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.