By Andy McCue, 14 February 2006 12:40
NEWS
UK citizens will be forced to register for biometric ID cards when applying for a new passport within two years after MPs voted on Monday night to make the controversial scheme compulsory and to not put the costs under independent scrutiny.
In the end Prime Minister Tony Blair's enforced absence from the ID cards vote due to a faulty plane in South Africa didn't matter as the government comfortably defeated a threatened backbench Labour rebellion, albeit with a reduced majority.
A late round of lobbying by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in Blair's absence ensured the government won the crucial votes in the House of Commons and overturned amendments made to the ID cards bill last month by peers in the House of Lords.
A halved majority of 31 saw MPs narrowly vote to reject a wrecking amendment that would have made it completely voluntary for citizens to register for an ID card when applying for a passport.
MPs also voted, by a majority of 51, in favour of making it compulsory for citizens to register their personal and biometric details on the National Identity Register when applying for or renewing "designated" documents such as a passport despite warnings from Conservative shadow home secretary David Davies that the UK is "sleepwalking towards a surveillance state".
MPs accepted without a vote a government amendment that requires a separate Act of Parliament to make ID cards officially compulsory. Home Secretary Charles Clarke has indicated the government would move to do this by 2011.
A rebellion over an amendment that would have forced the government to make the full cost calculations of the ID card scheme public before awarding any contracts to IT suppliers was also staved off after Clarke agreed to report to parliament every six months on the costs. That was carried by a majority of 53 votes.
The ID cards bill now returns to the House of Lords where peers will vote on whether to approve the legislation or return it to the House of Commons with more amendments for MPs to vote on.
Comments
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1. anonymous
I wonder how many people will 'lose' their passports and get new ones just before the legislation takes effect ?
2. John Gravy
It goes to show they make these decisions for the country, And they are all thick. If we have problems in this country, That's why. All the politicians of all the parties are all completely THICK and there is no choice but to have thick people as your leaders in the UK.
3. anonymous
Will it also be compulsory to carry these cards as in other countries where our government has questioned the human rights abuses of their people.
Will the police have power of arrest for those not in possesion of their IDs.
This introduction of a national identity may reduce a small amount of benefit fraud but will do nothing to reduce organised crime and terrorism as these people will oviously have access to good fake IDs.
A total waste of time and no doubt my hard eaned money.
4. anonymous
There's no need for a national database containing everyone's biometrics (and searchable by the police) just to identify someone.
(At the risk of repeating this scenario, given by many others ...)
The biometric data could be stored on the card itself in a 'digitally signed' form to prove it was issued officially.
The card could then be checked for validity locally without recourse to connection to a database:
1) Read biometrics from owner
2) Read biometric data values from card
3) Verify that values on card are authenticated by Govt. certificate
4) Compare owner and card values
5. Angela Walker
It's not going to stop terrorism. If the point of it is to do so, then consider that all the London tube/bus bombers would've had ID cards, but it still wouldn't have stopped them killing numerous innocent people, so therefore what is the point? Also, there are bound to be forgeries and people stealing data to create these. Who is in charge of these cards anyway, and how do we know we can trust them not to divulge sensitive data or to be involved in identity fraud? Will Tony Blair/The Queen/anyone else with responsilities for running the country have to have ID cards? The whole thing has not been thought through properly, and the public should be allowed to vote on this - not dictated to by the majority MP vote.
6. Andrew Snell
I wish everyone would just drop the pretence of fighting terrorism. The last major act of terrorism was carried out in our nations capital by british citizens. If the ID card scheme had been in place how would it have helped to prevent the attacks? The security forces can only make use of the information if they know who they are looking for - in this case they were oblivious.
I was at Kings Cross in July and would hate to see it ever happen again. I also have nothing to hide and would probably be happy to have an ID card. I just wish everyone would be open and honest about the real reasons for wanting it, and the real costs.
Oh yes, also let's not forget that history always shows us that the government is always abusing its powers!
7. Distrusts Politicians
So if mine is lost or stolen, how the heck do I ever prove again to 'the authorities' that I am who I am??? By that time, some crim will have my identity and will have, no doubt, cleaned out my bank account. What GUARANTEES will financial institutions offer to protect me from crims who may steal my identity? How can I prove to them that I am who I am, and how will they know that the crim with my stolen ID card is NOT ME?!
We have, sadly, a 'knee-jerk' gov't who pass legislation without half a thought about the future problems - or if they have, they prefer to not communicate solutions.
8. Graham Coles
So despite telling us that he wasn't elected to force ID cards on people, Tony Blair has gone against the wishes of the people, opposition parties, house of lords; ignored the advice of security professionals; used false figures to promote the idea and, despite a last ditch attempt by someone to keep him stuck in South Africa, forced ID cards on the once free people in the UK!
Looks like his namesake, Eric Arthur Blair, was right. The UK government wishes to know more about you than you do. DNA records of innocent people retained, ID databases to record your retinal scans, fingerprints, digitized photographs.
The same photographs that they hope to be able to use to identify everyone from street surveillance cameras.
A computerized car registration system that they hope to be able to identify the time and place of your car on the road.
1984 has indeed arrived, true to British form over 20 years late. With any luck, the underestimated ID card system will take as long to introduce, assuming it ever works. What next, thought police?
I just hope nobody in Number 10 took that story about RFID tags in food to trace sewerage back to the source seriously; looks like the Labour government have missed a vital opportunity there, it will be about the only thing they won't be able to find out from a computer screen ...
9. Jerrold Baldwin
I stopped voting for Blair in 2001 when I started to notice that he misrepresented the truth fairly regularly. Now with thanks to his lobbying for ID cards, I now know not to return to the fold by voting for Gordon Brown at the next election. I had high hopes for Brown, but power corrupts (or the hope of it) etc.
My reason, Brown’s now obvious support for Blair’s position on: ID cards; The Iraq War; New Labour’s relationship with the Bush administration; the Government’s propensity to obfuscate (Why can’t we be told how much ID cards will cost? Has Prudence gone shopping?); and the illiberal anti-religious hatred, anti-terrorism, criminal justice, and civil contingency legislation. Not to mention, the little talked about Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill that, if enacted, will allow a government minister to revoke or amend existing laws without further reference to Parliament.
These are dangerous arrangements that are driving us towards a police state. I am not reassured by ‘If you have not done anything wrong…’ mantra. New Labour is removing the checks and balances that were designed to protect us from governmental errors. We are not on the top of a slippery slope; we are hurtling down it. Our slide is being lubricated by the greed of less scrupulous elements in the IT industry.
Enough is enough, for the first time in my life, I am thinking of actively supporting the Conservative Party. This is because I am looking for a remedy to this draconian idiocy. David Cameron is thinking about restricting the executive’s ability to abuse its power, and has promised to repeal the worst of this legislation (beware avaricious contractors). Who would have thought that in 1968?
It’s a pity that a lot of the potential rebel New Labour backbenchers were scared by the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election. Let’s hope the un-elected House can still stop this senseless ID card scheme. 64% of us did not vote for New Labour manifesto. I remember Blair saying that we must not allow terrorism to change the British way of life, yeh right!
10. Nic Hart
No need.
You can apply for a passport at any time.
My family already have, for just this reason. Not sure about driving licenses, but they are not yet 'designated' documents, so renewing doesn't automatically put you on the NIR.
11. Peter Robinson
Business Processes are the current IT fad - we need to be told the business processes behind ID cards.
Specifically, will every individual who enters the UK be checked at the border for finger print and/or iris scan?
If not, where is the benefit?
If so, how long will it take for a single person, and for a jumbo jet load?
Now I can walk though or drive through with barely a pause. In the future, what will be the stop-and-check impact at borders or on the street, in the GP surgery or at hospital, at the Job Centre or at the bank?
12. ID cards are false security
Just bring back 'beat coppers' - forget ID cards to stop 'bad' behaviour (which they won't), just put more police on local streets who know the neighbourhood's residents by name and where they live!
13. Haydn Rees
I don't need an ID card because I know who I am. I have; fingers and thumbs, each with its own print; two Irises; a voice; distinct facial geometry; and a bunch of other stuff you can measure.
Record and certify these, and hold the measurements centrally if you want, but don't charge me for it. Any copper who asks to scan my Iris to check that I am who I say I am before we speak, can expect my ACME Irisman mobile phone to scan his irises first to check that he is who he says he is. If you can't check a copper, who can you check?
You would probably structure easier access to public services for registered people, punishing and cajoling people into registering. This is the answer to beating terrorism and benefit fraud.
Making everyone buy ID Cards is the answer to “How do we repress and demean the population and make the state authoritarian”.