01 Jul 2009

Liberty responded today to the new Home Secretary’s claims that identity cards for British citizens will be voluntary. Although the Home Secretary said that ‘holding an identity card should be a personal choice for British citizens’, when applying for a passport details will still be entered on the National Identity Register, the massive database that supports the scheme.

Isabella Sankey, Policy Director for Liberty, said:

“However you spin it, big ears, four legs and a long trunk still make an elephant. And this white elephant is as costly to privacy and race equality as to our purses. As long as entry on the National Identity Register is automatic when applying for a passport the ID scheme will be compulsory in practice”

In a public consultation document published in November last year the Government already announced that British citizens would have the ‘choice’ of having a passport or ID card or both but that anyone applying for a passport would have their details entered automatically on the National Identity Register. Personal details recorded on the database would include fingerprints, facial images and up to fifty pieces of additional information (going well beyond what is held by the passport agency). The £5.6 billion ID card scheme has been unsuccessfully touted by the Government as a solution to identity theft, benefit fraud, crime, and terrorism.

Contact Mairi Clare Rodgers on 0207 378 3656 or 07973 831 128


NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The public consultation document, Identity Cards Act Secondary Legislation – a consultation, can be found here. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/haveyoursay/closed-consultations/2008-cons-closed1/?version=1

2. Liberty’s response to the consultation can be found here http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy-09/liberty-s-response-to-home-office-consultation-ica-secondary-legislation.pdf

3. Liberty’s principal concerns about the ID cards and the National ID Register include:

- They will fundamentally change the relationship between individual and state.
- They will have a detrimental impact on race relations and will adversely affect vulnerable groups in society.
- They will intrude on privacy as the amount of information held on the database and the uses made of that information will increase dramatically.
- The Government’s poor record on IT projects makes this a huge financial risk.

4. Liberty does not accept that ID cards will have any particular benefit:
- They will have no impact on illegal immigration as asylum seekers have been required to carry ID cards since 2000.
- Arguments that they will protect the UK from terrorist attack are unconvincing. The men responsible for the 9/11 and Madrid terrorist attacks had valid identification.

- They will not help fight crime but will be counterproductive, as they will deflect financial and policing resources away from crime prevention and detection.

- They will have minimal impact on benefit fraud, as this is usually about financial circumstances rather than identity.

- Most identity fraud takes place remotely, online, over the phone or using false ‘seed’ documents (driving licences, passports and so on). Identity cards will not address this.