. REFUSE AND RESIST!
16. Graham
What's wrong with having an ID card that actually gives you a pretty good idea of whom you are really dealing with.
The metropolitan police have already picked up asylum seekers working as minicab drivers with cars that have no insurance and multiple driving offences recorded against their car. This was done using biometrics and has enabled the police to take dodgy cars/drivers off the roads.
If people don't want to play by our rules they should go back to their own
countries and cause havoc somewhere else. I don't mind big brother watching me because I have nothing to hide but I have personnally come across individuals from Nigeria that have had multiple ID's so that they can run up thousands of pounds in credit card and loan debts before switching to a new ID and starting again. These people are laughing at us and have abused our country for too long.
It's about time we had an ID card, it's long over due.