ID cards and new police powers? (1)
01 January 1991
ID cards and new police powers?
artdoc August=1992
The debate over identity cards (ID) being introduced in the UK
is continuing. The Home Office evidence to the Home Affairs
Select Committee in February states that if internal borders
controls were dropped (that is, for people arriving from within
the EC) `compensating action' would have to be considered. The
crux of the Home Office evidence states that if `ports controls
under the Prevention of Terrorism Act were abolished, the
introduction of identity cards, coupled with new police powers
to demand their production away from the frontier, would not
compensate for the loss (of frontier controls)... the present
arrangements could not realistically be replaced by a system of
purely internal checks'(italics added). The rejection by the UK
government of removing border controls is because it does not
believe that the external border controls by its EC partners will
be efficient, and anyway, many `undesirables' are already
resident in the EC. The government therefore argues that: `in
order to ensure that non-EC nationals are successfully identified
for examination, it is necessary also to check the status of
British citizens and other EC nationals'.
The argument continues: `It is unrealistic to think that the
external frontier could ever be strengthened to the point where
it was able to provide a certain barrier against such people
(terrorists or drug traffickers). A further particular
consideration in this respect is that the principal terrorist
threat to the United Kingdom and to UK interests on the continent
of Europe comes from the Provisional IRA, not from terrorist
organisations external to the Community'.
The `compensating action' would include measures such as:
`punitive sanctions on the employers of unauthorised third
country nationals and a requirement for people to establish their
identity on demand...[and] procedures designed to prevent access
to various kinds of State-provided benefits and services'. The
government would have to consider `a power for spot-checks
without particular reason...a new power for spot-checks might
well need to be underpinned by a requirement that people should
carry identification documents at all times, and that might be
facilitated by a standard identity document or card for British
citizens or, perhaps, the resident population'.
The evidence presented to the Committee by the Police Service
speaks of the need to exclude `criminals, terrorists and their
supporters' in the opening paragraph and later refers to
`terrorists, other criminals and illegal immigrants'. These
`illegal immigrants', especially from Eastern Europe, are
described as `economic migrants, may of whom live by crime'. They
call for 1) the extension of the Prevention of Terrorism Act
(PTA) to remove the constraint of `reasonable grounds' when they
suspect a person of having committed an offence; 2) the
introduction of a `Euro-warrant' to by-pass `complicated
extradition procedures'; 3) the introduction of mandatory ID
cards throughout the EC. The Association of Chief Police Officers
presented evidence on ID cards, which it is still studying. Any
ID card, they say, should be a computer-readable smart card,
including fingerprints, photograph, date of birth, and National
Insurance number.
In the EC it is compulsory to hold a card in Germany, Belgium,
Greece, Luxembourg and Spain (though only on Belgium and Greece
is it compulsory to carry it around); there are voluntary ID
cards in France, Italy and Portugal; and no ID cards in Denmark,
Ireland, Netherlands and the UK.
Mr Bangemann, an EC Commissioner, has said that the UK could
face legal action in the European courts if it maintained
immigration controls for EC nationals after 1 January 1993 (when
the internal borders of the EC are due to disappear). The
Schengen Group of EC countries - Germany, France, Italy, Belgium,
Netherlands, Portugal, S