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ID cards: The "surveillance society" risk
Beware the mafia threat

By Nick Heath

Published: Monday 09 June 2008

The national ID card database must not be used to turn the UK into a surveillance society, MPs have warned.

The Home Affairs Committee report says the ID cards scheme should not become a "surveillance tool" and demands stronger assurances about the government's ability to protect information in the wake of government data loss scandals.

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The report, A Surveillance Society, cautions against the £4.4bn biometric card scheme and associated National Identity Register being used to invade privacy as a result of "function creep".

It says the government "should collect only what is essential, to be stored only for as long as is necessary".

The report says the Home Office should produce a report setting out how the scheme will be used to fight crime and guaranteeing it will not be used to routinely "monitor the activities of individuals".

In the report Ross Anderson, a security expert from Cambridge University, also warns that biometrics can easily be stolen by organised gangsters.

He said: "Once you start using biometrics on a very wide scale, for all sorts of everyday transactions, the Mafia will also have your biometrics.

"You do not know which shops are owned by the Mafia but if you end up having to put your fingerprint on the glass every time that you buy a can of Coke, sooner or later the Mafia will have the biometrics of millions of people."

ID cards will be introduced for foreign nationals from the end of this year and for airport and Olympic games workers from next year.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The government has put in place a robust supervisory regime to oversee the use of surveillance powers, which includes the roles of the intelligence services commissioner, interception of communications commissioner and surveillance commissioners."