By Nick Heath, 16 February 2009 16:59
NEWS
The government's controversial ID card project ran into more trouble today, as the scheme was snubbed by both airline pilots and the Scottish government.
Lawyers for the British Airline Pilots' Association (Balpa) said they are examining whether there are legal grounds to challenge Home Office plans to force pilots to take up the cards from Autumn this year.
Pilots are willing to lose their jobs rather than accept an ID card, Balpa told the Home Office in response to consultation over the introduction of the cards, that finished on Friday 13 February.
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The consultation is on the Identity Cards Act Secondary Legislation that will need to be approved by Parliament before ID cards can be issued to airside workers and pilots.
It comes as the Scottish government supported calls for the government to cancel the UK rollout of the £4.7bn scheme, adding they present an "unacceptable threat to citizens' privacy and civil liberties".
Scottish minister for community safety, Fergus Ewing, said in a statement: "In the midst of a deep recession, with more job losses announced nearly every day, it simply beggars belief that the UK government is pressing ahead with its costly National Identity Scheme."
Balpa believes it may be able to mount the legal challenge on the grounds that the Identity Cards Act 2006 indicated that the take-up of ID cards would be voluntary for UK citizens.
A spokesman for Balpa told silicon.com: "There is a strong feeling that ID cards do nothing to increase security and that they are not going to be used as guinea pigs in this way.
"We have our lawyers looking at whether we could mount a legal challenge on the basis that ID cards were introduced on the basis they would be voluntary.
"This is not the case if you have to take an ID card or lose your job."
In its submission to the Home Office, Balpa said that forcing pilots to have ID cards "is an affront to the people who for years have been, and continue to be at the forefront in the battle against terrorist outrages".
silicon.com recently revealed that there are no readers in the UK capable of processing the fingerprint and photo stored electronically on the card.
An Identity and Passport Service spokesman said in a statement: "Balpa have come to us with their concerns and we have spoken to them a number of times about how we can work with industry to resolve these.
"Identity cards will directly benefit airside workers - not just by improving personnel security but also by speeding up pre-employment checks and increasing the efficiency of pass-issuing arrangements, making it easier for these workers to take up their posts and move from one airside job to another."
"Identity cards will be mandatory for all airside workers, just as other pre-employment checks are today, so that the benefits from the scheme can be realised across the aviation sector."
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
This ridiculous situation is also propsed for PRIVATE pilots who fly from small airfields, even from own airstrips, and occasionaly visit other EU countries (eg lunch in France). The existing Customs and Immigration rules are effective across EU and do not require technology of this magnitiude. AOPA is protesting the added investment in farmers fields!
2. Guy Reynolds
"Identity cards will directly benefit airside workers - not just by improving personnel security but also by speeding up pre-employment checks and increasing the efficiency of pass-issuing arrangements, making it easier for these workers to take up their posts and move from one airside job to another."
How?
Am I being stupid? I just don't see how having an id card will improve my personal security nor how it will speed up pre-empolyment checks particulalry when nobody has any equipment to actually read the thing.
Whether ID cards are biometric or not, the scheme has one major failing, unless everbody in the world is identified and recorded from the moment of birth, you cannot 100% guaranttee they are who they claim to be when they are put into the system, and I just wonder in the rush to implement the system has it been fully tested to ensure that no duplication is possible i.e. multiple sets if biometreics for the same identity, or a single set of biometrics for multiple identies, and if it has what will happen if someone else has got there first.
3. Karen Challinor
optional HA!
if it were optional no one would have one so the government has to force people to have them
not by making them compulsory because that would cause an uproar but by saying you can optionally change careers if you don't have one, so it's still a choice, you don't have to have one but you also don't have to have the career you trained your entire life for either
yeah, voluntary, right!
4. Richard Davies
Guy has it right in his comment when he asks 'HOW?' are they going to make things more secure?
Nothing can read the card. Surely you should have the infrastructure in place (which includes all necessary readers) etc. before you make people get the actual cards!?!?!?
5. GALLEYSLAVE
Why haven't our leaders in their infinite wisdom cottoned on to the fact that nobody wants these cards?
6. Andrew Meredith CEng CITP
"Why haven't our leaders in their infinite wisdom cottoned on to the fact that nobody wants these cards?" - GALLEYSLAVE
Hey There,
Erm .. They have .. They just don't feel they need to worry about minor details like what we say we want. After all, they know better than us proles what we want and need and they know that, actually, we really want them, BIG time. After all, Jaqubooti apparently keeps being asked by people why they can't have an ID card right now!
So why don't you just go back to drooling in front of Big Brother and leave the intellectual stuff to the those who have suddenly gained much bigger brains by dint of being elected to office and made a minister.