By Tim Ferguson, 19 June 2007 15:20
NEWS
The National Identity Scheme will be essential in combating the challenges presented by the revolution in technology and mobility, according to a government minister.
Speaking at a conference at Chatham House, Home Office minister Liam Byrne said the National ID scheme will be a "21st century public good" and become part of everyday life.
Byrne explained that technology and increased mobility of people and finance have created new challenges and risks for UK citizens, which the ID scheme will address. The government said the system is an "essential defence" and an everyday part of life.
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As well as these issues, a huge amount of personal information is now in the hands to private companies, potentially creating risk to borders, communities and individuals.
Byrne said: "Unless we invest in identity systems we leave our borders and our economy open to abuse, we leave individuals defenceless against fraud and we risk leaving the benefits safety nets we've worked so hard for vulnerable to attack."
Byrne added the national ID system will become as much a part of the fabric of public life as the railways in the 19th century or the national grid in the 20th.
He described the system as "another great British institution without which modern life, whatever it looks like in 2020, would be quite unthinkable".
The minister also highlighted evidence of a growing risk in ID fraud in the UK discovered through the government's biometric visa project.
Since the tech was rolled out, more than 4,000 visa applicants have been found to be withholding information regarding a previous immigration matter, 70 per cent of which were caught out by previously collected fingerprint data.
Byrne outlined several trials, including a joint Identity and Passport Service/Criminal Records Bureau pilot to demonstrate how background checks can be carried out more quickly and securely.
There are also plans for an Employers' Checking Service pilot to quickly find out if people have the right to work in the UK.
Byrne said further pilots are in the pipeline involving the Department of Work and Pensions and Government Gateway.
Comments
There are 15 comments. Join the discussion
1. Graham Coles
Under new management, haven't listened, haven't learnt anything, have removed the work 'Card' from 'ID Scheme in the hope people think its something different.
So, life is going to be unthinkable without ID cards in 2020. I assume this means that the government find it unthinkable not to able to control every facet of peoples lives by 2020, and screw them up completely when someone steals their identity - the card being considered infallible, but the government being exempt by law from any responsibility for forcing it on us when it proves not to be.
It seems we have a couple of choices:
1. Replace government with one that listens to reason and the electorate instead of their investors (sorry, biometric and ID companies wanting a return on their political donations).
2. Find a better country to live in by 2020 (shouldn't be too difficult).
2. Aden Brill
The minister says "increased mobility of people and finance have created new challenges and risks for UK citizens".
The challenge he really means is that technology gives the citizen a way of having some privacy from the state. ID cards only serve to allow the Government to regain the control that they crave.
These here today and gone tomorrow ministers have no idea what the future holds and should not be allowed to foist these childish and ineffectual schemes upon the public.
3. anonymous
What complete rubbish! This is not needed as "a part of every day life". The risks he cites are (a) not, on the scale of things, all that high and (b) nothing like as great as the risk of abuse by petty civil servants, the police and government in general of any such system.
Using "evidence" from the actions on non UK citizens (visa applicants) is somewhat disingenuous. Certainly we should be very careful about who we let into the UK. But in a democracy, and I assume we plan to remain one, there should be a fundamental presumption of trust and privacy between government and governed. We choose them, and they are meant to do what we want and be under our control, not the other way around
Resist this expensive, undesirable and repressive scheme.
4. David Hughes
P*ss ups, breweries and inability to organise come to mind. I recently tried to get a new driver's licence through the DVLA online system, but I was told that I wasn't authorised to use it. The polite person on the DVLA help desk told me it was because the Inland Revenue would not let the DVLA access the registration data that Revenue holds for the Government Gateway. So I couldn't use my Government Gateway ID. So a unified national ID scheme has already failed due to lack of coordination between Government departments.
5. Karen Challinor
I notice that it was a nice general "risks" caused by simply living in the 21st century rather than anything we can actually put a finger on
what specific risks is the ID card being touted as a panacea for now ?
as I see it we have a bill, which after threatening the house of lords has become an act, which has had massive amounts of public money spent on it, which the government is still shrouding in secrecy by spending more public money to suppress the gateway reviews
which at the end of the day still hasn't had a single legitemate reason to justify it's existence
simply saying it was a manifesto pledge isn't good enough, after all
"We will clean up politics, decentralise political power throughout the United Kingdom and put the funding of political parties on a proper and accountable basis"
was a manifesto pledge in 1997and it still hasn't happened
6. Radical Meldrew
Nothing more than government spam. I would have thought that the exponents of this essentially flawed idea would sense the overwhelming opposition and at least come up with a sensible reason for its implementation....What's that?
Oh, apparently there isn't one!
7. Richard Peters
"Life in 2020 is unthinkable" - Well said!
8. Tim
These details show that proposed biometric cards should not be implemented at any cost.
Biometric ID documents (cards and passports) will work fine for organisations where everyone concerned is on the database and every point of transaction has equipment to read these documents.
Nationally it is virtually impossible to satisfy both these conditions and hence it is obvious that these documents will fail. In reality they will tempt fraudsters to use fakes of these documents as IDs where there is no reading equipment and hence make bad problems worse by boosting identity fraud.
9. anonymous
So we will be defenceless against ID fraud with out ID cards. Given the governments inability to keep junior doctor's personal details secret, things hardly bode well.
The financial community is hardly any better, since they never practice what they preach. For years I have shredded my financical documents, but when I moved a certain credit card company, despite numerous instructions to do so failed to stop sending documents with my card details on to my old address, thus despite their assurances, when my mail forwarding contract finished, I was subjected to ID fraud by a friend of the new occupant of my old address.
Still what goes around comes arround and I intend making full use of the ID card, any one who wants to prove that I am me will have to prove that they are who they say they are first. After all I know who I am but i don't know who they are, and if they don't trust me I certainly wont trust them.
I wonder will Mr Paxman have a card reader on his Newsnight desk so that politicians can prove they are who they claim to be when they spout this crap.
10. anonymous
Utter nonsense. Leave citizens defenceless? From the State I think he means.
Of course they won't get away with it, so many people will refuse to cooperate. What will the authorities do with 15 million people? Send them to the already full prisons (current pop approx 80,000). They could place them under house arrest; a card reader in every street/on every door, better not give them ideas...
With this scheme it will be everything to fear and nowhere to hide.
They are mad of course but it won't stop them trying.
11. Charles Smith
Why don't the politicians come clean? The only reason they need this card is to control immigration and to catch people who slip through their porous border controls.
The disgrace of recordinging innocent people's details on the police DNA Database shows that the government are not to be trusted with personal data.
Instead of investing with dubious Id card technology why not increase the number of immigration officers at the ports of entry. They should also check exits as well as entrances.
12. Karen Challinor
Charles Smith said
"Why don't the politicians come clean? The only reason they need this card is to control immigration and to catch people who slip through their porous border controls."
I take your point but the ID card isn't even a partial solution to that unless the act is taken much further by making the carrying of the card compulsory and giving police powers to demand the production of your card without probable cause
which is where I think we are going
13. anonymous
'Mobility of Finances'?
So Mr Byrne didn't hear the news feature last night about how Credit Card Fraud is now acceptable, as the Police are no longer informed and aren't dealing with it.
And ID Cards will change all of that Mr. Byrne?
This just reminds me of that 'Rise of the Idiots' sketch on Nathan Barley.
14. anonymous
"the ID card isn't even a partial solution to that unless the act is taken much further by making the carrying of the card compulsory and giving police powers to demand the production of your card without probable cause
which is where I think we are going"
Exactly so!! And these are the questions which should be put relentlessly to every politician who supports this ridiculous and dangerous scheme....
"Please explain how a national ID card will address any of the alleged problems you name UNLESS it is compulsory to carry one at all times"
"Will you vote to give the police the power to demand to see the national ID card at any time and under any circumstance?" (Yes or No answer only!)
The more vague the answer to the first question and any answer other than a simple "no" to the second will confirm to us all what the real end game is!
15. anonymous
One of the late unlamented PM's claims about ID Cards was that they would prevent terrorism. And if they were already implemented they would have prevented the car bombs in London & Glasgow exactly how? Piffle & balderdash!