By Tom Espiner, 1 July 2009 08:30
NEWS
The government has announced it will drop plans to make ID cards compulsory for airside workers.
Pilots and other airside workers will not be forced to apply for or carry the cards, the Home Office said in a statement on Tuesday. As a result, a pilot scheme to issue workers with compulsory cards, which was planned for two airports, Manchester and London City, will not take place.
"The government has taken the decision to make identity cards voluntary for airside workers, planned initially at Manchester and London City airports," the Home Office said. "Airside workers will continue to be encouraged to obtain an identity card, which they can do for free, making it quicker and simpler for background checks to be carried out to verify an individual's identity as part of the airside pass-issuing process."
The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa), which had campaigned against the compulsory cards on the grounds that security checks at airports are already stringent, welcomed the move. In a statement, Balpa general secretary Jim McAuslan attributed the government's U-turn to the influence of Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who replaced Jacqui Smith at the beginning of the month.
"We have never seen the national ID card as an improvement to security, and we are glad that the new Home Secretary has listened to Balpa," said McAuslan. "This is a sensible change of approach, and one which we welcome."
Balpa had said it was considering taking legal action against the government if the Home Office continued with its plans to make ID cards compulsory for pilots.
The Home Office also announced on Tuesday that it would make ID cards free for pensioners aged over 75. A Home Office spokesperson told silicon.com sister site ZDNet UK that taxpayers would foot the bill for the cards. "[Making the cards free for the over-75s] will help people in particularly difficult economic times," said the spokesperson. "The funds will come from the Treasury."
Privacy campaigner Phil Booth, the director of the No2ID lobbying group, criticised the plan. "The Home Office will be dipping into public money in a spurious giveaway to pensioners," said Booth. "We're talking about direct tax funding. This is an identity tax."
Booth added that the government's backtracking shows the National Identity Scheme, which includes the issuing of ID cards, is in disarray.
ID cards do not enjoy much support politically, with the Scottish government writing to the home secretary to urge him to drop the scheme. The Conservatives have pledged to scrap the ID card scheme should they win the next general election. The Tories and Liberal Democrats are both opposed to ID cards.
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. Guy Reynolds
The beginning of the end?
2. Tim Jackson
Going...going...
3. Mike Poole
There are also some reports in today's media that the Home Secretary has announced that ID cards would never be compulsory for UK citizens. Whilst I think that is great news, if it is true then we have a real fudge when Gordon Brown wants the system in place but Alan Johnson says they are optional.
4. Karen Challinor
forgive me for not getting the champagne out because Alan Johnson has realised that the words "voluntary" and "compulsory" do not have the same meaning
the ID card act is still on the statutes requiring only a vote by ministers to make it compulsory and Labour have sufficient majority to push this through if they want
the NIR is still full steam ahead and is still being populated with information from passport applications, you know passports the other voluntary document
we need the act repealing and the NIR dismantling and disentangling from passports
the government say they want to monitor foreign nationals, well stop focusing on UK citizens then and you might find you have the resources
5. Richard
Great news and hopefully the beginning of the end for this crazy ID project... and for the government's other pointless, intrusive database & surveillance projects.
However, it is interesting that the government ignored all expert technical advice that they should scrap this project;
But finally gave in to simple Union pressure from Balpa etc.
Perhaps we'll have to await pressure from the IMF to curb the government's other excesses?
The UK does have an "interesting" form of "democracy."
6. Chris Goodman
Done it again!! Non aircrew airport workers, airside or landside, shouldbe thoroughly vetted and be required to have hi-tec identity cards. They should also be subject to regular routine checks. Safety is the overriding priority.
Over 75s cards is just a means of justifying keeping civil service jobs.
7. Radical Meldrew
This u-turn is temporary and was introduced to placate the public at a time when NL is well down in the polls. What happens when the situation changes and they look stronger again?
I'm sure they can and will reactivate their ID plans all over again. Do not celebrate yet, we have only won a battle, the war rages on!
8. karen challinor
Mr Goodman - airside workers already have extremely strict vetting procedures in place and don't need another inferior scheme which is generalised for use with the entire population and not just those in a high security environment
giving cards to the over 75's whether they want one or not will mean around 8% of the population will have 'voluntarily' enrolled in the scheme (according to the national statistics office, just dig around a bit) reducing the percentage of the population required to enrol before they can make the scheme compulsory
not to mention all that data being pumped into the NIR to justify it's maintenance budget
we do not need or want this scheme, it will achieve none of it's stated aims, it is expensive and open to abuse if not by the current government then by future ones
9. Doomsayer
Labour will only give up it's Stalinist dream of being able to identify every single indigenous individual & hold complete knowledge about this individual on the day that they are kicked very firmly out of government. Until then, they will lie & con their way into enfocing ID cards if we do not fight against them at every step of the way.