Identity Cards - Statewatch no.1 March/April 1991
01 January 1991
Identity Cards - Statewatch no.1 March/April 1991
artdoc May=1991
The debate over the need for identity cards, voluntary or otherwise, is
continuing. Last year the Home Affairs Select Committee in its report on
Practical Police co-operation in the European Community recommended that a
voluntary machine-readable identity card should be introduced (paras. 137 and
138). The Committee argued that: `it will enhance our European sense of identity
and make Europe an easier and safer place for its citizens'. The government's
response to this report, published in Janu-ary, says that `it is not persuaded
that the case for a voluntary identity card has been made out' (p10). It cites
the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) who believe that a `voluntary
card would be of little use to the police'. While the government position is
that it is opposed to compulsory identity cards it is still considering
voluntary ones. In practice the introduction of voluntary cards would soon
become compulsory for people trying to obtain services such medical care, social
security, and passports. The government's main objection is not one of principle
but of the high costs of introducing ID cards. The Home Affairs Select
Committee developed its proposal further in January this year when it proposed
that a DNA database of the whole male population should be set up to help police
with their fight against crime. This came in its report on the "Annual Report
of the Data Protection Registrar". It cites evidence from Eric Howe, the Data
Protection Registrar to support its case for voluntary ID cards. However, Mr
Howe told that Committee in evidence that: "I probably would not take one out".
Mr Howe went further and pointed out the danger of machine-readable ID cards
as distinct from a simple card with a picture and signature:
But once you go beyond that(the simple card) to an auto-matic pick-up from
the card, you then take away the information into some automatic system, then
the control of the individual over it has disappeared... You are
particularly looking for problems of privacy...How you actually issue codes
to parts of the card which may go to chemists, in one case, to doctors in
another case, and to bank officials in yet another, without these codes
"leaking" all over the place; so that eventually the cards become accessible
simply to anybody?
Two other reports have also backed the introduction of ID cards. The Audit
Commission in a report on the poll tax says that a national identity card scheme
may be "the only way to make a poll tax system work efficiently". A working
group comprising representatives of the police, banks and building societies,
and Home Office officials is recommending to the Home Secretary that a national
ID system be introduced to combat money-laundering and the opening of accounts
in false names.
Practical Police Co-operation in the European Community, Home Affairs Select
Committee, 7th report Session 1989-90, Commons Paper 363-I, 20 July 1990, HMSO;
Practical Police Co-operation in the European Community:the Government Reply to
the 7th report from the Home Affairs Committee, Cm 1367, January 1991, HMSO;
Annual Report of the Data Protection Registrar,1st report Session 1990-91,
Commons Paper 115, HMSO; Guardian, 7.11.91; Independent, 14.1.91; Independent,
16.1.91.
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