Opposition to UK ID card scheme grows

6 Mar 2008 | 13:35 GMT

By Mark Ballard

THE UK GOVERNMENT has pared back its plans to make people carry identity cards and revealed how it will rely heavily on public support to get the scheme up and running.

ID cards were meant to be introduced in 2009, but will not be lumped on British citizens en masse until 2012, the Home Office revealed today.

Meanwhile, the Government has opened a public consultation on the plans, even though they were passed into law two years ago.

The Home Office will encourage students to add their fingerprints to its identity database voluntarily.

Jacquie Smith, the home secretary, said the Home Office would tell students that the identity card would help them "open their first bank account, take out a student loan or start employment."

It will not be compulsory for people to use an identity card for these purposes and, indeed, most students manage to pull off these rights of passage into the adult world without an ID card. However, the government is battling against growing opposition to the plans.

Smith added: "I want them to be able to choose how they participate in the Scheme as well, so that they can enjoy its benefits as quickly as possible."

"The government is targeting students and young people, to get them on before they realise what's happening," said Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of NO2ID, a group campaigning against the 'database state'.

This offer does not extend to letting people refuse to take part. Although about half of British people are opposed to the scheme (with less than half supporting it, according to a Daily Telegraph survey last year), the Home Office has threatened to fine people up to £1,000 if they refuse to give the government their fingerprints.

The Home Office said its own surveys found that 60 percent of people supported the scheme. Nevertheless, Smith said that people wouldn't have to carry an ID card at all as long as they loaded their biometric and other personal details on the identity database and bought a biometric passport.

But the problem with the ID card wasn't the card itself, but the database behind it, said a Conservative Party statement.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "The government may have removed the highly visible element but they have still left the dangerous core of this project.

"The National Identity Register, which will contain dozens of personal details of every adult in this country in one place, will be a severe threat to our security and a real target for criminals, hackers and terrorists.

"This is before you take the government's legendary inability to handle people's data securely into account."

The National Identity Register is designed to store not only people's biometrics and other personal details, but also a record of their daily activities based on when and how they use their card.

Yet Smith insisted that the Home Office's public consultation would stem from its desire for people to have "as much control and ownership of their own data as possible".

In the wake of recent government data breaches like the loss of 25 million child benefit records, Smith said she was aware of the "sensitivities that surround the use of personal identity information."

"We will work closely with the National Identity Scheme Commissioner, the Information Commissioner, privacy experts and others on how to make the Scheme function in the interests of its users," she added.

However, the Home Office has persistently refused the Information Commissioner's request to perform a privacy impact (PIA) assessment on the ID scheme. A PIA is meant to help the Government avoid things like the loss of 25 million child benefit records.

Smith repeated government claims that the ID card would cut crime and immigration and make life more convenient for people.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both said the billions being spent on ID cards would be better spent putting more police on the beat.

From later this year, said Smith, the government would start forcing the first batch of foreigners from outside the EU to carry ID cards. Then British people working at airports would be forced to carry them. And then they'll come for you.

Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader, said the government's piecemeal approach to introducing ID cards was intended to "camouflage their true intentions until after the next General Election", which was to "build the world’s most powerful, expensive and unnecessary database". µ

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