There has been a chain email doing the rounds. It seems to have caught the public imagination to the extent of being used as a source by at least three well-known national columnists to my knowledge.

There are some unwarranted speculations in it, however, and it is worth going through and picking out what's not true, because what's left is quite frightening enough. This is long, sorry.

You may have heard that legislation creating compulsory ID Cards passed a crucial stage in the House of Commons.

Actually it is now the Identity Cards Act 2006, and (after a strange and unprecedented delay in getting the final text published, and, unlike all other Acts at time of writing, only in pdf) is now available on the Cabinet Office website here (pdf).

You may feel that ID cards are not something to worry about, since we already have Photo ID for our Passport and Driving License and an ID Card will be no different to that. What you have not been told is the full scope of this proposed ID Card, and what it will mean to you personally.

The proposed ID Card will be different from any card you now hold. It will be connected to a database called the NIR, (National Identity Register)., where all of your personal details will be stored.

Not, quite, all.

Commenting in The Register on the Government's defeats in the Lords on the Identity Cards Bill, John is looking ahead:

This potentially sets up a battle where disclosure of costs is seen as a constitutional matter, and both sides claim the constitutional high ground. Given that Ministers of this administration now claim commercial confidentiality as a matter of routine when withholding information, the Lords would have a good moral case for standing its ground here.

This would of course be likely to trigger a real constitutional crisis, but as this Government has done so much to destroy the constitution already, it seems only reasonable for other people to be allowed to join in.

It would be a lot funnier, if it weren't so true.

As the report stage of the Identity Cards Bill approaches in the Lords, a reminder of one highlight from the first day of the committee stage Hansard, 15 Nov 2005, Col.1012:

Lord Gould of Brookwood: Both the previous speakers—the latter with great emotion—were arguing for freedom. We have to ask what greater freedom is there than the freedom to place a vote for a political party in a ballot box upon the basis of a mandate and a manifesto. That is the crux of it: the people have supported this measure. That is what the noble Earl's father fought for. But that is too trivial an answer. I know that. The fundamental argument is that the truth is that people believe that these identity cards will affirm their identity. The noble Lord opposite said that he likes to be in this House and how he is recognised in this House because it is a community that recognises him. That is how the people of this nation feel. They feel that they are part of communities, and they want recognition. For them, recognition comes in the form of this identity card. Noble Lords may think that that is strange, but it is what they feel. This is their kind of freedom. They want their good, hard work and determination to be recognised, rewarded and respected. That is what this does.

Of course it is right and honourable for noble Lords to have their views, but I say there is another view, and it is the view of the majority of this country. They want to have the respect, recognition and freedom that this card will give them. Times have changed. Politics have changed. What would not work 50 years ago, works now. It is not just me. I have the words of the leader of your party:

"I have listened to the police and security service chiefs. They have told me that ID cards can and will help their efforts to protect the lives of British citizens against terrorist acts. How can I disregard that?".

This is not some silly idea of the phoney left. It is a mainstream idea of modern times. It is a new kind of identity and a new kind of freedom. I respect the noble Lords' views, but it would help if they respected the fact that the Bill and the identity cards represent the future: a new kind of freedom and a new kind of identity.

This is the sort of rhetoric that makes my blood run cold. Here's a prefiguring example:

In our state the individual is not deprived of freedom. In fact, he has greater liberty than an isolated man, because the state protects him and he is part of the State. Isolated man is without defence.

Terry Eagleton (from a review of Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism in the New Statesman) elucidates the connection:

Conservatives disdain the popular masses, while fascists mobilise and manipulate them. Some conservatives believe in ideas, but fascists have a marked preference for myths. If they think at all, they think through their blood, not their brain. Fascists regard themselves as a youthful, revolutionary avant-garde out to erase the botched past and create an unimaginably new future.

All supporters of the old-fashioned conception of individual liberty, whether they think of themselves as left or right, conservative or progressive, must do what can be done. Resist. We should not expect any quarter for outdated ideas under a new kind of freedom.

[cross-posted to Samizdata]

CNET News.com reports what we have knowns for some time...

Microsoft has warned that the U.K.'s national identity card plans pose a security risk that could increase the likelihood of confidential data falling into the hands of criminals.

It is frustrating that after months of debate, it is still news. I guess the real news is that it is Microsoft saying that. I particularly like this bit:

Jerry Fishenden, a top security and identity management expert at Microsoft, said that the British government's current technology proposals are flawed. He also criticized other technology suppliers for failing to speak out publicly about their concerns for fear of damaging any future bids for part of the lucrative contract for ID cards.

So what are the 30 coins worth to a technology supplier, I wonder? But before we rejoice too much, Mr Fishenden is not on concerned about the issue of ID cards and biometrics in the first place, just about a more secure and efficient way of gathering and storing the data:

I have concerns with the current architecture and the way it looks at aggregating so much personal information and biometrics in a single place. There are better ways of doing this. Even the biometrics industry says it is better to have biometrics stored locally.

Compare this:

By 2050 earlier, probably -- all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron -- they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

Syme {no relation} in 1984

with this:

People's names are already on a large number of databases. Most of us have dozens of cards in our wallets with our identities on. We already have a Big Brother society. ID cards mean identity fraud can be dealt with and stopped. ID cards are a means of controlling the Big Brother society rather than creating it. Big Brother society is already here.

Charles Clarke, quoted in the Eastern Daily Press today.

Controlling the Big Brother society might sound like preventing it, restraining it. But your expectations deceive you. Forget literary allusion. "Big Brother society" means whatever the establishment defines it to mean.

Now consider only the words, how they literally fit together. Big Brother society = our society. ID cards are a means of controlling society.

I promise only mild amusement, but sometimes mild amusement is what one needs. And there's a subtle mordancy underneath.

The latest splendid animation from Will Flash for Cash Productions in aid of the UK campaign against ID cards is here, and will explain the title of the post.

For those who missed it, their earlier biting attack on Mr Secretary Clarke and the glorious scheme using a cute musical puppy is here.

Welcome to a strange world. Sound, and familiarity with British political figures, most definitely an advantage.

Wired writes that Britain's House of Commons this week moved forward with plans to create a new national ID card, but a sharp reversal in support for the controversial measure signals a rocky road ahead.

British lawmakers voted in favor of the bill on Tuesday by an unexpectedly thin margin of 314-283. At the last minute, some members of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party revolted against the cards, which would carry fingerprints and iris scans of cardholders and be backed by a national database containing extensive personal information.

A Home Office spokeswoman said it's too early to comment on the bill's future success.

We won't speculate on the passage of a bill through parliament. It still has an awful lot of readings to go through. Anything can happen to it.

I wouldn't hold my breath as Tony Blair indicated that he will use a Parliament Act to force the legistration through. The struggle continues...

The likely cost of rolling out the UK government's current high-tech identity cards scheme will be £10.6 billion on the 'low cost' estimate of researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), without any cost over-runs or implementation problems. Key uncertainties over how citizens will behave and how the scheme will work out in practice mean that the 'high cost' estimate could go up to £19.2 billion. A median figure for this range is £14.5 billion.

The LSE report The Identity Project: an assessment of the UK Identity Cards Bill and its implications is published today (27 June) after a six month study guided by a steering group of 14 professors and involving extensive consultations with nearly 100 industry representatives, experts and researchers from the UK and around the world. The project was co-ordinated by the Department of Information Systems at LSE.

The LSE report concludes that an ID card system could offer some basic public interest and commercial sector benefits. But it also identifies six other key areas of concern with the government's existing plans:

1. Multiple purposes
2. Will the technology work?
3. Is it legal?
4. Security
5. Citizens' acceptance
6. Will ID cards benefit businesses?

To read the full text visit here. Also, you can download the executive summary of the report here and a full text (300 pages) here.

Ideal Government blog is providing a discussion space for the LSE identity project as well as for the topic of Identity cards in the UK in general. Well worth a trip over there...

Rose Prince of Mirror.co.uk writes that Tony Blair yesterday hinted he would force ID cards on the public even if they were opposed by the House of Lords. A day after the controversial scheme narrowly survived a knife-edge vote in the Commons, the Prime Minister suggested he would take a tough line with peers who tried to block his pet project.

His warning came as the head of the UK Passport Service said international con artists would be able to duplicate the technology within a decade. Bernard Herdan fuelled fears over the cost of the scheme by claiming the proposed biometric ID would need to be regularly updated to stay one step ahead of the fraudsters.

All we can do is to keep on changing the design.

Despite the growing opposition to ID cards, Mr Blair appeared to threaten the use of the Parliament Act - the device used by the House of Commons in a last resort to force legislation through the Lords.

This is insane... I wonder why?

Daily Mail reports that Labour rebels have offered an olive branch to Home Secretary Charles Clarke over his controversial plans for identity cards, inviting him to meet them to talk through their concerns.

The chairman of the Campaign Group of left-wing MPs John McDonnell, who wrote to Mr Clarke, made clear that the rebels were ready to seek compromise over his Identity Cards Bill rather than trying to wreck the legislation altogether.

The second reading of the ID cards bill was passed by 314 votes to 283, giving the government a majority of 31. In the end just 20 Labour MPs joined forces with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to oppose the ID card scheme, meaning a few abstentions swung the vote in the government's favour.

I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate £10 to a legal defence fund but only if 10,000 other people will also make this same pledge.
- Phil Booth, NO2ID National Coordinator at PledgeBank

Deadline is 9th October 2005, 2,934 people have signed up, 7066 more are needed. Those in the UK, please sign up.

Privacy expert Paul Vigay gives his Ten Reasons why you should Refuse and Boycott National ID Cards.

Silicon.com reports that government wants them and the public too seems to be warming to the idea... The UK government is preparing to reintroduce legislation paving the way for its controversial biometric identity cards. The proposed legislation was dropped in the run up to the election but the controversial bill is set to be reintroduced by Home Secretary Charles Clarke on 25th May.

Speaking in the House of Commons earlier this week, junior Home Office minister Andy Burnham said ID cards will give the public a "highly secure" way of protecting against identity theft which costs the UK economy £1.3bn a year and that support for identity cards was running at around 80 per cent. This was due to growing awareness of identity fraud.

Early analysis of the scheme that is being developed has indicated that the benefits - including to the public sector in terms of cutting fraud and the improper use of services, and to the private sector in terms of cutting identity fraud - will, when the scheme is fully operational, outweigh its cost.

Research released earlier this week reveals 57 per cent of adults aged between 16 and 64 said the controversial ID card is either their first or second preference for protecting their identity. David Porter, head of security and risk at Detica, says the problem of electoral fraud is one issue which "throws the spotlight back onto ID cards" - most notably the problem of people voting in person with no required proof of identity.

So in order to stop identity theft that has very little to do with the ability to identify people correctly and more to do with the stupidity of people guarding their details, we are going to change the balance of power between the state and the individual. No prizes for guessing which way... And the central identity database is going to make it identity theft simpler, if you ask me as you'll only have to fool one system.

The Passport Service (UKPS) is working with the Home Office on the processes required for integrating the issuing of passports with the planned national identity card scheme.

The government's ID Cards bill includes plans to set up a new independent government agency to administrate the central identity register at the heart of the scheme and to issue the cards. UKPS will be taken over by the new organisation.

According to the UKPS business plan 2005-10, published last week, a key task is establishing the business processes needed to issue passports and ID cards.

For the period 2007-10 there will be continued development of the passport processes, but also (potentially) full integration with the Identity Cards Scheme, as we move to start issuing British citizens with a passport book/identity card package and to establish the National Identity Register.

The House of Commons has passed the controversial ID card Bill by a vote of 224 to 64. It hopes to see the introduction of biometric identity cards and a central database of all UK citizens by 2010.

However, its primary sponsor, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, admitted that he expected the Bill to face stiff opposition in the House of Lords.

The system is expected to cost up to £5.5 billion to implement, and calls for a standalone biometric ID card to be issued alongside a biometric passport. It would become compulsory for everyone living in the UK, including children, by 2012.

The vote came on the same day that the US House of Representatives approved its own version of electronic ID card legislation in a 261-161 vote. The US' Real ID Act would require states to issue driver's licenses and other ID cards with physical security features such as a digital photograph and other basic data, using what the bill describes as machine-readable technology. That could include a magnetic strip or RFID tag. Tony Blair said:

The reason why this measure is supported not only by the Government but by the police and the security services is that people believe that, particularly when we have biometric passports and the biometric technology available, we can construct an identity card that gives us the best possible protection against crime and terrorism. I do not think it is wrong or a breach of anyone's civil liberties to say that we should have an identity card. Most people carry some form of identification anyway. I think it is long overdue, and we should get on and do it.

There remains a very active opposition to ID cards however and both the Conservative and LibDems have refused to support the Bill. Questions over biometrics reliability are also likely to be wide debate as the Bill progresses through the Parliamentary process.

The cities of York, Oxford and Norwich have all recently passed protest motions against against identity cards. Councillor Andrew Aalders-Dunthorne, a Labour member of Norwich City Council said:

Finger printing ordinary people and making them feel like criminals, then charging them for the pleasure, has no place in a supposedly free and liberal society. New Labour is becoming alarmingly authoritarian, to the point where even their own Council Groups cannot support them.

ID cards are an expensive white elephant designed to pander to the Daily Mail. Once people realise what the scheme actually entails and the charge they will have to pay personally, opposition will grow.

Apparently, Norwich and York City Councils - which have also affiliated to the campaign group NO2ID - have stated that ID cards will not be required for access to council services, and that the cities will refuse to cooperate with the scheme as far as possible within the law.

(Crossposted from the Adam Smith Institute Blog.)

William Heath, writing on the Ideal Government blog, points out the trouble that some universities have been experiencing with their campus ID card schemes. At George Mason University, hackers managed to get 30,000 names, photos and social security numbers of its students from its ID cards database. "The sickening logic," says Heath, "is that these ill-conceived university ID systems make appealing targets for identity thieves, and that a compulsory UK ID system will be far more appealing still."

In other words, it is quite possible that terrorist organizations will get copies of the UK identity card database. This information could then be used to help them plan attacks on the UK.

James Hammerton lays into Charles Clarke and his feeble argument for ID cards in the UK. He unearths some hillarious points, well would be hillarious if not for the topic, about the cost of the wretched scheme:

Take for example benefit fraud. He states:

Moreover, their help in tackling fraud will save tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Some £50 million a year is claimed illegally from the benefits systems using false identities. This money can be far better spent improving schools and hospitals and fighting crime and antisocial behaviour.

However according to the govt's own regulatory impact assessment (see clause 19):

The current best estimate is that the additional running costs of the new Agency to issue ID cards on a wider basis will be £85m pa when averaged over a ten year period. A further £50m pa is the estimate for the average cost over ten years of the verification service but this would not fall on the individual card holder.

Thus the system is already projected at costing more than twice as much as could possibly be saved from benefit fraud on the govt's own figures!

James concludes:

At any rate, I'd expect those wishing to fool the system to use the long roll out to study the system and the scanners intently for weaknesses. Given government incompetence, the technical limitations of biometrics and the sheer ambition of what the govt's attempting, it seems to me quite clear that it'll be lucky if it makes any positive impact on fighting identity fraud or any other problem the govt has cited at all.

Does this mean we have nothing to worry about? Not quite. Most law abiding people will cooperate with the system, and the system may well thus "work" for this section of the population. Thus law abiding people will find themselves subjected to a licence to live, intrusive surveillance and a bureacracy capable of meddling in just about every area their lives thanks to the card. The criminals and terrorists won't.

Go and read the whole thing.

The ID card bill has been passed...

Government plans for national identity cards were approved by the Commons last night despite more than a quarter of MPs not voting.

Although Conservative and Labour rebels failed to derail the Identity Cards Bill, they provoked a highly embarrassing mass abstention.

Horrible news indeed and Bill Cash had the right idea:

At one stage Bill Cash (C, Stone) brandished a copy of George Orwell's novel 1984 at the Home Secretary, challenging him to repudiate claims that the measure would effect a "sea change" in the relationship between state and individual.

The Guardian issues a rallying cry:

To be anonymous, to go privately, to move residence without telling the authorities is a fundamental liberty which is about to be taken from us. People may not choose to exercise this entitlement to privacy, or see the point of it, but once it's gone and a vast database is built, eventually to be accessed by every tentacle of the government machine, we will never be able to claw it back. We are about to surrender a right which is precious, rare even in western democracies, and profoundly emblematic of our culture and civilisation. And what for? The government advances arguments of necessity, raising the threats of terrorism, organised crime, benefit fraud and illegal immigration.

We must not imagine that respect for individual liberty is innate to the British establishment. With this bill, the government is attempting to change for ever the relationship between the individual and the state in the state's favour. Those who treasure liberty must not let it pass.

Hear, hear.

In a detailed post about about the Identity Cards Bill Chris Lightfoot makes this point:

...Hilariously, they haven't even fixed s.12(4) in which

The things that an individual may be required to do under subsection (3) are--
(a) to attend at a specified place and time; [...]

-- this is the same as in the draft, and they haven't even bothered to add `reasonable' as many responses to the consultation suggested. Presumably if some bored Crapita employee does send out a notice of the form,

You are required to attend the summit of Mt. Snowdon at 0300h tomorrow morning so that we can take your fingerprints; failure to attend will be punished by a civil penalty of £1,000. Do not pass `go'.

the courts will eventually tell him to go fuck himself, but we have to wait to find out.

In his Telegraph column, Boris Johnson comes out strongly, and in his inimitable way, against ID cards in Britain. He goes for the proposal's jugular, which has nothing to do with anti-terrorism and security and all to do with control and commmand.

I say all this in the knowledge that so many good, gentle, kindly readers will think I have taken leave of my senses, and to all of you I can only apologise and add, in the words of Barry Goldwater, that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice, and that I really don't know what I dislike most about these cards.

...

Worse than the cost and the bother, however, there is the sheer dishonesty of the arguments in favour. If I understood Her Majesty correctly, her Government conceives of these cards as essential weapons in the "war" on terror.

Perhaps it's the latest 'release' from Tory constraints, so to speak, that allows Boris to heave a sigh:

All these points I have made these past few years, up and down the country, and the most frustrating thing is that these objections cut absolutely no ice (unlike, as I say, the cards themselves) with good, solid, kindly, gentle Conservative audiences.

My audience were all gluttons for freedom, if by that you meant the freedom to hunt, or the freedom to eat roast beef without the fat trimmed off. But they were perfectly happy to see their own liberties curtailed, if that gave the authorities a chance to crack down on scroungers and bogus asylum-seekers.

Indeed. If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear! Now, where have I heard this before...?

And the final exhortation:

And there, I fear, the debate has come to rest. To all those who yearn for ID cards, and who would extinguish the flame of liberty in the breath of public panic, I make this final appeal. Read this week's Spectator, with its terrifying account by a man arrested and jailed for having a penknife and an anti-burglar baton locked in the boot of his car, and then imagine what use the cops could make of the further powers they are acquiring to inspect and control.

Yes, we have, Boris and 'tis a very scary read.

The No2ID campaign has established an e-petition aimed at 10 Downing Street demanding the end to plans for imposing mandatory ID cards and pervasive state databases recording a vast range of what you do in your life.

The No2ID campaigners have taken the line of principled objection, given that the government seem to have decided that there is no longer any room for public debate and refuses to engage with serious - and growing - civil liberty and privacy concerns with the scheme. The Home Office have not met once with civil liberties organisations yet say their concerns have been addressed whilst at the same time avoiding public meetings but at the same time having private briefing with technology partners for introducing the schemes.

Take a stand and make your voice heard while you still can at www.no2id-petition.net. Time is fast running out.

The state is not your friend.

Silicon.com reports that despite government figures showing growing opposition the government will now issue standalone compulsory biometric ID cards as part of changes to the draft ID card bill issued by Home Secretary David Blunkett.

The cards will be issued with passports but will not be incorporated into either the existing passport or driving licence as previously proposed, with a standardised online verification service used to check card details against those held on the National Identity Register (NIR). Blunkett said:

I will now bring forward legislation to bring in a compulsory, national ID card scheme.

A new executive agency incorporating the UK Passport Service and working with the Home Office's Immigration and Nationality Directorate will now be set up to deliver and run the ID card scheme.

The Government would not agree with the use of the word 'sensitive' to describe most of the data to be collected and stored. Most of the data which will be held by the scheme is already public and is used routinely in everyday transactions, like opening a bank account or joining a library.

The ID card consultation summary can be found here and the Home Office's response to the select committee report can be found here.

NO2ID is launching its activities publicly:

Saturday, 18 September
11:00an - 2:00pm
The Corner Store
Covent Garden
33 Wellington Street, London, WC2E 7BN, Map

There will be a couple of speakers before lunch, including a Labour 'rebel', Neil Gerrard MP followed by campaigning around central London, i.e. handing out leaflets, setting up stalls on the street in a number of locations until mid-afternoon.

Please join them to Stop ID Cards and the Database State!

The NO2ID Coalition, who are trying to make sure Blunkett fails in his attempts to introduce mandatory ID cards, argue that:

• An ID scheme won't stop terrorists
• An ID scheme will not control illegal immigration
• An ID scheme won't enable you to have anything you do not already have
• An ID scheme will cost billions in taxpayers money and achieve nothing
• An ID scheme will mean your most intimate details will be controlled by the government forever
• An ID scheme will cost everyone £75 every year

I missed this one earlier in August about shoppers in Swansea joining a trial of a high-tech ID card that could become compulsory under Home Office plans. But better late than never.

Volunteers are being asked to have fingerprints, irises, and facial details recorded as part of the UK Passport Service (UKPS) trial. The experiment aims to weed out problems and get public feedback before the planned introduction date of 2007.

It is the only Welsh trial as the UK Passport Service looks for 10,000 volunteers across the UK over six months. Volunteers will get a demonstrator "smart card" containing their details on an electronic chip. It is planned to include biometrics (facial features) in passports and to build a base for the national compulsory identity cards scheme.

Biometric testing of face, eye and fingerprints could soon be used on every resident of the UK to create compulsory identity cards. BBC News Online's Tom Geoghegan volunteered for a pilot scheme and looked, unblinking, into the future.

What was interesting about article that it is obvious that Home Office is trying to make the process as 'palatable' to people, so it is not too Big Brotherish...

This isn't a test of the technology - that's likely to change in the future as things move on - it's the process. We're looking for customer reactions and perceptions, and any particular difficulties.

Just don't make it feel like Big Brother although that's what you'll be getting.

Washington Post reports that the State Department is moving ahead with a plan to implant electronic identification chips in U.S. passports that will allow computer matching of facial characteristics, despite warnings that the technology is prone to a high rate of error.

Under State Department specifications finalized this month for companies to bid on the new system, a chip woven into the cover of the passport would contain a digital photograph of the traveler's face. That photo could then be compared with an image of the traveler taken at the passport control station, and also matched against photos of people on government watch lists.

But federal researchers who have tested face-recognition technology say its error rate is unacceptably high - up to 50 percent if photographs are taken without proper lighting.

They then proceed to make a case for fingerprinting that has a lower error rate. Yeah, that will make things much better.

While face recognition is set as a standard, countries could add one or two other approved biometrics: fingerprints and scans of the eye's iris. Several European countries are considering adding fingerprints to their passports. And branding with fire. Oops the last one wasn't in the news.

Rebecca Dornbusch, deputy director of the International Biometric Industry Association is quotes as saying:

The important thing to recognize is that it [face-recognition requirement] is an improvement. [The State Department should] continue to implement as many biometrics as they can, so they can ensure . . . the most secure protection.

Oh really, and how about the most secure revenue stream to the International Biometric Industry Association.

Phil Booth of Infinite Ideas Machine and No2ID campaign draws our attention to the imminent deadline for the Home Office consultation period on ID cards bill, 20th July 2004.

He urges us, correctly, to send individual objections to the Draft ID cards Bill and I would like to pass that on to White Rose readers. There are still a few hours left!

Just in case you need any inspiration he has published the full text of his e-mail submission to the Home Office consultation on ID cards.

He also points his readers to Spy Blog's excellent annotated blog of the Draft Bill, Mark Simpkins' equally excellent blog of the entire consultation document. For those with some time on their hands he recommends reading Stand.org.uk's submission [219KB MS Word document].

Please do send something (even if it's just a simple 'I am against the proposed scheme and legislation' type mail) to identitycards@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk, making sure the words 'consultation response' appear in the Subject line.

Thanks.

Plans for a national ID card scheme risk changing the relationship between the British state and its citizens, the information watchdog has warned.

Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner, said he had initially greeted the plans with "healthy scepticism" but the details had changed his view to "increasing alarm". The government hopes a pilot scheme will pave the way for compulsory identity cards within the next decade. Mr Thomas told MPs the scheme was "unprecedented" in international terms.

Mr Thomas told the MPs that it was now clear the scheme was not just about identity cards but about a national identity register.

This is beginning to represent a really significant sea change in the relationship between state and every individual in this country.

It is not just about citizens having a piece of plastic to identify themselves. It's about the amount, the nature of the information held about every citizen and how that's going to be used in a wide range of activities.

Mr Thomas said that if the ID cards did work out as the government planned they would be "a very, very attractive proposition for criminals".

Yes, let's see whether Mr Thomas's words make any difference to Big Blunkett... I guess not.

A belated account of Mistaken Identity, a public meeting on ID cards that took place in London last week. Unfortunately, we missed it as we were in Geneva protesting against something else. Fortunately, Stand have recorded the event and Privacy International has the full address by the President of The Law Society.

Thanks to infinite ideas machine (link now added to the blogroll)

The UK government's biometric ID card trial is gathering momentum with Glasgow the latest city to go live with iris, fingerprint and facial recognition testing. The nationwide trial aims to enrol 10,000 volunteers around the UK who will have their biometric details recorded and put on a chip in a mock smart card. Testing started in April in London and will run through until August.

Glasgow now joins London, Leicester and Newcastle in the project and a mobile unit will travel around other parts of the country including Wales and the Home Counties.

The project has been hit by some teething problems in pre-trial tests, which highlighted defects in collecting and reading some of the biometric data. Civil liberties and privacy groups this week also formed an alliance in opposition to the introduction of ID cards to the UK.

Those are the words of Simon Moores of Zentelligence (Research) writing in Computer Weekly.

In a review of last week's London public meeting, Moores begins by saying:

Never had I seen a pillar of government policy look so demonstrably fragile and flawed.

Blunkett's ID card argument is specious and really not worth the plastic it may be printed on.

Cross-posted from the UK ID Cards blog

Register notes that UK public support for ID cards is declining, while opposition is hardening, and a surprising number - perhaps five million - would be prepared to take to the streets in opposition, according to a new opinion poll released today. The results, although they still show 61 per cent in support of the scheme, show committed opposition in sufficient numbers for poll tax-style disruption to be a very real possibility.

Since last month's Detica survey, numbers strongly opposed to any kind of ID card have doubled from 6 per cent to 12 per cent. Within the opposition 28 per cent, which would translate as 4.9 million in the population as a whole, say they would participate in demonstrations, 16 per cent (2.8 million) would get involved in "civil disobedience" and 6 per cent (around a million) would be prepared to go to prison rather than register for a card. Talk is of course cheap at this stage, but this is still an indication of seriously vehement opposition just a few weeks after the scheme was unveiled, and even the more favourable (for the Government) Detica poll showed quite clearly that the vast majority of people knew practically nothing of what the scheme entailed. And the more they learn, the less they may like it.

The latest survey was commissioned by Privacy International and conducted by YouGov, and obviously its intentions differ from the Detica survey, so the results are not always directly comparable. But some of the most interesting numbers stem from the differences. YouGov found that in addition to losing numbers, support is weakening, with people less sure, and rather lower numbers prepared to go for a compulsory scheme (which, ultimately, it will be). And some of the key components are decisively rejected by the public as a whole, which is what you might call a bit of a problem. Most (47 per cent versus 41 per cent) don't want to have to tell the government when they change their address, and 24 per cent strongly oppose revealing it in the first place.

It is of course utterly illogical for people to be in favour of the scheme while opposing aspects of it whose removal would render it (as currently envisaged) unworkable. But The Detica poll also showed that support of the scheme was based on some pretty staggering misconceptions, so perhaps what we have here is a picture of a nation on its way to an education - as they join the dots up, it's surely rather more likely that they'll begin to reject the scheme as a whole, rather than, say, concluding it's OK for the government to keep tabs on your address after all.

Link via Curiouser and curiouser!

Belgium is to begin issuing biometric passports before the end of the year, while in the US (which could be said to have started all this), the State Department is to begin a trial run this autumn, with full production hoped for next year. Register speculates:

The apparent ease with which these countries appear to be switching passport standards does raise just the odd question about the UK's very own ID card scheme, which proposes to ship its first biometric passports not soon, but in three years. Regular readers will recall that Home Secretary David Blunkett justifies the ID card scheme on the basis that most of the cost is money we'd have to spend anyway, because we need to upgrade our passports to meet US and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) standards, and that by making this investment the UK will be putting itself ahead of the game, technology-wise, and that we shall all therefore be technology leaders and rich.

The biometric passport system the US intends to use simply seems to be an addition of the necessary machine readable capabilities to the existing system. Passport applications, including photograph, will still be accepted via mail, and the picture will then be encoded, added to the database and put onto the chip that goes in the passport. As you may note, a picture is in these terms a biometric, while a camera is a biometric reader, which they are. But don't noise it around, or you'll screw the revenues of an awful lot of snake-oil salesmen.

Back in the UK, we are of course rather more rigorous in our interpretation of the matter, and the system and its schedule will be priced accordingly. But should we worry about losing our lead? No, not exactly. We should worry about spending a great deal of money on a system which will largely police ourselves, and which - in the event of it actually working - will probably turn out to be a huge white elephant.

If something sounds too good to be true then it is most likely untrue but if something sounds too bad to be true you can probably take it to the bank.

If there is anything axiomatic about that proposition then perhaps I should claim proprietory rights on it and call it 'Carr's Law' or something. I am not sure how much use this law will prove to be on a practical day-to-day basis but it may oblige as a useful yardstick against which to measure my natural cynicism about opinion polls, surveys and related statistical exercises.

For example, take this one, published last month:

David Blunkett has pledged to push ahead with ID card legislation after an opinion poll said most people would be happy to carry one.

The MORI survey was commissioned by an IT consultancy which has worked on projects with the government.

It revealed 80% of those questioned backed a national ID card scheme, echoing findings from previous polls.

And published yesterday:

Most people would support closing a legal loophole that allows parents to smack their children, says a survey.

A total of 71% of people would favour such a ban, according to a survey commissioned by the Children are Unbeatable! Alliance.

And published today:

A majority of British adults favour a total ban on smoking in public places, a survey suggests.

A poll of more than 1,500 people by market analysts Mintel found 52% support for a ban, including two-thirds of non-smokers.

Despite my ingrained reluctance to pay these wretched surveys even a jot of heed, I do accept that a sufficient number of such polling exercises (if conducted scientifically and honestly) can, correctly identify a trend if not quite reveal great truths.

The Government is quick to latch on to polls that seem to support its position. Let's see how they like this one:

A recent poll by independent research group yougov shows that 61% of people support ID Cards in principle, way down from the previously claimed 80%. Almost half objected to the proposals in the draft Bill to force innocent citizens to keep the Government informed of their address. Other measures in the draft Bill such as being fined for not telling the Government of a lost card were fiercely opposed.

It seems that the more the British people learn about Big Blunkett's plans the angrier they get.

The poll found opposition to compulsory ID Cards was so strong that almost five million British citizens are prepared to join protest marches. In addition, a massive three million people would be prepared to take part in civil disobedience in order to scupper the oppressive plans.

Opposition was particular strong amongst those aged under thirty where 34% were "strongly opposed" to the plans.

Commenting on the results Simon Davies of Privacy International said: "What this survey suggests is that the government is staring down the barrel of another Poll Tax revolt, but on a larger scale."

Full story at ePolitix.com.

Detailed poll results (pdf format) at: Privacy International

PS: If you're in London, don't forget the public meeting this afternoon.

Cross-posted from uk-id-cards.blogcity.com

It is my belief that unless we demonstrate that ID cards are not only complex, unnecessary, difficult to implement and expensive but also above all detrimental to the objective they are trying to achieve e.g. security, we will not capture the imagination of those who can't think off-hand why Big Blunkett should not have his way with ID cards. After all, we have nothing to hide and we all use driving licenses, credit cards, store and loyalty cards etc, etc.

We need to spell out more often just what kind of danger an ID card and similar attempts by states to hoard and tag its citizens pose to the individual.

Darren Andrews of Freedom-Central.Net does just that in a structured and erudite manner. He looks at the liberties that will be lost if a government ID card system is introduced:

Principle 1: Governments receive their just powers from the governed
Principle 2: The Right to the Presumption of Innocence
Principle 3: The Right to Anonymity and Privacy
Principle 4: The Right to Free Speech

This sentence should resound throughout the debate:

Freedom is not about opinion, it is about principle because there is an unchanging commonality in people that regards neither time nor place, and there are unalterable laws that govern human life and all who are a part of it.

Read the whole thing...

A free public meeting is being held in London next week to discuss the Government's Identity Card plans. A number of high profile figures will be speaking at this important meeting, so if you're in London try to get along. Let's show Big Blunkett and the media that there is massive public resistance to this scheme.

More details and registration information at:

The Independent reports that Blair is planning a short autumn session of Parliament. This is to allow a clear run to next year's General Election.

In the limited time available, Blair has reportedly asked Ministers to prioritise two Bills: The Europe Bill and Big Blunkett's discredited ID Card Bill.

So expect every political trick in the book to be used to get the Bill through both Houses with a minimum of reasoned debate.

It is often said that rushed legislation is bad legislation. When legislation starts out as badly as Blunkett's ID Card scheme and is then rushed it can only get worse.

The imposition of ID Cards on innocent British citizens is a major constitutional change for which the Government has no mandate. Any vote on such a controversial issue must be a free vote.

To rush it through Parliament in this way would be an insult not just to the British public but also to democracy.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

Long eyelashes and watery eyes could thwart iris scanning technology used for the government's ID card trial. An MP who volunteered to take part in the trial at the UK Passport Service headquarters in London complained the scanning was uncomfortable.

Home Affairs Select Committee member Bob Russell, who suffers from an eye complaint, said his eyes watered and staff were unable to scan his iris. Project director Roland Sables told MPs:

The pundits tell us that we should expect 7% across the board to fail with iris recognition, mainly due to positioning in front of the camera. Others are due to eye malformations, watery eyes and long eyelashes in a small percentage.

Hard contact lenses could also prove problematic. Mr Russell expressed concern about the scanning after his experience.

I think this is going to cause serious problems for people who suffer with bright lights and people with epilepsy. I think it will be necessary at every machine to have at least one member of staff who is a qualified first aider to a high level. I can see people keeling over with epileptic fits.

People with faint fingerprints would also be unable to register on the system, as would manual labourers, particularly those who work with cement or shuffle paper regularly, Mr Sables told the MPs.

The Plan is that by 2013, 80% of the population are expected to have a biometric passport or driving licence, at which point the government will decide whether to make the ID cards compulsory. The remaining 20% are presumably construction workers with long eyelashes, wearing hard contact lenses and suffering from epileptic fits...

CNET News.com reports technical problems have delayed the British government's trials for biometric ID cards by three months. The failure of fingerprint and iris-recognition equipment caused the delay, Home Secretary David Blunkett told members of Parliament this week.

The trial, involving the registration of 10,000 volunteers to record and test biometric ID data, was originally due to launch in February but did not begin until last week. As a result, the length of the project has been cut from six months to three months.

Note how the trial is shortened as a solution to the delay...

A representative for the Home Office told Silicon.com that the problems have now been rectified.

We have to make sure it is correctly configured before launching it. It's essential we get the first installation right before it is rolled out across the country. We'll learn our lessons from this. There were issues of failure in the equipment, but those have been rectified and the technical problems have been ironed out.

Hopefully, famous last words...

Well, no prizes for having seen this one coming. From the Sunday Times headline: When you're £30,000 down, ID cards look good. So says Sara Smith, a victim of identity theft.

Of course, nowhere in the article does the journalist, Rachel Cooke, make even a halfhearted attempt to explain the reality of ID card technology. Instead, she writes, "For [Sara Smith], a national ID card cannot arrive too soon." Yes, a national ID card, any national ID card -- don't tell us if it can actually do what it says on the tin, just introduce one and make us feel a bit more falsely secure, please.

Cooke's article does reveal, though not in so many words, exactly why it was so easy for Sara Smith's identity to be used without her consent: Sara Smith let it happen.

Smith’s troubles began when she moved home. She arranged for her post to be redirected but, for reasons that are still uncertain, this was never done: her post continued to arrive at her old home, which was why she did not notice when her new Harrods store card failed to materialise. “If only I had,” she says. “That little piece of plastic was the start of it all.”

Some weeks later Smith received a telephone call. On the line was a man who purported to be from Harrods. “We are upgrading your card,” he told her. “Would you mind answering a few security questions?”

At first Smith protested, saying she had no need of more credit. However, she found herself telling him her date of birth and her mother’s maiden name.

It's not that I have no sympathy for Sara Smith; I certainly do. But when you consider her amazing new way of managing her most confidential business -- not automatically trusting anyone who calls up asking for personal details, keeping a vigilant eye out for financial documents that fail to arrive in the post, actually looking at the statements for her "few accounts" -- is really the way she should have been doing things all along, it does drive home the point that a bit of common sense is the best protection we all have against identity theft. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and when it comes to ID cards, the "cure" is flawed both inherently and practically.

The new Wired has an article about a survey by MORI that found out that about 80 per cent of 1,000 British adults want a biometric identification card, citing concerns about illegal immigration and identity theft.

Though the survey shows that most Britons back national identity cards, there's a wrinkle: Half said they won't pay for it, and few were very familiar with the cards. Contrast that with the government's plan to charge 35 pounds for an identity card good for 10 years, or 77 pounds for a card including passport, for every family member 16 to 80 years old.

Concerns about Big Brother? Try "bumbling brother," with 58 percent of surveyed Britons predicting the government won't be able to roll out new ID cards smoothly, and one-third saying their stored information won't be safe. Still, most support such cards, principally to tackle illegal immigration and identity theft. The latter costs the United Kingdom 1.3 billion pounds per year.

In the United States, popular opinion and embarrassing biometric-test failures have blunted overt national ID card efforts, though U.S. passports and some states' driver's licenses will store biometric information soon, leading privacy activists to warn the IDs could become de facto national IDs.

A letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph, from Dr Chris Williams, European Centre for the Study of Policing, Open University, Milton Keynes:

One problem with the proposal for a national ID card (News, Apr 27) is the security of the information in its "clean" database.

Although police all sign the Official Secrets Act, and are well paid, well supervised and largely trustworthy, at least one policeman has been sent to prison for selling the information on the Police National Computer to the highest bidder - in this case, credit reference agencies. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary recorded their concern over this practice in 1999 and recommended measures to stop it, yet the Police Complaints Commission admitted in 2002 that "there will always be a few officers willing to risk their careers by obtaining data improperly".

So we can't trust the police to keep a sensitive database watertight. Can we trust other state institutions or outsourcing companies such as Capita? To be usable, an ID card database has to be accessible by hundreds of thousands of people. And the security has to be permanent.

In 1938, the Gestapo took over the files of Interpol's predecessor when they entered Vienna. If we put all our data eggs in one basket, we need to be certain that a DVD with all our details on it never gets to al-Qa'eda, the IRA or the unknown evils that the future doubtless holds.

James Hammerton's Blog has a sound fisking of two pro-ID card articles published in the Times yesterday.

Michael Gove, author of one of the Times articles argues that given the changed circumstances of the 21st century we may need to reexamine this prejudice [prejudice against the state exercising arbitrary authority] where, in the west at least, the main threat to individuals comes not from state power as it did in the 20th century, but from terrorists who have the will and may get the means to carry out slaughter on a horrendous scale.

James spots the consistency in the Home Secretary's policies:

To take the last part of that first, I'd respond that Blunkett has not merely "rethought" civil liberites, he (and Straw before him and Howard before him) has set out to dismantle them plain and simple. A "rethinking" would not have attacked every single protection across the board. The right to a jury trial, the presumption of innocence, the right to security of property, freedom of expression, freedom of association, doctor-patient confidentiality, lawyer-client confidentiality, freedom from arbitrary surveillance, the right to protest, all of these have been sytematically eroded. Every year since 1999 (before 9/11!), the government has produced bills with swingeing attacks on civil liberties. Only a small proportion of them could possibly be justified on the grounds they may help protect us from terrorism. Even where such measures can protect us from terrorism they've often been applied broadly weakening protections when the authorities are investigating crime in general rather than just terrorism.

He concludes with the point that cannot be repeated laudly and often enough:

Thus the state incompetence or inability to actually control would be terrorists and criminals and the odd clever civil libertarian via the system does not transfer to the state's ability to control the law abiding majority with the system. The cynical might suggest that controlling the majority is the whole point, whilst crime fighting and dealing with terrorism are just the sales packaging.

Read the whole thing, as they say...

Says government's partner for passport trials…

Silicon.com reports that the company behind the biometric technology being used by the UK passport office says biometric IDs will happen - and they will happen with the blessing of the majority of UK citizens.

NEC technology is being used by the UK government in the roll-out of biometric IDs and, having already been involved in similar schemes worldwide, the company is confident that the UK implementation will be a success despite vocal opposition from "a noisy minority".

The roll-out won't be without problems, according to Gohringer, but he anticipates that the problems will owe far more to the complicated logistics of getting everybody signed up than to the issue of end-user opposition.

People need to realise this is not going to harm them - if anything it is going to be beneficial to them.

However, Gohringer believes that those opposed to the systems are actually a very vocal minority, making enough noise to get themselves noticed. He cited recent research – supported by that conducted by silicon.com – which shows strong support for biometric identification.

Mr Gohringer just does not get it. In his world the state is probably just doing its job and those who do not see that are just so... unreasonable. And in any case, they should be silenced by all the civilised and sensible people, you know, the majority. As we are so fond of saying here, the state is not your friend and anything that looks like infringment of your freedom, most definitely is. Despite the purported 'benefits' that the measure should bring. The government should be justifying its existence to you on a daily basis, not you proving your identity to the government.

Our worthy commenters yesterday mentioned the Big Blunkett's nasty pre-emptive move against those who might object against ID cards by refusing to have one. The Guardian has more details.

People who refuse to register or cooperate with the proposed compulsory national identity card scheme will face a "civil financial penalty" of up to £2,500, according to the draft legislation published by the government yesterday. But the home secretary, David Blunkett, insisted that nobody would face imprisonment or criminal court action for failing to pay, because he had no desire to create ID card "martyrs".

The draft legislation confirms that Cabinet sceptics have secured an assurance that while the scheme remains voluntary ID cards cannot be used as a condition of access to any public service currently provided free of charge, such as the NHS, or to receive social security benefits.

I want to know how long it will take before I will not be able to withdraw my money from a bank without an ID cards or sign-up for broadband, utilities and other everyday tasks...

The state is not your friend.

Computerworld reports that the U.K. Passport Service (UKPS) launched its six-month trial of biometric technology involving 10,000 volunteers, the same day that the U.K. government introduced a draft bill that could mandate compulsory biometric identity cards and a central database of all of its citizens.

As proposed by U.K. Secretary of State for the Home Department David Blunkett in November, the ID cards would carry biometric identifiers in an embedded chip, which would be linked to a secure national database called the National Identity Register.

The draft bill introduced today will be followed by a period of consultation, during which the public and politicians can voice their concerns or support of the proposal. The finalized bill will be introduced to Parliament sometime in the last three months of this year and will most likely become law before the next general election, which is expected to take place in the second quarter of 2005, Blunkett said.

The database would be created by 2010, and by 2013 ministers would decide if the ID cards would become compulsory for all U.K. citizens through the use of biometric passports or driver's licenses. Though citizens would have to own and pay for the ID cards, they most likely wouldn't be forced to carry them at all times, Blunkett said.

Blunkett has repeatedly hailed the biometric ID cards as a powerful weapon in the government's fight against identity fraud, illegal workers, illegal immigration, terrorism and the illegal use of the National Health System (NHS) as well as other government entitlement programs.

The database is expected to contain information such as name, address, date of birth, gender, immigration status and a confirmed biometric feature such as electronic fingerprint, a scan of the eye's iris or of a full face, according to a Home Office spokesman.

The UKPS trial will test for all three biometric traits: electronic fingerprints, iris scans and full-face scans, according to Caroline Crouch, a spokeswoman for Atos Origin SA, the Paris-based company running the trial for the government.

This is the first time that three different biometric technologies from three different suppliers have been integrated into one solution. The technical challenges may also account for why the trial, launched at Globe House, the London Passport Office, is three months behind the originally announced launch date.

Oh, joy... But there is a good fight put up by the Law Society in its official response to the program. Apart from technology issues, the professional body for lawyers in England and Wales has expressed concerns that the program is too wide-reaching and that the Home Office has been unable to prove it would stop identity fraud.

The Government has failed to show that similar schemes in other countries have helped to reduce identity fraud. Indeed, in the U.S., the universal use of Social Security numbers - a scheme not unlike the one the U.K. Government is proposing - has led to a huge growth in identity fraud.

Despite a compulsory identity card scheme, France continues to battle problems such as illegal working, illegal immigration and identity fraud - the very things the Home Office hopes to address with identity cards. If an identity card has not eliminated these challenges in France, what makes the Home Office believe that these problems can be resolved with an identity card scheme in the U.K.?

Janet Paraskeva, the chief executive of the Law Society concludes an article in Law Gazette with a useful reminder:

History shows that all types of cards are forgeable. From National Insurance numbers to passports, each scheme has been riddled with technological problems and linked with forgery and a profitable black market. The government's proposals do not inspire confidence that practical problems will be effectively addressed or principled fears allayed. It is the Law Society's view that the case for identity cards has not yet been made, and extreme caution should be exercised before the government plunges headlong into implementing these proposals.

Quite. I am yet to hear one truly convincing argument for ID cards. It seems there is about five 'arguments' for ID cards - immigration and asylum seekers, NHS, terrorism, identity fraud and 'what-does-it-matter-we-already-have-passports-driving-licences-and-store/loyalty cards... None of these bear closer examination and each raises practical and civil liberties objections. However, the majority of the population probably believes in at least one of them (they all agree that paying for is a bad idea) and so the government does not need to make a clear case, as most people make it for themselves.

Unless a clear and forceful case is made about how ID cards will make matters worse for each one of us, I cannot see how the Big Blunkett will be stopped.

Another article in The Times on ID and the ID Bill that will give officers right to scan eyes. The Home Secretary’s long-awaited draft Bill on ID cards, published today, will attempt to reassure civil liberties opponents by confirming that it will not be obligatory to carry the card even if, as expected, the scheme becomes compulsory in the next decade.

But police will be able to take biometric data from suspects on the spot if they are not in possession of their card. Officers would then be able to check the national database to find out who the suspect is.

Remember Minority Report?

The Times reports that David Blunkett will today publish his draft Bill on identity cards. Tim Hames writes:

Unless obliged to do so for professional reasons, I have no intention of reading it. He can appear in as many radio and television studios as he likes, talking about the virtues of his blueprint, but I will not listen to him. I neither desire nor need to know about the provisions of his forthcoming pilot scheme either. I am against it.

Not just a little bit against it, either. I am eye-swivellingly, limb-twitchingly, mouth-foamingly hostile to the enterprise. And, as will become starkly obvious, pretty unpersuadable to boot.

That works for us... We also like his summing up of the arguments against ID cards in Britain that he finds compelling:

It seems to me that there are three basic arguments against introducing ID cards in Britain which are so compelling that they should immediately end any discussion on the subject. These are “whose body is it anyway?”, “why should I have to?” and “it’s not British”.

The “whose body is it anyway?” thesis is in many ways the simplest. The cards are not the problem with this proposal, it is the implications they have for identity. The State exists because we individuals choose to permit it to exist, not the other way round. I might volunteer data to the authorities but bureaucrats and politicians are not entitled to obtain access to my personal details.

I am against ID cards for the same reason that I am vociferously opposed to the idea, put about by the donor card lobby, that parts of me should be whipped away on death unless I opt out of their beloved programme. It is my identity and I have every intention of keeping it.

The “why should I have to?” assertion is no less powerful. ID cards are, in theory, a weapon in the War on Terror. Now I am well aware that a small set of fruitcakes out there have convinced themselves that if they blow me up while I travel on the Central Line into work, then they will secure some kind of “Get Into Heaven, Free” pass. I think we should be draconian with them.

Let Mr Blunkett’s men follow them around, tap their telephone calls, lock them up without charge and throw away the key (although, admittedly, al-Qaeda’s de facto allies in the legal fraternity may well release them).

I personally couldn't agree more with his cry:

Forget the Magna Carta when it comes to Osama bin Laden and his lackeys. I do not, though, see why the existence of these fanatics should compel me to carry, and at all times, a piece of plastic, possibly containing a photograph, which, if the mug shot accompanying this column is any indication, is hardly destined to be flattering. There must be a better way of dealing with terrorism.

Can anyone spot which continental country he means?

Finally, the real clincher, "it’s not British". ID cards occur in dubious continental countries whose constitutions keep collapsing, which have been democracies for about 20 minutes and where the policemen wear funny-shaped hats and carry firearms. They do not happen here.

And a rousing finale:

So my sincere advice to the Home Secretary, who in most regards is a quite splendid chap, is to abandon this legislation. If you cannot move me on this matter, a person who is otherwise a model of moderation, pragmatism and sanity, then your chances of convincing an utterly unreasonable bunch of headcases such as the House of Lords that this is a decent idea are minimal.

Furthermore, do not take at face value opinion polls which imply that 80 per cent of the electorate favour ID cards. What they mean is that eight out of ten voters believe that other people should have to suffer the inconvenience of carting them around. As far as I am concerned, the letters ID stand for the place that this draft Bill should be directed. In the Dustbin.

Hear, hear.

Thanks to Alex Singleton for the link.

The Guardian reports that thousands of Muslim women will be exempted from having to show their faces on identity cards as the Government moves to allay fears among British Muslims that the new cards will be used to target them in the 'war on terror'.

As David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, faced attack for not allowing enough debate over the introduction of the first ID cards in Britain since the Second World War, officials made it clear that if Muslim women do not want to reveal their faces in public, that would be respected. Instead of a photograph, there would be an exemption for certain people, who would only have to give fingerprint and iris-recognition data.

How about wearing a veil and refusing to be taken a photo on 'religious grounds'. It may be worth a try...

As if to address Trevor's post from Tuesday, QinetiQ gives evidence to Home Affairs Select Committee on 'ID cards' promising that cards which hold information confirming an individual's identity, could be produced for far less than £30. Neil Fisher, QinetiQ's director of security solutions, who gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee today, outlined the potential 'benefits' of an appropriate biometric identity authentication system - one that incorporates a unique physical signature such as facial recognition.

Encapsulating individuals' biometrics in one or more authentication devices will ensure that their identity cannot be stolen and that they can prove, swiftly and simply, that they are who they say they are. In today's digital age, this will give them secure access to a huge range of services. Additionally, if a portable data storage device like a barcode is used, it can link people irrefutably to their possessions - to their luggage at an airport, to their cars, and even to their baby in a maternity ward.

Absolutely, just moving the cattle, move along, nothing to see here. But why do I have to prove, 'swiftly and simply, that I am who I say I am? Missing the point here, Mr Fisher...

We automatically assume that the so-called smart chips, which are relatively expensive, will be used in identity authentication devices such as ID cards. But by using current technologies like 2D barcodes or memory sticks, which cost from fractions of a penny to less than £1 to produce, it is possible to develop low-cost data storage devices without compromising on security.

Yes, tag them all and keep the change. For you, Mr. Big Blunkett, only £5 a piece.

Note: Thanks to Malvern Gazette reporter for alerting us to the story.

The Home office has admitted that it has no idea how much innocent citizens will be charged for being forced to have an Identity Card.

At Lord's Question's today, Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland of Asthal was asked to confirm the current estimate of £70 per person (already almost twice the figure that was being talked about a year ago). She refused to do so, saying that the Government would not be able to assess the costs until the compulsory phase begins.

So every single person in the country is effectively being told to write the Government a blank cheque.

The predicted cost has already almost doubled within a year. Given the Government record on IT projects, how much higher will it go?

Full report in the Scotsman.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

This editorial by Electronic security expert Bruce Schneier that was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune does a pretty good job of demolishing the case against compulsory ID cards. The case is a pretty familiar one to readers of this site, but the main points are there: it's not about the card itself, it is about the people who use it and check for it. And the question really is does the card help or hinder them in improving security, and does it help or hinder them if they wish to break the rules themselves, and in any event, knowing someone's identity doesn generally greatly help in knowing their intentions.

In fact, everything I've learned about security over the last 20 years tells me that once it is put in place, a national ID card program will actually make us less secure.

My argument may not be obvious, but it's not hard to follow, either. It centers around the notion that security must be evaluated not based on how it works, but on how it fails.

It doesn't really matter how well an ID card works when used by the hundreds of millions of honest people that would carry it. What matters is how the system might fail when used by someone intent on subverting that system: how it fails naturally, how it can be made to fail, and how failures might be exploited.

The first problem is the card itself. No matter how unforgeable we make it, it will be forged. And even worse, people will get legitimate cards in fraudulent names.

Two of the 9/11 terrorists had valid Virginia driver's licenses in fake names. And even if we could guarantee that everyone who issued national ID cards couldn't be bribed, initial cardholder identity would be determined by other identity documents ... all of which would be easier to forge.

Not that there would ever be such thing as a single ID card. Currently about 20 percent of all identity documents are lost per year. An entirely separate security system would have to be developed for people who lost their card, a system that itself is capable of abuse.

Additionally, any ID system involves people... people who regularly make mistakes. We all have stories of bartenders falling for obviously fake IDs, or sloppy ID checks at airports and government buildings. It's not simply a matter of training; checking IDs is a mind-numbingly boring task, one that is guaranteed to have failures. Biometrics such as thumbprints show some promise here, but bring with them their own set of exploitable failure modes.

But the main problem with any ID system is that it requires the existence of a database. In this case it would have to be an immense database of private and sensitive information on every American -- one widely and instantaneously accessible from airline check-in stations, police cars, schools, and so on.

The security risks are enormous.

David Blunkett said (on April 7) that he was pushing on with plan for an ID card, with a draft bill to hit Parliament within months. The ID cards will contain biometrics and may be in the wallets of UK citizens by 2007 at the earliest. Blunkett told Radio Five Live that the introduction is necessary to give the government better control over immigration and prevent terrorists using multiple identities.

Blunkett, however, acknowledged that getting compulsory ID cards into law wouldn't be an easy process. "It would be very surprising if there were not misgivings," he said. A number of high-profile Cabinet colleagues have expressed objections to the scheme, including Home Secretary Jack Straw and Trade and Industry Minister Patricia Hewitt.

He also admitted there were practical issues to be overcome before the cards were made compulsory. Among them, that Parliament could only vote on the issue of making the cards compulsory when 80 per cent of UK citizens carried them anyway and that estimates of how much the introduction would cost the taxpayer differ wildly – from around £1bn to around £3bn.

While biometrics are high on the UK government's love list, the rest of the Europe is taking a step back from the idea.

The civil liberties wing of the European Parliament has delayed proposals for biometric passports until the tail end of this year, after elections to the parliament have taken place. MEP Ole Sørensen said

The European Parliament is [currently] not in a position to endorse the proposals… We need proper democratic scrutiny of this far-reaching legislation, which in the worst case scenario could represent a step towards systematic registration of EU citizens' personal data.

I am currently re-reading Are We At War?, a collection of letters to the Times 1939-1945. (Pub. Times Books 1989.) Here are some extracts from letters on the subject of identity cards:

From a letter from Antony Wells:

Sir, -While obtaining, recently, a National Registration identity card for my small daughter, I remarked that it was pleasant to think all this bothersome business would soon no longer be necessary. I was blandly informed by the clerk that my expectation was quite wrong, since registration was to continue after the war. On looking at the card in my hand, I discovered it was valid until 1960.

This second extract comes from a letter from (Baron) Quickswood:

...Such cards may seem only a small inconvenience, but they are seriously dangerous to liberty in two ways: -First, they facilitate all sorts of further regimentation of citizens, and that is, of course, why it is desired to retain them; secondly, they have a most mischievous moral effect in treating the individual as a numbered item in the aggregate that makes up the State. There lie before us two alternative conceptions of the State: it may be thought an organization useful to individuals and essentially their servant, or it may be thought a pagan demigod for whom the individual exists, whose service is his greatest glory and whose supremacy is without limit.

...We have to fear an Anglicized totalitarianism, humane and benevolent but esentially destructive of personal liberty and initiative; and there will be a strong coalition of philanphropists and bureaucrats eager to regulate their fellow-citizens. We must be jealous for our liberties, and to begin with must resist being numbered by convicts in order to facilitate our servitude.

John Lettice writes for The Register on the difficulties associated with relying on biometrics.

It will all be very costly, he says, and the pseudo-certainty that it supplies may actually cause mistakes to be made, when the ID checks out but the surrounding facts look dodgy.

If you do not check for duplicates, for example, then the system is not going to tell you that Fred Bloggs of Sollihul is in fact Osama bin Laden. A silly example? Yes and no – obviously, it is not very likely that our current entry systems are going to let someone called Fred Bloggs walk through when they look strangely like Osama bin Laden. However, if he checks out as Fred Bloggs, UK citizen, with no record under our future automated systems, then general appearance is rather less likely to be challenged, or even noticed. So the assumed reliability of the systems could actually increase the security of fugitives in the event of their having successfully obtained clean, genuine ID.

There is much more.

The Independent reports that ID Cards could be compulsory within less than five years. This is much sooner than the ten year cooling off period originally agreed by Cabinet. Blunkett's scheme apparently has Tony Blair's personal support.

A draft Bill will be introduced next month with legislation proper in the November 2005 session (assuming Labour are still in power). The "fast track" Bill will allow compulsion to be introduced without further legislation being necessary, probably by 2008.

The Independent also reports an unnamed Minister repeating Blair's line that "The argument has moved on from concern about civil liberties".

It hasn't.

The civil liberties issues with ID cards are just as strong today as they were fifty years ago. If the Government doesn't want to talk about them then we must do so, loudly and publicly. We need to make this an election issue.

If we give up our civil liberties then the terrorists will have won.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

Blair is a liar. But of course the notion any politician does not utter more than the occasional porkie pie is a very uncontroversial one. But as I said in the wellspring of lies yesterday, one can but marvel at the bare faced effrontery of it when our political masters stand up and state something is true when any person not wilfully blind (or David Blunkett) can see it is patently untrue just by reading a few newspapers or one of several thousand blogs and websites.

Mr Blair said political objections had been removed and the only obstacle now was technical. He made clear he wanted the project to "move forward" as soon as it was feasible.

He risked antagonising civil rights campaigners by claiming they no longer objected to the idea, which would see each citizen required to buy a computer-readable card that would record personal details.

Risks antagonising? Civil rights campaigners no longer object to the idea? Excuse the French, but, what the fuck? Blair is a bare faced liar. The only other alternative to that is that he is so ignorant of goings on outside the cloistered world of 10 Downing Street as to be completely deluded.

I will try my damnedest to refuse to get an ID card and I will openly declare that I do not have one when the sun rises on that evil day. I urge as many people as possible to not just resist but to do so openly when the time comes. They will try to make it very difficult to live without one so we must make the system unworkable by using whatever civil disobedience and intelligent resistance is needed. Do not cooperate with your own repression. Time to get creative, people. Time to get angry.

Cross-posted from Samizdata.net

Telegraph reports that Tony Blair brushed aside Cabinet reservations last night and gave the Home Office the go-ahead to introduce compulsory identity cards following the discovery this week of a suspected British Muslim terrorist network.

Mr Blair said the deal he and David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, negotiated with the rest of the Cabinet no longer applied.

There is no longer a civil liberties objection to that. There is a series of vast logistical questions to be resolved and, in my judgment, logistics is the only time delay, otherwise it needs to move forward.

I am surprised. No longer a civil liberties objection to ID cards? That is a lie, as obvious as they get. Now I want to hear the clamour of protest and we shall do our best to add our voice.

So, ladies and gentlement. There we have it. I sincerely hoped that the day would never come. But it is here and what is it to be done?

More on the ICAO story first noted by Trevor. An international aviation group is completing new passport standards this week, setting the groundwork for all passports issued worldwide to include digitized photographs that a computer can read remotely and compare to the face of the traveler or to a database of mug shots.

Supporters hope the system will banish fake passports and help fight terrorism. But critics say the standards will enable a global infrastructure for surveillance and lead to a host of national biometric databases, including ones run by countries with troubling human rights records.

The ICAO has already settled on facial recognition as the standard biometric identifier, though countries may add fingerprints or iris scans if they wish. The standards body will vote on Friday whether to adopt radio-frequency ID chips, such as those used in Fast Pass toll systems, as the standard method of storing and transmitting the digitized information.

Simon Davies, director of human rights group Privacy International, said the ICAO hasn't consulted with human rights groups and shouldn't be involved at all.

The most troubling aspect of international standard setting is that it often occurs without any national dialogue through the diplomatic process. Governments merely use the standards bodies as a convenient means of implementing controversial policy.

Privacy International suggested that the ICAO should have adopted a standard that would allow computers at a border to match the traveler to the digital photo on a passport, but that did not permit any government to keep a central database of photos.

The group argued that facial recognition is not the most accurate identification benchmark, and that matching a person to an old photograph is problematic.

Speaking at his monthly news conference, Prime Minister Tony Blair has repeated his support for David "Big" Blunkett's plan to impose compulsory national Identity Cards on innocent British citizens.

Blair claimed that there was "no longer a civil liberties objection" to ID Cards and that the only thing holding them back was logistics.

This statement shows Blair's lack of understanding of the concept of civil liberties. Identity Cards turn citizens into suspects and deprive people of privacy.

The civil liberties objections to ID Cards are as strong now as they were fifty years ago.

Update: In the Guardian: PM hints at imminent ID card move.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

Wired has a follow-up story on the case of Nebraska farmer and his identity card (Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of the state of Nevada, 03-5554). The justices of the Supreme Court heard arguments last Monday in a first-of-its kind case that asks whether people can be punished for refusing to identify themselves.

The court took up the appeal of a Nevada cattle rancher who was arrested after he told a deputy that he had done nothing wrong and didn't have to reveal his name or show an ID during an encounter on a rural road four years ago.

Larry "Dudley" Hiibel, 59, was prosecuted, based on his silence, and finds himself at the center of a major privacy rights battle. Hiibel, dressed in cowboy hat, boots and a bolo tie, was defiant outside the court.

I would do it all over again. That's one of our fundamental rights as American citizens, to remain silent.

The case will clarify police powers in the post-Sept. 11 era, determining if officials can demand to see identification whenever they deem it necessary.

Nevada senior deputy attorney general Conrad Hafen told justices that "identifying yourself is a neutral act" that helps police in their investigations and doesn't - by itself - incriminate anyone. But if that is allowed, several justices asked, what will be next? A fingerprint? Telephone number? E-mail address? What about a national identification card? Hiibel's lawyer, Robert Dolan, told the court:

The government could require name tags, color codes.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor pointed out the court never has given police the authority to demand someone's identification, without probable cause they have done something wrong. But she also acknowledged police might want to run someone's name through computers to check for a criminal history.

Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said if Hiibel loses, the government will be free to use its extensive data bases to keep tabs on people.

A name is now no longer a simple identifier; it is the key to a vast, cross-referenced system of public and private databases, which lay bare the most intimate features of an individual's life.

There's an interesting debate going on at Megan McArdle's blog where she copies a post made by 'Contributor A'

Nick Kristof says that a national ID, in the form of a beefed-up standard driver's license, would add security without sacrificing much or any real liberty. (He doesn't propose forcing people to carry it at all times, like some countries do.) Is he wrong on the second count, that the loss of liberty is essentially negligible?

Please don't answer

- Biometrics don't work. We're assuming for the sake of argument that the technology can be made to work.

- It won't add that much security. Since any security gain is good, I'm for anything that adds any security at all at an acceptable cost.

- It would be expensive - again, if there's a measurable, even if modest, security gain, we're assuming it's worth quite a lot in dollar terms.

- It will infringe your right to be invisible. You don't currently really have the right to be invisible. We're assuming you're a normal American who pays taxes, has a social-security number, answers the census, carries a driver's license and has a credit-rating. Those few who have none of these things can keep that right--they just may not marry, drive, fly, travel abroad, work for pay or draw any government benefit whatsoever.

- You don't like it in theory because government is bad. I want concrete examples of how a significant number of Americans could lose concrete rights.

- Ben Franklin once said "Those who would sacrifice liberty…" Yes, we know. I want an argument, not an aphorism.

I have strong principled objections, but that's not what you are asking for. Here's a pragmatic objection: What if you misplace or lose your ID? Think about how long it takes today to get a replacement driver's license or passport. Imagine a future where you are requested several times a day to produce your ID. How miserable might your life be if you couldn't produce it?

Quite so.

The Home Office has tried to assure us that David "Big" Blunkett's plan to impose compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent British citizens is not a threat to privacy. Yesterday that argument was finally blown out of the water.

The Guardian reports that ID Card usage will be tracked centrally. Stephen Harrison, the head of the Home Office's identity card policy unit, admitted yesterday that the Government is "minded" to log every single ID Card usage and store the data centrally.

As ID Cards become used for more and more things, this data shadow will become larger and larger. Every time you use your ID Card for any purpose this information will be recorded. All available in a central government database at the touch of a button.

Of course, Harrison assures us that the data is only being collected to guard against abuse and that there will be "safeguards" to protect it. Some of us have heard such words before and don't find them very reassuring.

Harrison's admission yesterday confirms that compulsory ID Cards will effectively mean the end of privacy in the UK.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

Well, I expected Big Blunkett to try and take advantage of the Madrid atrocity to pursue his own political ends. Even I didn't expect him to do so this quickly or this blatantly.

The Sunday Times reports that a row has erupted in cabinet after Home Secretary David Blunkett attempted to change the agreed government position on compulsory ID Cards. According to the report, Blunkett is attempting to sneak in to the draft Bill a clause that will allow a rapid move towards compulsion. This move is bitterly opposed by Jack Straw, Alistair Darling, Paul Boateng and Patricia Hewitt.

Although the draft was apparently published "earlier this month", it seems clear that Big Blunkett is relying on public fear after Madrid to cynically push through his pet scheme.

We need to remind people at every opportunity that Spain already has a national Identity Card system - and it did nothing to stop the Madrid bombings.

Cross-posted from Big Blunkett - Watching David Blunkett

90% crud has an excellent post about government, security and privacy. He includes a quote by Bruce Schnier about central databases and data mining programmes from his article How we are fighting the war on terrorism/IDs and the illusion of security.

But any such system will create a third, and very dangerous, category: evildoers who don't fit the profile. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammed and many of the Sept. 11 terrorists had no previous links to terrorism. The Unabomber taught mathematics at UC Berkeley. The Palestinians have demonstrated that they can recruit suicide bombers with no previous record of anti-Israeli activities. Even the Sept. 11 hijackers went out of their way to establish a normal-looking profile; frequent-flier numbers, a history of first-class travel and so on. Evildoers can also engage in identity theft, and steal the identity -- and profile -- of an honest person. Profiling can result in less security by giving certain people an easy way to skirt security.

There's another, even more dangerous, failure mode for these systems: honest people who fit the evildoer profile. Because evildoers are so rare, almost everyone who fits the profile will turn out to be a false alarm. This not only wastes investigative resources that might be better spent elsewhere, but it causes grave harm to those innocents who fit the profile. Whether it's something as simple as "driving while black" or "flying while Arab," or something more complicated such as taking scuba lessons or protesting the Bush administration, profiling harms society because it causes us all to live in fear...not from the evildoers, but from the police.

The rest of the post is equally sound:

The problem with these data mining programs is that they don't work. There simply isn't enough data to build a good terrorist model. Let's take two recent American terrorists: John Allen Muhammad and Timothy McVeigh. What did their records have in common before they acted? The only common data point between the two is that they both served in the military. If we had a system that could spot these two men, it would also falsely identify every single male who served in the US Military.

That of course assumes that the data is properly mined and analyzed. But let's go back to the initial story, where we find out that the TSA sucks at analyzing data. Where does that leave us?

Some might say finding an evil-doer among regular people is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. I say that since there's no way to tell the bad from the good it's closer to finding a specific needle in a needlestack. Is that really worth giving up our privacy for an illusion of security?

Wired writes about the case of a Nevada rancher who covets his privacy. Dudley Hiibel refused to hand over his identification to a police officer in 2000, an act which landed him in jail and his name on the U.S. Supreme Court's docket.

At issue in the case, which will be heard March 22, is whether individuals stopped during an investigation of a possible crime must identify themselves to the police. Nevada state law says that individuals must do so if a police officer has reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or will be committed.

Hiibel's attorneys argue that in such situations, known as Terry stops, individuals already have the right to not answer questions and that requiring individuals to show identification violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendments' protections against unreasonable searches and self-incrimination.

The case runs as follows: Police responded to a report of an altercation between Hiibel and his daughter in Hiibel's pickup parked on the side of the road. Hiibel was outside the pickup when deputies arrived and asked for his identification before asking about the alleged fight. A tape of the incident shows Hiibel refused 11 requests to produce identification, after which the deputy arrested him for impeding a police officer.

Police then arrested Hiibel's daughter, Mimi, when she protested the arrest of her father. Both her charge of resisting arrest and the domestic violence charges against Hiibel were later dismissed. He was, however, found guilty of obstructing a police officer and fined $250, but the public defenders on the case appealed the conviction to a district court and the Nevada Supreme Court. Hiibel said:

I feel quite strongly I have a right to remain silent and I didn't commit a crime. (The deputy) demanded my papers. I exerted my rights as a free American and I was cuffed and taken to jail.

Harriet Cummings, one of three Nevada public defenders working on the case, said that while the case might seem like "no big deal," the legal issues at stake are huge.

This goes to the very nature of what our society is going to be like. We believe that exercising your right to remain silent should not be something that can cause you to be imprisoned.

If an officer acting under suspicion that a crime has been committed comes up to a person, starts asking questions and demands identification, and if the person, as Mr. Hiibel did, declines that demand, they can be hauled off to jail. And we think that is not something that should happen in a free society.

Solicitor General's Office and the National Association of Police Organizations also filed briefs supporting the identification requirement, arguing that it was a necessary and not overly intrusive tool in fighting crime and terrorism. Here we have it, crime and terrorism wheeled out yet again...

Though the hearing is still weeks away, the case is already being widely debated in the blogosphere, thanks to the publicity efforts of privacy advocate Bill Scannell.

And on the topic of databases and governments - the Electronic Privacy Information Center's brief ties the identification requirement to large-scale law enforcement databases, such as the FBI's criminal database. The problem, according to EPIC staff attorney Marcia Hofmann, is not just that a police officer can use a driver's license to pull up reams of data on a person from massive databases. It's also that the encounter itself will be added to the system, Hofmann said.

Every little time something like this happens, the police question you and want to know who you are, it's an incident that gets put into a database. And there will be a record of it thereafter, regardless of whether you did anything wrong.

Quite.

Paul of Manchester United Ruined My Life has this to say about ID cards, and the claim that they might prevent horrors like the recent mass drowning of those unfortunate Chinese:

The recent tragic death of 19 Chinese cockle pickers demonstrates why 'Mad Dog' Blunket's ID card scheme will fail to address his issues.

If you are willing to live in terrible conditions as reported here by icWales (40 to a house, no bedding, etc) and work for £1/day, do you seriously think that you could care less about a voluntary ID card?

It simply shows that if you are willing to break numerous laws, that the police can't enforce anyway, then further legislation introducing ID cards, is a futile measure when it comes to stopping criminal activity. In fact the only people ID cards will significantly affect are the law abiding citizens of the UK who will not doubt adopt and follow the rules to the detriment of their own personal freedom.

UPDATE: Blunkett is saying more of the same (Thur 12th) again, so so is Paul of MURML again.

An excellent summary of the issues that slipped under the radar over the Christmas period (the summary, not the issues...). Biometrics, surveillance, RFID, data retention and more...

It's been a year dominated by terms such as ID theft, data protection and biometrics. But what have the powers that be been doing and what part does the tech community play in their plans?

Please read for an overview of the last year's developments and links to relevant coverage. Silicon.com also has a useful section Protecting Your ID special reports that is worth checking out.

Wired has an article on how to have a national ID card that doesn't threaten civil liberties.

The truth is, any identification system is inherently neutral; it can either respect privacy or threaten it. But this distinction was lost in the noise until last fall, when media mogul Steven Brill promised a middle way: a volunteer ID card that, he says, would protect both privacy and security. His company, Verified Identity, hopes to have cards and turnstiles in place by February.

...a privacy-friendly card is feasible if it follows one simple rule: verification, not identification. In other words, the card would confirm identity but wouldn't allow the government to pick you out of a crowd. There's a model: In 1995, Canadian entrepreneur George Tomko invented an innovative technology that made it possible to lock packets of data in encrypted files, using a fingerprint as a private key. After clearing a background check, the users of a Tomko-like card would receive a digitized packet of information that said, for example, they were cleared to cross a particular border. They'd download the parcel onto a card and lock it with a thumbprint.

Read the whole thing. The most relevant, in my opinion, is the conclusion of the article that says that according to Steven Brill the pressure for ID cards will be overwhelming after the next attack, so a well-designed one is better than a desperate one. It is not entirely without merit to say that rather than fixating on whether ID cards threaten privacy, civil libertarians and techno-positivists should explore security measures that might actually thwart terrorism. This might take the wind off the governments' sail to introduce feel-good solutions that are invasive, threaten privacy and are ultimately less safe.

Spy Blog has an excellent resource page on ID cards. It will also be linked permanently in the right hand column in the Links section.

The Home Affairs Select Committee met last night to consider Big Blunkett's plan to impose compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent British citizens. They interviewed some of the Home Office officials who have accepted responsibility for disassembling our civil liberties by implementing the cards.

Of particular interest to the Committee was the cost of the scheme. Despite being asked no less than seven times, the Home Office officials repeatedly refused to answer the question saying only that it would be between 1.3 thousand million and 3.1 thousand million pounds. As Committee Chair John Denham pointed out, a range of 2 thousand million pounds is unacceptably broad. And that's assuming that the project remains on budget!

This unwillingness to talk openly about cost suggests a possible weak point within the Government. It is probably worth pressing this when contacting your MP or the media.

It's especially ironic that the reason given for refusing to answer was "commercial confidentiality". It seems that civil servants expect to have their privacy protected whilst they invade ours.

Full story in The Guardian

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

ComputerWorld reports on the U.K. government set to consider legislation next year for the establishment of compulsory biometric identity cards and a central database of all U.K. subjects.

The information that the government is considering for inclusion on the card includes personal details such as a person's home address and telephone number, his National Insurance number (the equivalent of the U.S. Social Security number), medical information and criminal convictions, as well as the biometric information, most likely in the form of an iris, fingerprint or palm print scan.

The ID cards would be rolled out in two stages, beginning with the biometric identifiers being included on renewed and newly issued passports and driver's licenses. Also as part of the first phase, once the national database was available, the government would issue identity cards to European Union and foreign nationals seeking to remain in the U.K., and would also offer an optional card for those who do not have a passport or driver's license. As part of the second phase of the program, to be implemented five years after its launch, the national ID card would become compulsory.

The government estimates that residents will be charged about $41 for the card and that setting up the basic system will cost taxpayers $215 million, and up to $3.59 billion to fully implement.
In a speech to the House of Commons on Nov. 11, Blunkett asserted that the development of technology that recognizes specific personal identifiers, or biometrics, "would mean that identity could not be forged or duplicated." But the government's own feasibility study on the use of biometrics issued in February said such methods "do not offer 100% certainty of authentication of individuals" and went on to warn that the "practicalities of deploying either iris or fingerprint recognition in such a scheme are far from straightforward."

Bart Vansevenant, director of security strategy at Ubizen NV, said his company sees no real value for adding biometrics to ID cards, especially since it wouldn't stop terrorism or fraud. Ubizen has been working on Belgium's electronic ID card scheme, the first in Europe to move beyond the pilot stage, according to Vansevenant. The Belgian ID cards, which should be fully rolled out in three to four years, use digital certificate technology, which is cheaper and more reliable than biometrics, Vansevenant said.

There is no reason that is good enough to explain the use of biometrics. It is still a very immature technology, plus you have the additional costs of equipment, support and administration problems... Vansevenant also expressed serious doubts about the security of a national database. It is a pretty bad idea, especially the database, which would be an ideal target for hackers and terrorists.

Perhaps the U.K. and the U.S. [which is proposing the use of biometric data on U.S. passports] are using biometrics and related databases from a marketing point of view and trying to position it as the big solution to the problem of terrorism. But even then, it's still a bad idea.

Quite.

Here (in the better a bit late than a bit never category) is vnunet.com reporting on Wednesday's Queen's Speech:

Plans to introduce identity cards have been included in the Queen's Speech today, marking a significant testing ground for biometric security technology.

Details of the plans were kept to a minimum, with Her Majesty telling parliament that the government "will take forward work on an incremental approach to a national identity cards scheme and will publish a draft bill in the new year".

It is likely that the cards will incorporate biometric technology. With potentially almost 50 million cards (for UK citizens aged 16 or above) being issued, this would be a major testing ground for the technology.

The technology is controversial, and the cabinet is not united:

Even Cabinet ministers have been sceptical about the plans. When talking about ID cards recently, Trade and Industry secretary Patricia Hewitt acknowledged that the government's track record indicated that large IT projects had "a horrible habit of going wrong".

And as civil libertarians predicted long ago, the Data Protection Act will only apply to the citizenry, not to the Government itself:

The legislation to be unveiled next year will also aim to iron out potential problems with existing laws, such as the Data Protection Act (DPA), to give the government greater flexibility on how it can use personal information.

Those pesky "existing laws".

The DPA imposes conditions on how stored personal information can be used.

The government intends to combine information currently stored by the Passport Agency and the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency to form a national identity database. This procedure could face problems without the clarification.

Ah yes. Clarification.

The era of Joined Up Government approaches inexorably.

New Scientist has learned that the proposed system to introduce identity cards in the UK will do nothing to prevent fraudsters acquiring multiple identity cards.

Unveiling the proposals last week, the home secretary, David Blunkett, said they are necessary to prevent identity fraud. Every resident would have to carry an ID card containing biometric information, such as an iris scan. Cards could then be checked against a central database to confirm the holder's identity.

But Simon Davies, an expert in information systems at the London School of Economics and director of Privacy International, says the system would not stop people getting extra cards under different names. If he is correct, it could have far-reaching implications.

The problem, says Davies, is the limited accuracy of biometric systems combined with the sheer number of people to be identified. The most optimistic claims for iris recognition systems are around 99 per cent accuracy - so for every 100 scans, there will be at least one false match.

Bill Perry, of the UK's Association for Biometrics, agrees that there is an upper limit to the reliability of iris scans.

It's not an exact science. People look at biometrics as being a total solution to all their problems, but it's only part of the solution.

He added that using more than one biometric identifier - for example, iris scans and fingerprints together will also be considered. This would solve the accuracy problem, but vastly increase the cost.

Oh, jolly good. So scanned and finger-printed is the way to go...

Thanks to Groc's Bloggette for the link.

The Independent reports that despite Big Blunkett's posturing the public is losing patience with his plans to force compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent British citizens.

A new MORI poll suggests 19% of people believe wrongly that ID Cards are the best way to cut crime. That figure is depressingly high but still a lot lower than the 29% who gave the same answer two years ago.

Blunkett has said that compulsion will not be introduced unless there is "clear public acceptance" of the principle. Polls like this suggest that we are slowly turning the tide of public opinion.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

Research by the BBC indicates that Big Blunkett doesn't have much support within his own party for his plans to force compulsory National Identity cards on innocent British citizens.

Of the 101 Labour MPs who responded to the poll, over half wanted more investigation before any such plan is introduced. A third of them were opposed to the scheme.

Do you know where your MP stands on the issue? More importantly, do they know where you stand?

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

The press likes to present itself as an advocate of people's freedoms; certainly vis a vis the state, the Fourth Estate proports to be the people's friend. But many of the state's urges to control and dominate it's citizenry strikes a chord with elements of the media, and this editorial from the Sydney Morning Herald is remarkable. The remarkable feature is that ID Cards have not actually been on the government agenda in Australia. The effect of this article is to actually put ID cards on the public agenda, rather then respond to a government initiative.

For all the repudiation of Big Brother that defeat of the Australia Card supposedly symbolised, Australians do not know the extent of state surveillance of their everyday lives today. Surveillance of their financial arrangements is more exact and accessible than ever before. In the vacuum since the 1987 debate on the merits and demerits of a compulsory ID system, we are not to know whether Australian sentiment has changed. It is likely though that we will soon get the chance to find out.

What is extraordinary is that the SMH, a supposedly liberal minded journal, seems determined to put ID cards on the agenda. It is true that the editorial did not advocate an ID card system, but nor did it condemn it. An extraordinary state of affairs.

The redoubtable Dissident Frogman has created a desktop image that spells out what a lot of us really think about the issue of mandatory National ID Cards

click for larger image

Compulsory state ID cards are a monstrous assault on individual liberty, as well as useless in protecting us from the increasingly sophisticated terror groups who threaten us. That much is clear.

So here's a question. At every possible occasion, we should ask Conservative MPs, including new party leader, Michael Howard, whether his party would abolish any such compulsory ID scheme put into place by the current Labour government. Similarly, selection committees for prospective parliamentary candidates should be urged to select those who pledge to reverse any ID card law.

Of course, when he was Home Secretary in the 1990s, Howard proposed ID cards, and his record on civil liberties is, to put it mildly, dismal. But he has a chance to repent, to start anew.

So to repeat the challenge - Tories - stand up and fight the ID card.

Big Blunkett's scheme to force compulsory national Identity Cards on innocent British citizens is facing problems from Scotland.

Blunkett has stated that one of the keys to his plan is that the cards will be necessary to access local services such as health and education. However since devolution the Scottish Executive has responsibility for these in Scotland.

Today's papers report that the Scottish Executive will not require ID Cards for access to services they control.

Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell is reported as saying that he was

...opposed to the use of compulsory identity cards for services that come under devolved responsibilities in Scotland

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

Mark Littlewood, Liberty's Campaign Director responds:

We need to guard against ID cards being introduced by stealth. Whilst we warmly welcome the Cabinet's decision to put off a decision on making the cards compulsory, a fudged and muddled compromise is no way to proceed. All the evidence from other European countries suggests that ID cards are expensive, ineffective and damage community relations. In Britain, opinion polls show that several million adults would refuse point blank to carry one. The government should think very carefully before spending billions of pounds on a scheme that could ignite such public outrage. Tackling fraud, combatting terrorism and reducing crime require detailed and intricate policy solutions. ID cards are no answer at all. They represent a real threat to our civil liberties and our personal privacy. There is no obvious upside.

The Guardian has an inspiring leader yesterday about identity cards and David Blunkett's approach:

Yesterday's performance by Mr Blunkett was equally bad. He fudged on the huge costs, referring to only the first three years in which double-digit millions will be spent, when the 10-year bill has been put as high as £3bn. He exhibited a worrying faith in the foolproof nature of the new biometric technology - a faith which is not shared by financial service organisations. They have decided against biometric use for payment applications due to the rate of false positives and false negatives among other reasons. Here is an issue needing close scrutiny. True to his tradition, there was little concern from Mr Blunkett for civil liberties or the effects on community relations. Only a year ago ministers were saying ID cards were not needed to combat terrorism. Now it is included, along with illegal working, when the police have said there would only be limited effects. The ball is now in parliament's court: that is the proper place to decide the balance between rights and security.

Some numbers surrounding the issue of identity cards from Telegraph:

From 2007, people renewing passports would be issued with an ID card and would have to pay £77 at current prices. At present, passports cost £42.

Identity cards may also be combined with driving licences at a cost of £73 instead of £38.

The cards on their own would cost £35, but 16-year-olds would receive them free. The elderly and people on low incomes would pay £10.

The charge would cover the cost of biometric identifiers, such as iris prints, fingerprints or facial recognition, taken from everyone wanting to travel abroad or to drive.

More than 40 million Britons have a passport and about 35 million hold a driving licence. As each comes up for renewal the personal details would be entered on a national identity register and the new document combined with an ID card.

The £3 billion scheme would also cover 4.5 million foreign nationals resident in Britain.

Once about 80 per cent of the population has the cards, a decision would be taken making it compulsory to produce the document to access public services such as the NHS, or to get a job or claim benefits.

The Telegraph's leading editorial is about ID cards. It sums up David Blunkett's 'sneaky' strategy to force them onto the British populace.

So David Blunkett has come up with an ingenious compromise. He proposes to introduce an elaborate ID card scheme, but without making it compulsory in the first phase. A National Identity Register will record biometric details of the population. Thousands of machines will be installed to read the new ID cards, paid for by employers, the NHS and whoever else wants them. Individuals will also have to pay when they apply for new passports or driving licences. Mr Blunkett apparently hopes that people will hardly notice the £3 billion cost, at least as long as the scheme remains voluntary and is phased in over a decade or more.

What is the point of inserting a "draft Bill" into the Queen's Speech? What is the point of an ID card that is not compulsory? If America and the European Union are requiring biometric passports, what is the point of confusing that technical problem with the highly political issue of ID cards? Why should a government that has hitherto ignored civil liberties now respect them in the case of ID cards?

Quite.

I'm to be on Talk Sport Radio tonight at 10.30pm, talking about ID cards, unless something bigger happens between now and then and they cancel. I'll do my best, which probably wouldn't be as good as some of the other luminaries here. Or here and here.

I'll probably only be on for a minute or two, but it's a stimulus to educate myself. I'll try to strengthen my grip on the subject by working my way down this lot.

I have received the official document produced by the Home Office and presented to the Parliament this month, outlining the stages of the plan to introduce identity card in Britain. It is called Identity Cards The Next Steps.

You will find a permanent link to the document (pdf) on the right in the links section.

Anyone who thought recent events meant that the campaign against ID Cards had been won should think again. Big Blunkett has just made a statement in the House and made it quite clear that he still intends to force compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent British citizens.

Blunkett discussed a timetable for introducing compulsory ID Cards. He left no doubt about compulsion, beginning his speech with the words:

The Government has decided to begin the process of building a base for a national compulsory identity card scheme.

His plan is to proceed in two phases. The first phase will be the introduction of biometrics through renewal of passports and driving licence. As soon as the database is available foreigners wishing to stay in the country would be issued with an ID Card and there would be a 'voluntary' scheme for British those few citizens without a driving license or passport.

The second phase will be compulsion.

Blunkett mentioned civil liberties only once, blithely stating that they would be safeguarded without addressing the issues. As usual, when answering questions he descended into personal abuse to cover his lack of intellectual rigour. Big Blunkett remains as much a threat as ever and must be stopped.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

Oh God, he's back. Last Friday there were the good news in the media that the ID card plans have been put on hold. This morning, SkyNews reported that Big Blunkett is expected to announce a bill to introduce ID cards today. His 'compromise' to the bitter opposition in the Cabinet is to make the scheme voluntary to begin with. And there I was thinking it was meant to be voluntary all along.

It is rare to see a more blatant crusade by a public figure in the face of evidence and opposition. Granted, the opposition to ID cards in Britain is not vociferous enough and it is time to turn up the volume. Trevor has set up an iCan campaign agaist identity cards and there are others with similar concerns.

Let's see what is to be done...

The Times reports that plans for compulsory national identity cards were put on ice yesterday when the Government delayed a decision on a mandatory scheme until “later this decade”.

Although David Blunkett got the go-ahead for a draft Bill proposing a voluntary scheme in this year’s Queen’s Speech, it will only give the Government powers to build a database using information from passports, driving licences and residents’ permits.

The decision is a blow for both the Home Secretary and Tony Blair. The Prime Minister has invested considerable political capital in the project, saying that Britain has to have compulsory ID cards in the future.

However, after weeks of fierce negotiations, mostly at John Prescott’s Domestic Affairs Committee, the opposition of Cabinet heavyweights led by Jack Straw and Gordon Brown proved too difficult to overcome and a fudge was agreed.

In an unusual step, the Cabinet issued a statement after its weekly meeting yesterday. “In principle Cabinet believes that a national ID card scheme can bring major benefits,” it said. “In practice, given the size and complexity of the scheme a number of issues will need to be resolved over the years ahead.”

The Government would proceed “by incremental steps”. First there would be legislation to set up a scheme, “but we will reserve the final decision on a move to compulsion until later this decade”.

Oh great, so we have some time to spread the word. I would not shut down your iCan campaign against identity cards just yet, Trevor. There is also Big Blunkett's 'voluntary' database that should cover 80 per cent of the population, five to six years after the programme gets under way. Also, Mr Big Blunkett does not want to let go of his scheme and insists that it is phased in, with passports and other official documents acting as a first wave of the programme.

It is far from over yet.

A kind reader sent in a link to the debate on ID cards that took place yesterday in the House of Commons. Judge for yourselves:

Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion): Let me say at the outset that I am opposed to ID cards, both in principle and on grounds of practicality. To put it at its most brutal, I do not believe that the best way of remembering, as we do this week, those who gave their lives for freedom is to introduce the sort of society that would have had Saddam Hussein drooling. The apparatus of totalitarian repression depends on knowing who and where every citizen is and was, and which God they worship. The Government may have dropped the God bit, but the potential for all the rest remains.

...

At the moment, we balance privilege with responsibility. It is a privilege to drive a car, and it is a responsibility to pass a test, hold a driving licence, tax a vehicle and so on. It is a privilege to enter another country, but a passport is needed. Other forms of identity, including credit cards, party membership cards such as my Plaid Cymru card and parliamentary photo passes, are mere conveniences that we can opt to use. An ID card system tips that scale and reduces citizen to cipher. It forgets that the Government should be subject to the people and instead makes the people subject to the Government. The central tenet of freedom—for people to be able to move around as they please, live where they please and do want they want, as long as they do not harm others—is reduced to a nannying, bullying attitude that the Government must know where people are and what they are doing.

...

I would like to tackle the Government's arguments head on. However, as I said earlier, the Government have not presented a unified argument in their discussion of a national ID card. They have been as convincing as they have been consistent. We were told first that ID cards would deter international terrorism and political violence; next that they would enable the Government to end benefit fraud; and then that they were the panacea that would stop illegal immigration, asylum troubles and illegal working in the UK. The Labour Government, much like the Tory Government in 1995, have used any justification for the introduction of ID cards. It is a clear example of a solution in search of a problem.

Hear, hear, hon. Ladies and Gentlemen. It is worth reading the whole thing.

Tony Blair's official spokesman has made an announcement about Big Blunkett's plans to introduce compulsory national Identity Cards for innocent British citizens. The statement is confusing and seems to be an attempt to patch over the splits in Cabinet.

According to the statement, Ministers have agreed in principle that there would be major benefits to such a scheme. However they have also agreed that the practical issues are immense. Of perhaps most interest is this sentence:

We will legislate to enable the scheme to be introduced and plan on the basis that all the practical problems can be overcome but we will reserve the final decision on a move to compulsion until later this decade.

That could be seen as a victory for either side.

So long as this enabling legislation is in place the threat of compulsory National Identity Cards will remain. We must make it clear to the government that proceeding any further down this road will lose them the next election.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

The Cabinet domestic affairs sub-committee met yesterday to consider Big Blunkett's plans to introduce compulsory national Identity Cards for innocent British citizens.

The plan has split the Cabinet with Gordon Brown, Jack Straw and Patricia Hewitt said to be amongst those opposing Blunkett.

According to reports in today's media, the meeting was "acrimonious", "savage" and a "bloodbath".

Incidentally, the BBC have launched a new website iCan for campaigners. If it takes off, it could generate a lot of exposure. I've started a campaign against ID cards.

Partially cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

The Cabinet is increasingly split over the issue of introducing compulsory national Identity Cards for innocent British citizens. Despite this the Sunday Times reports that the Queen's Speech is likely to contain reference to them in the form of a draft Bill.

The Sunday Times suggests that this is just a "fig leaf" to cover Big Blunkett's embarrassment and that ID Cards will not actually be introduced before the next general election if at all.

They might be right, but that's not a risk we can afford to take. We need to redouble our efforts to oppose this dangerous idea.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe - now with mailing list

Disturbing news in the Telegraph about the European Union taking its first step last week towards the creation of an EU-wide health identity card able to store a range of biometric and personal data on a microchip by 2008. Approved by Union ministers in Luxembourg, the plastic disk will slide into the credit-card pouch of a wallet or purse.

The European Health Insurance Card is intended to end the bureaucratic misery of E111 forms currently used by travellers who fall ill in other EU countries. Eventually it will replace a plethora of other complex forms needed for longer stays.

But civil liberties groups said it was the start of a scheme for a harmonised data chip that would quickly evolve into an EU "identity card" containing intrusive information off all kinds that could be read by a computer.

The European Commission confirmed that the final phase in 2008 would add a "smart chip" containing a range of data, including health files and records of treatment received.

The ultimate objective is to have an electronic chip on the card, as the technology improves.

Tony Bunyan, the head of Statewatch, said it was part of a disturbing Union-wide erosion of privacy since September 11 2001.

We all know where they're heading with this. They want a single card with all our data on one chip. It'll be a passport and driver's licence rolled into one with everything from our national insurance numbers, bank accounts, to health records.

Yeah, I think he just might be on to something...

Guardian reports that the prime minister declared today that the only obstacles to a UK identity card were "cost and efficiency" and that arguments about civil liberties were outdated.

I think these arguments have gone far beyond the old civil liberty arguments about it and are really to do now with cost and efficacy. Can you get a cost-effective programme that is actually effective? That does what you think it is going to do.

Now that is where the debate is centred and I have an open mind on that but in principle I think it is right. It is not something I think that is considered completely noxious to do.

Guardian reports that Tony Blair's hopes of winning cabinet support for identity cards have been dealt a further blow after Alistair Darling, the transport secretary, submitted a five-page cabinet letter opposing their introduction. Mr Darling is the fourth cabinet member to challenge the home secretary David Blunkett's goal of introducing a bill in the Queen's speech.

He points out that passports and driving licences are already due to be upgraded using biometric technology. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is establishing links with the passport service database to enable electronic validation of identity information. Passports are due to include embedded biometric information from 2005.

According to those who have seen his letter, Mr Darling claims an ID card would only add value if citizens were required to carry it - something the government has ruled out.

Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes has become the latest recruit to Big Blunkett's cause. The BBC Reports that Hughes has supported introducing compulsory National Identity Cards for innocent British citizens. She told the Home Affairs Committee that ID Cards would be a good thing because they are "the only way" to prevent illegal immigrants from working.

She is wrong for three simple reasons:

1. Lack of ID Card would not stop most of the illegal immigrants who work for cash, no questions asked and no records kept.
   
2. ID Cards would not prevent illegal immigrants - or others - supporting themselves though crime.
   
3. Even if the Cards did work, describing them as the "only way" is pure hyperbole. There are always options.
   

I've emailed Ms Hughes asking that question. In the unlikely event that she replies I'll pass it on.

Cross posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

When a politician backs something "in principle", that means he doesn't back it, right?

Let's hope so, because the headline at the top of this BBC report is:

Blair backs ID cards 'in principle'

Let's hope the rule still applies.

The Observer reports that it is now "highly unlikely" that Big Blunkett's plan to introduce compulsory National Identity Cards for innocent British citizens will be included in the next Queen's speech.

Apparently the decision follows new evidence that ID Cards would be "close to useless" in fighting terrorism - something those of us opposed to the idea have been saying for ages.

Another problem is the "foundation documents" required to gain an ID card. If ID Cards are issued on the basis of (for example) birth certificates and birth certificates are easily forged then ID Cards are worthless.

If this report is accurate then it is good news for UK civil liberties. However it doesn't mean the threat is over, we need to remain vigilant. There is every likelihood that Big Blunkett will try to resurrect his pet project.

Cross posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

I don't believe we picked up on this, from from silicon.com on the 1st of this month.

A "perfectly secure" electronic identity card will be in use in France by 2006, French Home Secretary Nicolas Sarkozy has announced. The card will carry a chip which will combine "the standard type of personal data you get in this type of document and an electronic certification system". A digital authentication system with a public key infrastructure (PKI) will be used to guarantee the authenticity of the holder and ensure confidentiality.

But when it comes to whether the card will contain biometrics, Sarkozy said it is still too early to tell but underlined that the card is still in the project stage. For Sarkozy, the potential applications for the card are far clearer, however. Citizens will be able to use the card with central government, local authorities as well as businesses, he said.

This next paragraph makes this sound particularly nasty:

The minister also announced that "a strategic blueprint for electronic public services from 2003 to 2007" will be published in the coming weeks. "It's no longer up to the citizens to come to e-government, it’s up to e-government go to them", he said.

They're coming to get you.

But the question of the protection of personal data hasn't gone away …

No indeed.

Computerworld reports that despite the government's recent efforts to integrate dozens of terrorist watch list databases, terrorists may still be slipping through major cracks in homeland defenses by stealing identities and using computers to create fraudulent travel documents.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-District of Columbia), a self-proclaimed "card-carrying civil libertarian," said the nature of the vulnerabilities has led her and others to rethink the issue of national ID cards.

However, Keith Kiser, chairman of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, said a national ID card is not needed and would probably require additional IT infrastructure currently not in place. Instead, Kiser argued that the IT infrastructure used throughout state motor vehicle departments to verify identities and issue valid driver's licenses should be enhanced and standardized.

Lawmakers and federal homeland security experts argued in favor of wider deployment of biometric technologies and standardization of driver's licenses throughout the country. Currently, 21 states don't require proof of legal residence to get a driver's license. In addition, there are 240 variations of driver's licenses used throughout the 50 states. California and New Mexico also issue valid driver's licenses to noncitizens, and Arizona is debating the issue. Chairman of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, Keith Kiser, said:

I don't disagree that a biometric identifier is a great place to be and we should be trying to get there. But we [conducted] a two-year study of biometrics and our conclusion at this point is that although biometrics work great on a one-to-one match, it's awfully hard to find a technology that works on a one-to-300 million match, which is what we really need to [have] to have an effective biometric identifier.

Telegraph reports that Gordon Brown and Jack Straw are leading a rearguard action to block David Blunkett's plans for national identity cards despite Tony Blair's backing for the scheme.

Mr Blunkett wants a compulsory scheme and has proposed that those who do not qualify for the card will not be able to work legally or get access to health care, education and public services. But so far he has failed to get Cabinet backing. Cabinet sources say a "fierce battle" is being waged with Mr Brown and Mr Straw expressing the strongest doubts.

The Chancellor has said that the Treasury will not meet the cost of issuing the cards, which are expected to cost individuals up to £40. Several other ministers, including Charles Clarke, Education Secretary, Peter Hain, Leader of the Commons, and Patricia Hewitt, Trade and Industry Secretary, have voiced reservations about the cards

Telegraph opinion section had a good editorial on identity cards last week.

Having failed to win the argument during its six-month consultation period on what it then called "entitlement cards", the Government now seems determined to press ahead with a national, compulsory ID card scheme. This has been a most peculiar exercise in policy presentation, perhaps because the Cabinet is divided and because opinion polls suggest several million people would defy the law by refusing to apply for one.

It draw attention to the fact that the government seems unable to make up its mind precisely what these cards will actually achieve.

It is important to be clear what Mr Blair is proposing: every person in the land will be required to pay £40, give over an image of his or her iris, and have private information stored on a central database. This is an uncomfortable thought in itself. To suggest that this is all about protecting civil liberties is simply insulting.

We've warned before about the dangers of functionality creep with Identity Cards. Now it appears that Big Blunkett is actively seeking such extended functionality in order to force compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent UK citizens.

The Evening Standard reports:

David Blunkett is poised to strike a multi-billion-pound deal with the major banks which would see compulsory ID cards double as credit cards.

People could choose to use the ultra-secure identity cards to pay for shopping, reducing the amount of plastic clutter in their purses while dramatically cutting fraud at the tills.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe. Why not join the mailing list?

The Scotsman reports:

They have been carrying these cards for more than a month now, unaware they are the guinea pigs for a national scheme which has raised the spectre of the introduction of Orwellian-style identity checks.

But there are fears among teenagers in Aberdeen that their personal details could fall into the wrong hands, and that the trial is designed to soften them up to the idea of carrying one of the cards for life.

Andy Ronnie, one of the coordinators of the scheme at Aberdeen City Council, has sought to reassure teenagers, denying claims that the scheme is part of an ID card plan.

While these cards could be used as an identifier, they are not ID cards. Whatever an ID card will be like, it will not be these cards. They have not been designed as ID cards, but as cards to access services.

Also, they are not compulsory. People who do not want to use them are still able to access services in other ways - we have made sure of that.

The scheme has split the local council amid worries over civil liberties. Liberal Democrat councillor Millicent McLeod, said:

There is the concern that we could be verging on invading people’s privacy by putting too much information on display.

However, Labour councillor George Urquhart said:

The Accord scheme seems to be going OK. To be honest, there has been surprisingly little reaction in the local community. Personally, I have nothing against identification cards - I think they are a good thing, especially in the current climate of terrorist threats. Ordinary people young or old have nothing to fear from ID cards.

And what if you are not 'ordinary'?

More creepy Big Blunkettry, this time from Scotland (on Sunday):

EVERY secondary school pupil in Scotland is to be issued with an ID card bearing his or her name, age and address, under a controversial government scheme branded last night as an assault on privacy.

The 'entitlement cards' will be issued to 400,000 12 to 18-year-olds from March next year and will be used for a range of services including school meals and leisure centres.

Nice trick. Get a card, or go hungry.

But the scheme – which has already been piloted in Aberdeen – was condemned yesterday as a cynical ploy to introduce national identity cards for adults by the back door.

The bit of this Scotland on Sunday story that did most to threaten my digestion was this:

An Executive spokesman told Scotland on Sunday that the scheme, officially called 'Dialogue Youth', would see 400,000 cards given to all Scotland’s 12-18 year olds. The spokesman said they would not be compulsory.

Dialogue Youth. Puke. And they won't be compulsory. It's just that if you don't carry one, you won't be able to do anything or buy anything.

Worrying words from Blair's conference speech:

"And in a world of mass migration, with cheaper air travel, and all the problems of fraud, it makes sense to ask whether now in the early 21st century identity cards are no longer an affront to civil liberties but may be the way of protecting them."

I don't mind him asking the question, I just wish he'd listen to the answer.

The Guardian reports that the cabinet has secretly given the go-ahead to the chancellor, Gordon Brown, to set up Britain's first national population computer database that is the foundation stone for a compulsory identity card scheme.
The "citizen information register" is to bring together all the existing information held by the government on the 58 million people resident in Britain.

It will include their name, address, date of birth, sex, and a unique personal number to form a "more accurate and transparent" database than existing national insurance, tax, medical, passport, voter and driving licence records.

The plans for a citizen information register have not been announced and the only official reference was a brief mention to a feasibility study in the government's consultation paper on identity cards published last July. The scheme is a joint project between the Office of National Statistics and the Treasury and is designed to ensure that "public sector organisations have the right records about the right people at the right time."

ZDNet UK reports the Taiwan government has completed the distribution of 22 million Java-based ID cards to its citizens, in one of Asia's largest deployments of such cards. The country's Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) adopted US-based Sun Microsystems' Java card technology primarily to prevent identity theft, according to a statement from the computing firm.

Each card contains a microprocessor with 32 kilobytes of memory that allows data such as allergy information, emergency contact numbers, medication, and personal insurance to be stored. Daniel Yu, Sun Microsystems Greater China vice president of global sales operations said:

Java card technology allows card issuers to modify the services and applications on the card as the user's needs change, without incurring additional costs to replace the card.

The distribution of the 22 million health cards started in July last year to replace its original paper-based system was expected to finish by May this year. The cards cost around $2 (£1.21) each.

In an even larger scheme in Thailand, the government plans to issue a Java-based national ID card to all 61 million citizens, according to a report in the Bangkok Post. The card will contain biometric identification, as well as insurance, tax and welfare benefit information. The scheme is expected to be launched later this year.

Speaking on BBC1 Question Time yesterday, Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt made public her "grave reservations" over Big Blunkett's plans to introduce compulsory National Identity Cards for innocent UK citizens.

By going public on the eve of the Labour Party conference Hewitt is taking a large political risk. She needs our support.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

In today's Telegraph a reader comments:

Sir - The scheme for national identity cards that David Blunkett proposes (report, Sept 22) goes beyond the bounds of what is tolerable. The ordinary people of Britain are neither criminals nor potential terrorists, and will not be frightened into accepting this clampdown on our civil liberties. I, for one, will follow the lead of Nelson Mandela and the oppressed people of South Africa and burn my "pass". I hope millions of Britons who cherish their freedom will do the same.

The Guardian's Simon Jeffery explains some of the issues about identity cards.

In an attempt to marshal my thoughts and arguments on the subject I've added some pages to my web site:

UK Compulsory National Identity Cards - The Case Against

Hopefully this'll be of some use to those opposing Big Blunkett. There's a load more that could be added (for example I haven't even mentioned the problems with biometrics) but at least it's a start.

Following his Radio 5 Live spot about ID cards last night (see the post below for links and email info), another email from Sean Gabb arrived, to the effect that the programme went well:

… All I had to do this evening was state the main heads of opposition to compulsory identity cards, and then sit back and listen to the callers as they made their own points.

All but one of the callers was against the idea. I spoke to one of the production people, who told me about a flood of e-mails and text messages that ran 20-1 against. …

Sean says he was particularly grateful to the lady who …

… gave me the point about perfect copies of ID cards on sale in Lagos weeks before the real ones had begun dropping through letter boxes.

He continued:

Quite plainly, the speakers for the scheme were drunk on technology that they didn't understand. None of them could answer the often fierce questioning from the callers about how retina eye scans could be made secure against forgery.

I said less than I normally do. I didn't get properly on to the civil liberties aspects. But it was the callers who made all those points, and with impressive fluency and conviction.

I was unable to hear this programme myself, but it sounds like it went well, doesn't it? Sean is working on a system to have all such broadcasts up at the Libertarian Alliance website.

Good show.

Email from Sean Gabb:

I have just been contacted by BBC Radio 5, to go on air tonight (Sunday 21st September, 10-11 pm BST) on "Late Night Live", to discuss the principle of compulsory identity cards. I am not sure yet if the discussion will go ahead, or with me taking part. However, people often complain that I do not give enough notice, so I am sending this out as soon as I can.

You can find Radio 5 at 693 and 909 Khz on the AM band. Otherwise, it is available as streaming audio from this this website.

If you want to contribute with moral support – and this is one reason I am sending this message out! –you can telephone the studio on: 0500 909 693

You can text messages to: 85058 (search me what these digits mean)

Or you can e-mail questions and comments via this web page.

Needless to say, I do welcome support. I shall probably be faced with dozens of the usual sheeple, insisting that they have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. You may not be able to get on air, but if you can send supportive e-mails, the weight of these will be measured.

I will make a recording of the debate, and in due course make this available as a sound file from my web site and that of the Libertarian Alliance.

By the way, the Tony Martin broadcast will go up, I hope, in the next five days.

Many regards,

Sean Gabb
Director of Communications
The Libertarian Alliance
Sunday 21st September 2003
sean@libertarian.co.uk

Despite recent cabinet setbacks, Big Blunkett is determined to introduce compulsory National Identity Cards for innocent British citizens.

The BBC Reports that he intends the legislation to be announced in the next Queen's speech.

When pressed about whether they would be compulsory he said: "my own view is that the minimum is you can't actually work, or draw on services unless you have the card"

That sounds compulsory to me.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

The Publican reports that the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII) is calling on the trade to show support for the national ID card scheme, despite reports that the Cabinet has rejected the plan.

Home secretary David Blunkett is looking to introduce the scheme, which would see the introduction of a compulsory ID card for everyone in the UK aged over 16. This will effectively give the pub industry the single proof-of-age card that many licensees and pub operators have been calling for.

Reports this week suggest that Mr Blunkett’s project has failed to gain full Cabinet support and that the plans have been referred back to a government sub-committee, a sign that there are serious doubts. However, Caroline Nodder, spokesperson for the BII, said most of its members fully back the scheme.

Given the number of local proof-of-age schemes it is hard for licensees to spot fake IDs. So we strongly support plans for a single, national ID card. We need to keep pushing this because from the trade’s perspective it is a very good idea.

Ms Nodder also said the very fact that ministers were sitting down and discussing a concrete plan represented a huge degree of progress.

Up until 18 months ago, ministers made it clear they wouldn’t even talk about an ID card scheme. We hope good sense will prevail. The introduction of ID cards will be a significant way forward for the government because it will help crack down on under-age drinking and has made it clear that is a key priority.

Yes, it's true, there are people who live on an entirely different planet...

Our government is determined that we shall be numbered and identity carded no matter how long it takes or how much opposition has to be ground down, and if they can't do it by persuading adults, they'll do it by habituating (and I can think of ruder words than that) children.

Every child in England is to be given a credit card-style ID number in reforms aimed at preventing a repeat of the murder of Victoria Climbie, the Government has announced.

The long-awaited Green Paper on children's services also included a proposal to create a Children's Commissioner for England, whose job it will be to speak up for under-18s and ensure their views are "fed into" Government policy.

It set out a large number of changes to the structure of children's services, which will see education, health and social care combined and dispensed from neighbourhood schools.

Tony Blair said the proposals were a "significant step" towards ensuring there was no repeat of the Climbie case.

One thing is very certain about this new ID numbered world which they are determined to create. It will still contain outbursts of evil like Victoria Climbie's murder. ID numbers won't stop that.

The public wants compulsory ID cards, but doesn't like their cost, says Stephen Robinson of the Telegraph:

The public overwhelmingly supports the idea of compulsory identity cards, says a YouGov opinion poll published today in The Telegraph. But it strongly objects to having to pay £40 for them.

Seven per cent of those asked were so opposed to the cards that they said they would refuse to acquire or carry one. This suggests that if the Government introduces legislation for cards this year, as expected, the police would have to act against some three million "refuseniks".

In other words, the costs of compulsion could be a lot greater than the public now realises. When the public realises a few years down the line that the benefits of it aren't that great either, how will they feel then? Let's hope we can explain the meagreness of those benefits to them now, soon enough to stop this thing.

Report in today's Telegraph:

Tony Blair is facing a Cabinet revolt over the introduction of compulsory identity cards as senior ministers press him to tone down his radical agenda in the run-up to the next general election.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, and John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, are leading the Cabinet opposition to the cards. They would cost individuals about £40 each and would be required before any of the benefits of the state could be obtained.

You get a Poll Tax feel about this, don't you? I don't know if Brown and Prescott really, really object to compulsory ID cards. But they do make a very good stick to beat Blair with just now.

According to Sir John Stevens, London's police commissioner, Britain must introduce personal identity cards for all citizens if it is to combat the threat of terrorism and organised crime:

We are sure they would have a massively beneficial effect for us in fighting organised crime, human trafficking and terrorism.

He insisted that new biometric technology, which allows personal details such as fingerprint or retina identification to be included, made mandatory ID cards "a must".

ID cards are an absolute essential part of armoury in the fight against terrorism and further organised crime. The excuse people say is that terrorists and organised criminals get round it. They might do. But in getting round it, it will identify who they are.

...

What I am totally against is the business whereby we can trace and follow people who have a normal life. But we do need to have the ability to identify those people who are around doing their business lawfully and those other people who want to create mayhem and effectively destroy our way of life.

And how would Sir John Stevens define a 'normal life'? Such clarification is important since it is only those people who deserve to be left alone and not have their lives 'traced and followed"....

It's the desire of the police commissioner to have the 'ability to identify those people who are around doing their business lawfully' that keeps me awake at night. It seems the British police, despite their protests, are indeed in favour of the Big Brother or rather the Panopticon approach to crime where none happens because everyone is watched all the time. How about allowing people to defend themselves and their freedom? But that is inconceivable to the police mind since everyone is guilty of something at some time and you certainly should not be doing anything they don't know about, just in case.

Just your ID card, ma'am.

Here's the final paragraph of a story about how Amsterdam is getting less permissive in its law enforcement policies:

Soon to be introduced is a compulsory identity card, frowned upon after World War Two when careful registration helped the Nazis hunt down Dutch Jews. The card is now seen as an inevitable aid to keep on top of crime.

Not all the news in the article sounds bad to me, but a lot does, and that really does. Presumably this means for the whole of Holland, and not just for Amsterdam.

More on ID cards from Stephen ("A free country") Robinson.

This week it emerged that "smart" passports, containing the sort of biometric information to be used in ID cards, are to begin trials in an unnamed market town of about 100,000 people. Meanwhile, schools around the country are being encouraged to issue ID cards to pupils as another part of the campaign to soften us up for the scheme.

I wonder if Robinson has actually been reading White Rose. I'd like to think so, and that sooner or later he may get to stories a few minutes quicker because of it.

This Telegraph article gives a slightly different angle to Guardian's story yesterday as it talks about the ID pilot scheme in the context of a new biometric passport:

David Blunkett was accused yesterday of using a pilot scheme for a new biometric passport as a test run for a national identity card. Civil liberties campaigners said the Home Secretary was disguising his true purposes in a backdoor attempt to gauge public reaction to ID cards.

Over the next few years, passports are to be adapted to resemble credit cards containing biometric information, such as iris patterns or fingerprints.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said:

The Home Office is being disingenuous. They know that they can't trial ID cards without parliamentary approval, so they are doing it through the back door... They have admitted that the information gleaned from this so-called passport trial will be used for the purposes of an ID card.

The state is not your friend.

Today's Guardian reports:

The home secretary, David Blunkett, is to stage a pilot scheme this autumn to test the introduction of a national identity card despite the lack of strong cabinet backing for the idea.

The Home Office confirmed last night that a six-month trial, testing the use of new generation fingerprint and eye-scanning technology, would be completed by April to "assess customer perceptions and reactions" and estimate costs. It is believed that the trial will be carried out in an as yet unnamed small market town with a population of about 10,000.

Note, as did Guardian home affairs editor Alan Travis, the creepy use of the word "customer".

UPDATE: Paul Staines comments at Samizdata.

For reasons best known to themselves the proprietors of the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail have elected not make the contents available on-line. As a result I cannot link to this story, so thanks are due to Dr.Chris Tame for posting it to the Libertarian Alliance Forum:

I went to a cafe in central London to meet a stranger.

I handed over £1,300 and a mere 48 hours to assume the new identity of 'Odette Hinault' complete with fake EU passport, driving licence and French ID card, together with a genuine National Insurance number. Within a day of becoming 'Miss Hinault' she had opened a bank account, registered with a GP, obtained a phone number and had claim forms for housing allowances and council tax benefits.

There was nothing to stop her plugging into an entire system of state handouts that would have more than repaid her £1,300 outlay within weeks.

So says a Daily Mail reporter called Sue Reid who went undercover (presumably) and succeeded in obtaining all manner of forged official documents.

Two of the many oft-floated (and disposable) justifications for establishing a national ID card system are that it will a) stop illegal immigration (or, at least, make it a lot harder to do) and b) stop cheats from defrauding the welfare state (or, at least, make it much harder to do).

Ms.Reid's investigations prove pretty conclusively that both claims are manifest rubbish.

News of a new ID card scheme, in China:

BEIJING, Aug. 18 – For almost two decades, Chinese citizens have been defined, judged and, in some cases, constrained by their all-purpose national identification card, a laminated document the size of a driver's license.

But starting next year, they will face something new and breathtaking in scale: an electronic card that will store that vital information for all 960 million eligible citizens on chips that the authorities anywhere can access.

Surprise, surprise.

Silicon.com reports that David Blunkett is being called upon to incorporate his national ID card proposals into wider strategy to boost the adoption of smart cards for authenticating use of e-government services.

Concerns have been raised in a new policy framework on a 'joined-up' e-government smart card strategy issued by the e-Envoy this week that local and central government bodies will develop their own card schemes that will not be interoperable and result in people carrying a wallet full of different cards for different services. The document said:

The rollout and development of smart card schemes across the public sector has to date been somewhat fragmented and co-ordinated, resulting in duplication. If this continues, smart cards will not fulfil their potential to impact significantly on the e-government agenda and support e-commerce.

'Multi-application' cards have been touted by the e-Envoy for some time and another possibility put forward in the framework is the piggybacking of government services onto new or existing private sector schemes.

The Telegraph reports:

The introduction of identity cards is still some years away, Tony Blair indicated yesterday. Although he supported ID cards in principle, he said huge logistical and cost issues must be resolved.

In the long term it was right to move towards a system of ID cards. But it was not a quick fix for dealing with the influx of asylum seekers.

Mr Blair's concerns are well-placed given Whitehall's experience with less-ambitious IT projects.

The ID card is to be backed up by a "citizen's database" on to which the details of 50 million people aged over 16 would have to be entered. The intention is to use biometric data - such as an iris recognition system - to verify a person's identity. But this technology would be hugely expensive.

So no change of mind, just an administrative delay. In the meantime, we blog away...

The Guardian reports:

All asylum seekers who fail to register with the government should be deprived of access to British schools and hospitals, the former cabinet minister Stephen Byers said yesterday in a controversial speech designed to reassure working class voters that Labour understood their concerns about immigration.

At his monthly press conference yesterday, Tony Blair promised that the government would go further on asylum, and said he thought identity cards were right in principle even if the logistical cost was daunting.

In principle there is a case, in my view, for Britain moving towards ... ID cards. However, there are huge logistical and cost issues that need to be resolved. It's worth looking - which is what we are doing - at how you can resolve them, but it's not a quick-fix for the system because of the amount of time and the logistical process in introducing them.

Mr Byers, in his proposals on illegal entrants who fail to claim asylum, proposed that all employers should get automatic fines of £2,000 for each illegal immigrant found at work.

This would make the body creating the demand for labour - the farmer, hotel or restaurant owner, multinational company or government department - take responsibility for the people employed on their behalf. Special squads should target known areas of illegal working.

Andy Duncan over at Samizdata.net gives 20 reasons why ID cards are wonderful. Frankly it's a fraud, he can't provide even one...

Who'd have thought it? The UK Department of Health has said ID cards are the best way for removing health tourism from the UK government's dreadful National Health Service (NHS). What a coincidence that the Home Office, which has been struggling for decades to find a problem necessitating an ID card solution, are trying to introduce just the very thing. And at this exact moment in time? Fancy that.

And here's the best part. State-subsidised UK family doctors already refuse people access rights to their medical lists, if they don't have the correct UK citizenship qualifications or residency permissions. Yes, the very people whom the ID card is supposed to prevent abusing the glorious wonders of the NHS, are already prevented from abusing it, at least up to the point the government is prepared to stop them. And whatever happens, the Department of Health have said, nobody will ever be refused emergency treatment, whatever their circumstances.

So currently, without ID cards in place, all those whom the state deems invalid for NHS treatment must go to Accident and Emergency departments, which will treat everyone who turns up regardless of status. And in the envisaged ID card NHS future, all those whom the state deems invalid for NHS treatment must go to Accident and Emergency departments, which will treat everyone who turns up regardless of status. Err...Doh?

The only solution to stop 'health tourism', where hapless British taxpayers are forced to subsidise the health needs of various global parasites, is to abolish the NHS. Immediately.

That way, everyone pays for what they need, or insures themselves against what they might need. And Britain can start becoming a welcoming place again, which people only come to for its wet Welsh weather and its fine Breakspear ales, rather than trying to sponge off our coerced goodwill after fighting their way through malevolent Blunkettesque security, at the ports of entry, before finding the nearest organised crime ID card forger.

Is this solution too simple, or should I be strung from the nearest lamp-post for daring to suggest that the great white elephant of our wondrous National Health Service should be slaughtered right here, and right now? String me up, baby. It can't come a moment too soon.

Via Samizdata.net

Tony Blair, at his monthly press conference, has just been asked whether he supports compulsory National Identity Cards.

He replied "In principle there is a case" and that he felt it was the right way forward in "the long term".

However he also stressed that there are "huge logistical and cost issues" involved and that this was "not a quick fix" to issues such as asylum seekers.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic but I find this equivocation encouraging. It does tend to support the view that Big Blunkett's plans are being put on the back burner.

The depressing thing is that the only problems Blair can see with ID cards are logistical and cost issues. No mention of privacy and civil liberties, those things simply don't seem to matter.

I quite often stumble across snippets of news which touch upon so many big themes and ideas that they would easily support an entire political thesis. As it is, and as it's blogging here, I shall confine my comments to the mere immediate and obvious.

And I suppose the most obvious conclusion to be drawn from this item is that the Home Office is not the only department of government to have embraced the desire for ID cards:

The Department of Health yesterday called for the use of identity cards to prove entitlement to free care as it acted to put an end to "health tourism" - the exploitation of NHS loopholes by visitors from abroad.

To avoid problems of racial discrimination everyone would have to show their card before they received non-emergency treatment.

In the meantime the prospect of proving identity or residency by showing a passport or a utility bill is being considered.

No surprises there really. HMG is running out of money so cutbacks in largesse are the order of the day (okay, today) and, in the first instance, that means no more free health-care for foreigners. In the fullness of time this restriction will extend to the elderly, children and, quite possibly, the sick.

We also now know (as if we didn't already suspect) that ID cards are not just Mr.Blunkett's obsession but a technocratic fetish that has gripped our entire governing elite. I wholly expect to see successive government departments producing their own niche raisons d'ID card' over the coming months.

There is a damn good argument that can be used to undermine the state here but, in order to wield it effectively, our friends on the left are going to have to embrace that time-honoured (but generally despised) libertarian truism about public 'services' eventually becoming public 'masters'.

'Free' ends up being very expensive.

I disagree with those people who claim that Tony Blair is delusional or psychotic. I think he might have a better grip on reality than many of his detractors claim. For example, he appears to be under no illusions about how unpopular both he and his wretched government have become:

Tony Blair has put off the launch of a plan to compel every Briton to hold an ID card in response to fears that it will turn into an expensive and frustrating assault on liberty.

But why should this exercise prove either 'expensive' or 'frustrating' if, as Mr.Blunkett assures us, the 'vast majority' of the public are in favour of the scheme?

I suspect that the truth is grubbier but no less welcome. A weakened and frightened Tony Blair realises that if Blunkett is allowed to press ahead with his despotic little plans the result will be widespread civil disobedience and a PR disaster.

Maybe we can still win this.

Statewatch has a good exposition of the issues surrounding ID cards in the UK historically. At least in those days MPs put up some fight for "our freedom from being challenged on every occasion to produce something to prove that we are certain persons"

Aneurin Bevan MP, 1947, from the government benches in the House of Commons:

I believe that the requirement of an internal passport is more objectionable than an external passport, and that citizens ought to be allowed to move about freely without running the risk of being accosted by a policeman or anyone else, and asked to produce proof of identity.

I've no time (but someone here should definitely try to make the time) for a longer response to this article by Stephen Robinson in the Telegraph.

Its title - "Identity cards won't stop the terrorists: they're only a fig leaf " - will do for starters.

A fascinating story. John Gilmore is incensed about the requirement of showing identification to fly. And he is furious about something that happened to him recently, when a lapel button landed him and his travelling companion on the tarmac.

My sweetheart Annie and I tried to fly to London today (Friday) on British Airways. We started at SFO, showed our passports and got through all the rigamarole, and were seated on the plane while it taxied out toward takeoff. Suddenly a flight steward, Cabin Service Director Khaleel Miyan, loomed in front of me and demanded that I remove a small 1" button pinned to my left lapel. I declined, saying that it was a political statement and that he had no right to censor passengers' political speech. The button, which was created by political activist Emi Koyama, says "Suspected Terrorist". Large images of the button and I appear in the cover story of Reason Magazine this month, and the story is entitled "Suspected Terrorist".

The narrative is good and the point made brilliantly. You can just picture the Station Manager who had to deal with the 'unruly' individuals, we all met her type at one time or another. The truth is that it is people at the ground level, so to speak, that help to impose the rules of a potential police state in the name of convenience and other peoples' well-being. Without them even the most oppressive government would not last long...

Via Cassel: Civil Liberties Watch

A Telegraph reader from Brussels writes:

As a Briton who has lived in Belgium for more than 26 years, I am possibly more "identity card conscious" than most and can see where these things can lead. Apart from the references to a photograph (which my card bears) and biometric data (which my card does not), I have seen no reference to other information to be recorded on the proposed British card.

My card also shows my marital status, my address and an expiry date. References to the £39 fee for the card have all implied that it would be a one-off charge - however, if it follows the pattern of cards here, this charge will be payable for a new card whenever one moves house, marries, divorces or is widowed, or, if none of those things occurs, after a certain number of years.

In addition, since here the card is issued at a commune (borough) level, moving to a different commune can involve the requirement to produce such things as a "Certificat de Bonne Vie et Moeurs" (Certificate of Good Character) from the police in your last commune.

As if this wasn't enough, the system then requires policing. A friend of mine, a woman living alone in a large house, decided as a safety measure to add a couple of fictitious names to the doorbell, to make the house seem more populated. She then discovered that the commune employs people to go around noting the names on doorbells, and comparing them against the local register. The only way she could stop the commune hassling her about these two "illegal residents" was to remove the names.

The Telegraph reports how the ease with which Britain's asylum system can be abused has been revealed by an undercover investigation showing the scale on which immigrants are cheating the state.

The investigation found that identity checks supposed to prevent fraud are not working. Instead, illegal immigrants can easily obtain fake identities that allow them to work or claim benefits illegally. In one instance, a reporter from the BBC Panorama programme secretly filmed an asylum seeker who was making hundreds of pounds a month renting out the three-bedroom house he has been given by his local council in Birmingham.

The undercover reporter for the BBC Panorama, Claudia Murg, found that the finger-printing system introduced in an attempt to prevent multiple applications for asylum appeared not to work. It did not pick up the fact that, shortly after her first asylum application had been rejected, she made a second in a different name - even though her fingerprints were on file under both identities.

We, at White Rose, have maintained that measures proposed by the Home Office such as fingerprinting, ID cards and other biometrics technology for recording individuals' identity are only as effective as the 'human infrastructure' surrounding them. The government's attempts to introduce ID cards are nothing more than evidence of the state's propensity to control the lives of the 'honest citizens' since they are incapable of stopping those who abuse of the system.

The Telegraph reports that the Conservatives yesterday joined civil rights groups in voicing opposition to the Government's proposals to introduce compulsory identity cards and criticised David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, for masking his true intentions behind "spin and obscurity".

Plans to announce the scheme in the Commons before Parliament rises today have been shelved - officially because of pressure on parliamentary time - but the Home Office said yesterday that the proposals for the ID card were "progressing well", with an announcement expected in the autumn.

Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, said he remained "highly dubious" about any move towards a compulsory ID card.

The issue of an identity card is too important a one, with too far-ranging implications for our liberties, for the Home Secretary to resort to spin and obscurity.

Home Office estimates of the cost of the scheme range from £1.6 to £3.14 billion but Simon Davies, of Privacy International, says the true cost will be very much higher. Mr Davies led a campaign against an Australian ID card in the 1980s. Initially the plan was popular but opposition grew strongly when the scheme was finally unveiled and the government was forced to abandon it.

We know from industry estimates that a 'smart' card with biometric information such as the one proposed will cost well over £100 per head, so the final cost will be more like £5.5 billion.

This is a high risk political gamble for David Blunkett. He knows that popular opposition will mushroom once people understand the implications of the card, so he is being meticulous in concealing his ultimate ambitions.

White Rose readers will surely appreciate being told, if they don't know it already, that a short posting by Gabriel Syme about compulsory ID cards, and about White Rose's campaigning against them, was put up at Samizdata.net last Sunday.

The point is the comments, of which there have been 22 so far (Tuesday evening). The worst of the comments about anything on Samizdata are the usual abusive or incomprehensible nonsense (and the worst of them of all get deleted), but the average is good, and the best are often outstandingly interesting and informative, fully worthy to be postings in their own right on the average blog.

The ID card debate can get subtle, and lots of these subtleties are teased out in these particular comments.

Telegraph reports that David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, obtained political backing at a meeting of the Cabinet's domestic affairs committee and a statement has been pencilled in for next Thursday, the last day of the current Commons session.

Whitehall officials said final details had still to be agreed but no meeting of the full Cabinet is considered necessary to endorse what will be one of the most controversial decisions of Labour's six years in power.

The ID card will be required by everyone over 16 - more than 40 million people - and cost around £40, though with concessions for the elderly and the poor. Each card will contain biometric data, such as an image of a person's iris or fingerprint, so police and other authorities can confirm the holder's identity.

So this is it then? Tagged, finger-printed, iris-scanned, data about us stored on a 'central database', at the mercy of government bureaucrats.

I suppose the only thing left is the way of the late Mr Willcock who was the last person prosecuted in Britain for refusing to produce his wartime ID card and he spearheaded a public campaign that led to their abolition 50 years ago.

ID cards were introduced in 1939 but remained in use after the war to help in the administration of food rationing. The police had powers to see ID cards in certain circumstances. If an individual did not have one when asked, it had to be produced at a police station within two days.

This was where the law stood when Mr Willcock, 54, was stopped by Pc Harold Muckle as he drove in Finchley, north London, on Dec 7, 1950. The constable asked him to produce his national registration card. Mr Willcock refused.

Mr Willcock was charged under the provisions of the National Registration Act 1939. He argued that the emergency legislation was now redundant because the emergency was clearly at an end. The magistrates convicted Mr Willcock, as they were obliged to, but gave him an absolute discharge. He decided to test the law in the higher courts. Each found against him on the grounds that the statute remained in force and could only be reversed by an Order in Council.

In 1951, the Tories won the general election, and abolished ID cards the following year. Mr Willcock lived just long enough to see them go. He dropped dead in the National Liberal Club in December 1952 while debating the case against socialism.

I am not sure this would work nowadays, after many years of Labour rampaging through the justice system. However, it may be worth a try...

Stand have written a letter to Guardian regarding the news a Cabinet memo from Home Secretary leaked over the weekend about the introduction of an ID card scheme:

Several newspapers have been quite sensible and seen through Mr Blunkett's rather optimistic, misleading and unrealistic assessment of the "help" they might provide in some areas (asylum seekers, terrorists, benefits fraudsters, identity thieves etc) and have published articles on the subject. Some others (curiously, all the ones owned by a certain Australian-American) have been rather more swayed by Mr Blunkett's rhetoric. The Guardian, though — who were very good at giving the consultation due exposure and who raised some interesting and valid points on the subject some months ago — have been strangely silent. So we wrote them a letter. They've not yet published it, but we'll put up a link, should they do so.

I am in the process of researching and writing a (long) piece on the story of how Australia came within a hair's breadth of introducing compulsory ID cards in 1987, which will be posted either here or to my own blog in the next couple of days. However, while researching this, I ran the following 1986 quotation from then Australian (Labor) Health minister Dr Neal Blewett, who was in charge of the ID card plan at the time.

... we shouldn't get too hung up as socialists on privacy because privacy, in many ways is a bourgeois right that is very much associated with the right to private property.

Yes, that's right. This was meant as an argument in favour of ID cards.

On the issue of the (ultimately defeated) proposal for ID cards in Australia, I strongly recommend this article, which was written at the time and gives a thorough overview of what happened. The early stages of the then Australian government's efforts to introduce the card seem eerily similar to anyone who has been watching the recent efforts of the British government. The later stages - a long drawn out battle on the part of the government to pass the enabling legislation which was blocked by the Australian senate, rising opposition to the scheme as the public learned more and more about the proposal and eventually a defeat for the government due to flaws in the drafting of the legislation - are much less likely here due to the lack of the strong bicameral system, sadly.

That said, the lesson that the more that is known about such proposals the less the public like them is surely an important one. In Britain, we really need to get the message out as fast and as comprehensively as possible. The other encouraging thing about the Australian example is that by the end of the fight the public was so against the idea that no Australian government has even dreamed of suggesting an ID card since, and none will any time soon. (This hasn't prevented the government constructing extensive databases of information on its citizens, however).

I said nothing because I wasn't a panhandler. In Cincinnati, they are coming for the panhandlers through mandatory ID card registration. I'm not a terribly large fan of panhandlers, but is the solution tagging them and releasing them back into the wild?

I understand why it is necessary for people to register for drivers licenses. Driving is a privilege, not a right. But is panhandling? Surely I have the right to sit on a public street corner and, while not harassing anyone, say or do whatever I want. And certainly people have the right to give me money if they want to, so why is it that panhandlers need to register?

Cross posted from miniluv.

Commenting on David Blunkett's proposal for a £40 compulsory ID card, Liberty spokesman Barry Hugill said:

The real beneficiary of such a policy will be the fraudsters who will make a fortune selling forged cards. There is no evidence that ID cards lead to a reduction in crime yet the Government is contemplating spending at least £1.5bn on the scheme.

This is a Government that cannot manage to pay tax credits, deliver passports or enforce child maintenance payments without catastrophic system failure. Does anyone seriously believe it could manage something as technologically complex as a national ID card?'

Liberty

An opinion piece about the identity cards news in Telegraph is yet again explaining what is wrong with Blunkett's argument. Basically, each of the claims made by the Home Secretary in support of his pet scheme is wrong.

1. First, Mr Blunkett says that there is strong public support for the idea. In fact, the Home Office's recent consultation exercise focused on the concept of an entitlement card, a very different prospect. (Also, according to this Out-law article, the goverment has admited that the public opposes the ID card scheme.)

2. The Home Secretary goes on to argue ID cards will help fight crime. This is one of those assertions that is forever being made, but hardly ever substantiated... The public mood is said to have changed since September 11, 2001, but no one has explained - or even seriously tried to explain - how ID cards would have thwarted those bombers, many of whom died in possession of forged papers.

3. Nor, by the way, are ID cards a solution to illegal immigration. The root of the asylum problem is not that we cannot find clandestine entrants, but that we never enforce their deportation.

4. More faulty still is Mr Blunkett's central proposition, as set out in a letter to his Cabinet colleagues: "The argument that identity cards will inhibit our freedom is wrong. We are strengthened in our liberty if our identity is protected from theft; if we are able to access the services we are entitled to; and if our community is better protected from terrorists." In an appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell describes how a concept can be traduced if the words used to express it lose their meaning. The example he gives, uncannily, is the word "free". Now here is Mr Blunkett using "freedom" to mean more state control.

5. Any doubts as to the wisdom of the scheme must surely be removed by the Home Secretary's final argument in its favour: that we are "out of kilter with Europe". Indeed we are, thank heaven. Policemen in Britain are seen as citizens in uniform, not agents of the government.

The most worrying is Blunkett's spin on the concept of freedom. In his view we are strengthened in our liberty if our identity is protected from theft; if we are able to access the services we are entitled to; and if our community is better protected from terrorists. This is vaguely based on the distinction between negative and positive liberty, which are not merely two distinct kinds of liberty; they can be seen as rival, incompatible interpretations of a single political ideal.

Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting - or the fact of acting - in such a way as to take control of one's life and realize one's fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.

Blunkett and his New Labour chums are classic and rather unexceptional anti-liberals. I use the term liberal in its original meaning, based on negative definition of liberty and claiming that in order to protect individual liberty one should place strong limitations on the activities of the state. In Blunkett's mind, the pursuit of liberty (whether of the individual or of the collectivity) requires state intervention, which, by definition, is not contradictory with limitations on personal freedom. As a result, the protests of civil liberties groups do not make sense to him.

The concept of freedom as being unprevented from doing whatever one might desire to do is alien to him. According to Isaiah Berlin the defender of positive freedom will take an additional step that consists in conceiving of the self as wider than the individual and as represented by an organic social whole - “a tribe, a race, a church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn”. The true interests of the individual are to be identified with the interests of this whole, and individuals can and should be coerced into fulfilling these interests, for they would not resist coercion if they were as rational and wise as their coercers.

I will not grant Blunkett's social and political philosophy such level of 'sophistication'. I will say that his are the simple and toxic insticts of a collectivist and a statist and that those protesting policies based on them will have their words muffled by the Big Blunkett.

The Telegraph reports that a leaked memo revealed that David Blunkett is pushing the Cabinet to back national identity cards for everyone aged 16 and over. The Home Secretary insists in a memo to Cabinet colleagues that rather than limiting freedom, his plan for ID cards would reinforce people's sense of liberty by making it easier for them to use services and protecting them from criminals and terrorists.

It is understood that he wants to introduce legislation in the autumn to allow cards to be brought in within the next few years. A full Cabinet discussion is expected within the next fortnight.

Privacy International, the civil rights watchdog, will mount a campaign against the plans this week. Simon Davies, its director, said:

This is without doubt the most threatening issue for civil rights and freedoms since the Second World War.

The Sunday Times reports that in a leaked letter Home Secretary David Blunkett describes the case for Compulsory National Identity Cards as "overwhelming".

Citizens would pay £39 for the privilege of carrying a card containing biometric information. It would not be compulsory to carry your card at all times however you would have to show it to the police within a few days of demand. So don't forget to take it with you if you're on holiday.

Blunkett adds that "a highly organised minority" would "campaign vocally" against the cards.

Too right we will. This plan is a serious threat to civil liberties in Britain and must be stopped.

Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe

The article on the ST site appears unavailable just now, you can read the BBC summary.

Exactly a year ago, Melanie Phillips has written an excellent article ID cards are not the British way. Alas, her arguments are as necessary and relevant as they were then.

She addresses every point in the debate, from the increased need for security, terrorism, mass immigration, problems with 'compulsory' entitlement cards, personal information on 'smart card', causes of rising crime etc.

The most central argument, though, is difference between the British concept of liberty and the European one:

Britain is not the same as Europe. We have a very different approach to liberty. Here, everything is permitted unless it is forbidden. People can go about their business without being expected to give an account of themselves.

By contrast, in Europe freedom is something that has to be codified and granted from above. So Europeans have always been used to producing ‘papers’ to prove themselves, a practice that we have always found unacceptable.

And her last paragraph certainly belongs here, on White Rose:

Now, thrashing around in panic to show that it is getting on top of our social problems, it is not coming up with policies that actually work but is proposing instead to nail down still further the coffin of British liberty.

The Washington Times reports that the FBI has concluded that the Matricula Consular card, issued by the Mexican government to Mexicans living in the United States, "is not a reliable form of identification" and poses a criminal and terrorist threat.

Steven McCraw, the assistant director of the FBI's Office of Intelligence, said the identification cards are easy to obtain through fraud, and lack adequate security measures to prevent easy forgery. He cited examples of alien smugglers being arrested with up to seven different cards and an Iranian national who was arrested with a Matricula Consular card in his name.

Opponents of the cards' use say they have turned into a back-door amnesty that allows illegal aliens to blend into society by letting them obtain bank accounts and some state and local services. Rep. Elton Gallegly, California Republican said:

The only people who need these cards are illegal immigrants, and sometimes criminals or terrorists.

None of the witnesses at a House immigration panel held last week could dispute that claim and the State Department admitted they have not studied the issue.

Link via World Watch Daily.

In Malta the use of ID cards is regulated by the Identity Card Act first enacted in 1976.

Typically, they were introduced as a way of addressing a very specific concern (in our case, it seems to have been the concern over the possibility of electoral fraud) and slowly, but surely, they gained a more widespread use as more and more Government departments introduced them in their transactions with the public.

Here’s an example I can distinctly remember. Fifteen years ago when I was doing my O-levels you were issued a temporary identification document by the Examinations Department. Your official ID card was given to you only later when you turned 16. Then in 1993 the Act was amended so that an official ID card would be issued to all those aged 14 or older as a way of including those students sitting for their 'O's. And today, teenagers who are too young to work legally or to sign contracts have to have an official ID card.

It was all done in the name of 'convenience' and could anyone possibly be against that? I have been socialised into this system and its convenience and I know that when I encounter officialdom I either pull out the ID card from my wallet or else chant my name and the six digits and a letter that make up my ID to the public official who asks for it. It has become an automatic reflex.

Recently a very minor and a not untypical incident served as a bit of an eye-opener. I was driving back home in the early hours of morning when I happened to encounter a police roadblock. I slowed down and the policeman signalled me to pull to the side of the road. This I did. He took a look at me and my car, noted nothing suspicious and politely asked me for my name and ID number which I gave in a typical knee-jerk reaction when asked this question by a public official. He took note and signalled me to move on.

It was while I was driving away that the question popped in my head: what was the purpose of asking drivers for their ID number at a roadblock when there was nothing that was suspect? And I could not answer that question. The policeman probably could not either. In my case giving name and ID on being asked to do so by a public official has become automatic. In the case of the police officer (and in the case of all public officials) asking the question has also become automatic.

The use of ID cards has become so generalised and they have become so deeply ingrained in our culture that nobody notices. They have become an ordinary part of our everyday lives. Now it is whoever queries these practices who is made to feel awkward, as if he were a paranoid nutcase. In 1976 when the law was introduced there were a few voices, however feeble, who protested; now there are none. And that is what is scariest. Living in an environment that requires official identification all the time is bad enough. Living in an environment that requires official identification and subtly pressuring you never to question such practices is much, much worse.

When I was in Spain a couple of weeks ago, I paid for most things with cash, and I only used credit cards occasionally. The first time I did so was when I wished to buy a ticket for the Bilbao Guggenheim museum. Upon handing over my Visa card, I was asked for identification. I did what I usually do when I encounter a request of this nature that I am not used to. I smiled, complied with the request by getting out my driver's licence and handing it over, and asking "Why?".

The lady behind the counter looked briefly at me, and explained that things were done differently in different countries, and that in Spain they liked to check identification rather than a signature, because signatures are easy to forge and an identification cheque reduces fraud.

As far as it goes, this is probably true. It probably does reduce fraud. (On the other hand, a signature on a credit card slip is as much about making a contract legal as it is about identification. The reason we use such a flimsy means of identification is that the signature requirement wasn't originally about identification). However, in this particular instance, an identity check was completely unnecessary. I do not expect that many people use stolen credit cards to buy tickets to art museums. However, the custom of asking for identification when credit cards are used in Spain is ingrained, so that it occurs even when it doesn't make a great deal of logical sense. (I have occasionally been asked to produce identification in Australia and the UK when using credit cards to pay for expensive items of the sort that might be of value to thieves - for instance the laptop computer I am typing on now - but it only seems to happen when it does make some kind of logical sense).

A second thing that I observed in Spain was that a driver's licence was not the sort of ID they really wanted to see. It was okay in the museum, but later on it became clear that what they meant by "ID" was my passport, although I could probably get away with a driver's licence because I was a foreigner. In the case of Spanish people, what they wanted to see was a national ID card. Because everyone has to carry one of these around with them, the card's use has expanded to the point that it is difficult to use a credit card without one. I don't know precisely what the role of the compulsory ID card is under Spanish law, but Spanish people seem to need it to go about their day to day lives.

Of course, Spain actually was a fascist state until the mid 1970s, and quite probably the actual point of the card was that it would be needed for people to go about their day to day lives. I think the point may be that once such a card is in place and its use is part of everyday life, it is very hard to get rid of it. For that reason, introducing such a card is really not something to be done lightly.

A refreshingly straightforward opinion piece that I came across while searching the Telegraph's site for their morsels on civil liberties and ID cards. It was written in December 2002 based on an interview with Matthias Kelly QC, new chairman of the Bar Council. It sounds as relevant now, if not more:

In David Blunkett, we have - in Mr Kelly's words - a "profoundly illiberal" Home Secretary, but we also have a man who seems incapable of doing anything except talk tough. A good example of this is in the Government's sudden adoption of the identity card, or "entitlement card" as it euphemistically calls the proposed £1.5 billion scheme.

Because this ministry would rather not reform or enforce the existing immigration laws, it has re-heated one of the worst ideas that was briefly considered and then abandoned by the Major government. Now the Home Office presents the discarded policy as an exciting "joined-up" piece of anti-crime thinking.

As we near the end of an unadvertised "consultation period", the Government is hoping to spirit through an ID card scheme that will do almost nothing to help the police catch and convict criminals. The cards are an expensive stunt designed to give the impression that the Government is doing something to stop an Albanian jumping ahead of you in the queue for a hip operation.

As mentioned already, this was written in December 2002 and contains a reference to the end of an unadvertised consultation period. Is this the same one as the one that is nearing the end now? Is it another one in the spirit of we keep having 'consultation periods' until we get our way?

And the final words ring true to our finely tuned White Rose ears:

The ID card is practically undesirable, and as repugnant on civil liberty grounds as the assaults on jury trials and double jeopardy contained in the Criminal Justice Bill. Mr Kelly is to be congratulated for using his position at the Bar Council to sound the alarm about a government whose only toughness in the field of criminal justice is towards the presumption of innocence.

While it is pointless to even pretend that they are not enjoying every single second of this, we should bear in mind that Messrs.Blunkett & Co at the Home Office did not dream up this ID card malarkey all by their iddle-widdle selves. Let us not forget who is really giving the orders:

EU citizens will have their fingerprints stamped on their passports or undergo an iris scan as from next year, under proposals to be drawn up by the European Commission.

By putting two and two together (generally a rewarding activity) we can see why HMG is so grimly determined to see us all electronically tattooed. They have no choice in the matter. Mind you, the EUnuchs might argue that neither do they:

These measures partly stem due to a US law enacted in 2002, which will start demanding visas from EU citizens from 26 October 2004 if they do not have biometric information (fingerprints, iris scans or DNA) on their passports.

Only 'partly', though and it is an argument I would be reluctant to buy. Given the top-down nature of continental societies, I find it very hard to believe that the EU would not have been busily constructing some grand cattle-branding scheme without any prompting from Washington. If, as we are constantly being assured, the Euros were truly determined to establish themselves as 'the alternative superpower to America', they would, presumably, tell Uncle Sam to get stuffed.

Most instructive though, if rather disheartening, to actually watch the foundations of a global security state being hammered into place. The technology exists, you see.

Guardian argues that the key question about ID cards is not whether we have to carry them but what will be on the national database:

Now it is about how much information the government has on each of us, what the authorities want to do with it, and what rights are lost by those who don't have what is, after all, officially being called an "entitlement" card. The real dangers now are over "function creep" and what will happen to a new cardless underclass who could be called the sans plastiques - a new British cousin for the French sans papiers.

Already function creep is beginning to surface, even though the cabinet is only now getting down to discussing the fine detail of the legislation to be introduced this autumn. In fact, as Blunkett's white paper last July made clear, the proposal is really about setting up the first national central database of all people over 16, including foreign nationals, who are legally resident in Britain. It is this register, and not the bit of plastic in our wallet, that causes the real anxiety.

The white paper makes clear that one of the aims of the scheme is to "establish for official purposes a person's identity so that there is one definitive record which all government departments can use if they wish".

Some commenters have already complained about the bovine and passive nature of the British public, so this should just confirm their views:

The real problem is that we are only too willing to sell our privacy cheap. We will happily give a supermarket our entire personal lifestyle profile simply to get a plastic loyalty card. We are going to help the government create an immensely powerful personal database on each of us, not because of some damnable Whitehall conspiracy but because we couldn't wait to get our hands on a new piece of plastic.

Also, an earlier Observer article calls for outright abandonment of the whole idea of identity cards:

The arguments against are clear and unchanging. Identity cards create new crimes and criminals while being blunt and ineffectual weapons against fraud and identity theft. They are expensive (Mr Blunkett bypasses Treasury objections only by suggesting we pay £25 for the privilege of holding records of our own fingerprints). Above all, a regime of ID cards, whether kept in a drawer or carried on our person, will create new tensions between police and ethnic minority communities, undoing much positive progress. The divisive 'sus' laws will be back with a vengeance.

The Home Secretary hopes to bring forward legislation after a general election. We hope the Cabinet will change his mind.

ZDNet has an update on the ID card situation.

The Home Office has disclosed that 4,856 people sent emails via Stand's Web site that opposed the introduction of entitlement cards, but the final result of the consultation hasn't yet been revealed. The government is still refusing to disclose the result of its public consultation on the introduction of entitlement cards, even though the process closed over five months ago, it has emerged.

The government has said that entitlement cards, which would include an individual's personal details and possibly also biometric data, will help to prevent identity fraud and illegal workers. They are likely to cost upwards of £1.5bn to introduce -- most of which would go to technology companies. Opponents, though, claim that they will actually work as ID cards.

Civil liberty groups Stand and Privacy International's efforts resulted in almost 6,000 people taking part in the consultation through the organisations' specially created Web site and phone lines.

Statements made by government ministers since the consultation closed had implied that these 6,000 responses might be bundled together into a single petition and not treated as individual views.

There's a good piece in today's Sunday Telegraph about the British government's unceasing determination to introduce ID cards. This time it was yet another "consultation procedure", the purpose of which was to demonstrate overwhelming public support for the idea:

But the Home Office had not counted on nine enterprising young people who work in the IT sector and who, in their spare time, run an unfunded website that encourages their peers to take part in such national debates. They posted a form on their site – www.stand.org.uk. This was not a petition, just a mechanism for readers to participate in the consultation procedure. They were gratified that more than 5,000 people used their service, of whom 4,856 were against the scheme.

The Home Office initially dismissed these responses, and stuck to the claim of overwhelming public support for ID cards. That all changed this week, when the Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes belatedly acknowledged in the Commons the existence of Stand's response. Thus, the overwhelming public support has vanished, and, by the only measure that has been taken, ID cards can be deemed unpopular.

One of the many things this episode illustrates is the great power of quite small groups, whenever any politician claims that there is "overwhelming" support for anything. You can prove that wrong just by opening your mouths and mouthing off, and if they're wrong about that, what else are they wrong about?

"Unanimous" support, which often takes the form of some ass in a suit saying that "nobody is saying" what you then proceed to say and prove that you've been saying for years, can be even more easily punctured.

A year ago, Simon Davies of Privacy International had an opinion piece in the Telegraph pointing out how vulnerable ID systems are. His arguments are as valid now as they were a year ago, however, the government has recently intensified its call for compulsory ID cards.

Corruption [...] besets most official ID schemes from Australia to Thailand. High black-market demand and huge investment by criminals entices officials to bend or break the rules of eligibility. An ID card system is a gift for corrupt civil servants or contract staff in search of extra cash.

[...] the technology gap between governments and organised crime has now narrowed so much that within weeks of their introduction even the most secure ID cards can be available in the form of blanks onto which individual identity information can be incorporated.

What a gift this would be for criminals. Whereas before they might have carried a copy of a dead person's birth certificate, and maybe a driver's licence and a savings bank number - all of which could be checked - they would now possess the ultimate no-questions-asked ID. They would have penetrated the plastic wall of security. Once inside they are safe.

On the positive side, Simon Davies points out, this would keep the Home Secretary busy, as in due course he will be able to announce yet another one of his crackdowns - on ID card fraud.

In a Free Country update Telegraph shows how security imposed by the state, crowds out not only its citizens security awareness but that of its police force.

Would identity cards help police in Bradford, who are having difficulty finding a one-armed, hunchbacked dwarf with a limp and an Irish accent, in connection with a £10,000 jewellery raid?

If this useful combination of aural and visual clues is not enough to track him down, you might have thought a card would help. The history of ID cards shows the opposite - that police start to depend on them, as they have on security cameras, and give up on more traditional sleuthing tools such as, say, eyes and ears.

[...]

Police end up turning a blind eye to criminals, who develop an expertise for card fraud, and come down hard on absent-minded old ladies who leave them on the Tube. And one-armed, hunchbacked dwarves with limps and Irish accents find it easier and easier to blend into the crowd.

The Times (which we do not link to) has reported that Home Secretary, David Blunkett believes the public will back the introduction of identity cards if reassured that their privacy would not be violated.

Mr Blunkett indicated that, in conjunction with Cabinet colleagues, he will assess the desirability of introducing an ID card system by the end of the summer. Apparently, the Home Office has been conducting a consultation exercise on such schemes.

Any idea as to when, where and with whom?

Robert Matthews, a regular writer for QED column in the Sunday Telegraph, looks at the "wonders of technology" David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, decided it was time we should all benefit from.

Mr Blunkett appears to have fallen under the spell of biometric methods, which use characteristics ranging from fingerprints to handwriting to verify the identity of people. He seems to favour a particularly sophisticated version of the technology, which uses the unique iris patterns of the eye to check ID.

...there is still a stunning lack of awareness of a basic mathematical result that shows why we should all be very wary of any type of screening, biometric or otherwise.

In the case of screening - whether for breast cancer or membership of al-Qaeda - the [Bayes's] theorem shows that the technology does not do what everyone from doctors to Home Secretaries seems to think it does.

To take a concrete example, suppose a biometric screening method is 99.9 per cent accurate: that is, it spots 99.9 per cent of imposters, and incorrectly accuses one in 1,000 bona fide people (in reality, these are very optimistic figures). Now suppose that every year a horde of 1,000 terrorists passes through Heathrow airport. What are the chances of the biometric system detecting any of them?

The obvious answer is 99.9 per cent. But, in fact, Bayes's Theorem shows that the correct answer is about two per cent. That is, when the alarms go off and the armed response team turns up at passport control, it is 98 per cent likely to be a false alarm.

Why? Because not even the amazing accuracy of the biometric test can cope with the very low prior probability that any one of the 60 million passengers using Heathrow each year is a terrorist. Sure, it boosts the weight of evidence in favour of guilt 1,000-fold, but that is still not enough to overcome the initially very low probability of guilt.

So there you have it. You just need to calculate your probability of being one of the incorrectly accused one in 1,000 bona fide people and books your ticket accordingly.

Everyone in Britain will have to pay around £25 for a compulsory identity card under proposals being put to the cabinet by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary.

The "smart" card will identify the holder using iris-recognition technology. Failure to carry the card will not be an offence but police will be able to order people to present it at a police station.

So, you won't need to carry the card with you at all time. How is that going to help the 'fightagainstterrorism'? Ah, the terrorists will just report to a police station to show off their hi-tech faked ID cards...

The charge is aimed at overcoming resistance to the scheme from the Treasury. Until now Cabinet support for a national compulsory identity card has been outweighed by the Treasury, which has objected to footing the estimated £1.6 billion bill.

Notice how the main reason that ID cards have not been introduced is that the Treasury opposed the £1.6 billion bill. Concerns for privacy or individual rights? Blank stares around the Cabinet meeting table...

While forcing people to pay for the card could add to the anticipated objections from human rights campaigners, Mr Blunkett believes that concern about national security is sufficient to ensure that individuals will be prepared to bear the cost.

Damn, the one time Mr Blunkett uses the word individual is to charge him the cost of extending governments reach over the individual.

Senior figures in the Cabinet strongly support the plan for the card, which would use a microchip to hold details including age, place of birth, home address and a personal number to identify the holder. It is also hoped that the card could be used to entitle the holder to a range of state benefits, thereby cutting benefit fraud.

Mr Blunkett discussed his plan for a national ID card with Tom Ridge, the head of the US Department of Homeland Security, at a meeting in Washington earlier this month. Mr Blunkett agreed to develop a joint programme, using the same technology, with the US, which has already agreed a similar protocol with Canada.

US and Canada?! Anglosphere, help!

The European Central Bank (ECB) is in talks with Hitachi Ltd. about embedding radio tags in euro bank notes to prevent counterfeiting of euros.

The ECB is deeply concerned about counterfeiting and money laundering and is said to be looking at radio tag technology. Last year, Greek authorities were confronted with of 2,411 counterfeiting cases and seized 4,776 counterfeit bank notes while authorities in Poland nabbed a gang suspected of making and putting over a million fake euros into circulation.

To add to the problem, businesses also find it hard to judge a note's authenticity as current equipment cannot tell between bogus currency and old notes with worn-out security marks. Among the security features in current euros are threads visible under ultraviolet light.

According to Prianka Chopra, an analyst with market research firm Frost and Sullivan the main objective is to determine the authenticity of money and to
stop counterfeits.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags also have the ability of recording information such as details of the transactions the paper note has been involved in. It would, therefore, also prevent money-laundering, make it possible to track illegal transactions and even prevent kidnappers demanding unmarked bills.

Besides acting as a digital watermark, the use of radio chips could speed up routine bank processes such as counting. With such tags, a stack of notes can be passed through a reader with the sum added in a split-second, similar to how inventory is tracked in an RFID-based system.

Hitachi is developing noncontact chips for use in bank notes and other paper documents, Kantaro Tanii, confirmed the company's corporate communications manager for Europe. Hitachi's Web site describes a 0.4-mm by 0.4-mm by 60-micron radio frequency identification chip, called the Mu Chip, that works in the 2.45-GHz frequency band and has a 128-bit ROM for storing its identity number. It was originally conceived as a bank-note-tracking device but could also be used in passports, driver's licenses and other official documents.

A Telegraph opinion piece sums up the Home Office's attempts to introduce compulsory ID cards in the UK:

Benefit fraud, illegal migration, the terrorist threat since September 11: all have been pulled out of the Government's hat as reasons for introducing compulsory identity cards. The Home Office, which has long favoured them, is aware of the political charge they carry. It has, therefore, tried to deter accusations of seeking to curtail basic freedoms by the euphemism "a universal entitlement card scheme", and by using whatever emotive issue is to hand as an argument for their introduction.

It is more than half a century since the wartime national registration card was abolished. An illiberal Home Secretary is now trying to use the age of terror and his failure to adopt sensible immigration and asylum policies as a means of setting up a system of national surveillance. The Cabinet should rebuff him without further ado.

Hear, hear... If you stay tuned, you will.

Note: Everyone over 16 would be required to register with a national citizens' database and would be issued with a personal number. The card is expected to carry core information about the holder, and biometric details such as fingerprints or iris patterns. The cost would be met by adding about £25 to the fee for a driving licence and passport.