Are ID cards in Britain the road to 1984?
By 2017 the British Home Office intends to make ID cards compulsory for all Britons, but their efficacy has not been proven, and the destruction of long-cherished civil liberties is appalling.
By Ali H on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 - 1,069 words.
Last month the first of seven centers due to issue ID cards for all non-EU nationals opened for business. Voluntary ID cards will be available to young people from early 2010 and to the rest of the country by the end of the year. In 2010 anyone renewing their passport will be required to provide biometric information and will automatically be entered onto the National Identity Register (NIR). By 2017 the Home Office intends that ID cards be compulsory for all citizens. Those who refuse will be fined up to £2,500.
“We have reached the point almost of paranoia about civil liberties,” was the conclusion of Times columnist David Aaronovitch with regard to the debate surrounding the introduction of these cards in the UK. Aaronovitch insists there is nothing Nineteen Eighty-Four about plans for all citizens to carry compulsory biometric identification, and for this information to be stored on a centralized government database. Hysterical left-wing comparisons to the novel are ridiculous, he insists; the Big Brother state is nothing more than “a paranoid fantasy.”
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on home affairs, is one such paranoid fantasist, saying of the government’s plans to extend the capacity of the database that, “1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a blueprint.” He can be soothed, then, as Winston Smith was, by Aaronovitch’s favorite platitude: if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
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Enough of the predictable Orwellian references. Unfortunately, though, regardless of whether you relate the planned legislation to Orwell’s literature, and regardless of whether you have something to hide, there are elements to the ID scheme which remain troubling.
The first element is cost. The estimate for ID cards has varied over the years from between £5.4 billion to £18 billion. The government has constantly changed its projected costs and admits that the total figure will be difficult to predict. Taxpayers money will be used not only to set up the centralized system, but also to set up the relevant software and scanning systems through their local authorities. There will be a charge for the biometric passport and ID card amounting to an estimated £93, and there will also be a separate charge for high street chains to “collect” the biometric data. Should the ID card holder fail to inform the government of a change to their information at any time, they will also face a £1,000 fine.
Security is a further concern. Under the proposed measures, fifty different categories of information will be stored on every person. All of this will be kept on a centralized database. Given the government’s record of protecting sensitive information – USB sticks left in pub car parks, NHS hard-drives sold on Ebay – this is worrying. More worrying still, a centralized database storing such amounts of data would mean more information than ever before would be at risk. Hackers have already shown how easy it is to gain access to the Home Office database. University professor Jeroen Van Der Beek has also demonstrated how easy it is to access and change encrypted information on a biometric passport, changing the identity of a journalist’s son to that of Bin Laden. As security expert Bruce Schneider insists, such technology will not make us safer from, but more vulnerable to, identity theft and e-crime.
A further troubling point is that none of the reasons given for the implementation of ID Cards seem to stand up to examination. The government has said they will help combat the threat of terrorism, yet the men responsible for the 9/11 and Madrid terrorist attacks all held valid identification, and Human Rights watchdog Privacy International has reported that it has found “no evidence to establish a connection between identity cards and successful anti-terrorism measures.”
The government has also said it will prevent the abuse of public services, such as benefit fraud, yet as campaigning organization NO2ID have shown, the figures for benefits claims under false identity are estimated at only 2.5 percent of the £2 billion per year in fraudulent claims. The cards would cost more than they save.
Immigration, then? The Home Office says that ID Cards will “provide an easy and secure way for legal UK residents to prove who they are.” It does not mention that asylum seekers have been required to carry ID since 2000, so the only change will be that citizens will now have to carry them too. As for illegal immigrants, as NO2ID point out, this will present no more of an obstacle to people smugglers than passports or visas (as we have seen biometric data can easily be hacked), and employers already face substantial fines for employing people illegally and yet only a minimum of prosecutions are ever made.
Perhaps the most disturbing and misleading claims on the benefits of ID cards have been made in relation to children and young people. From next year all young people will be eligible for an ID Card, and fingerprinting has already been piloted in schools across the UK. Such measures, it has been argued, will apparently protect children against anything from bullying to missing out on free school dinners to paedophilia, simply by them being able to prove who they are.
Not only is this ridiculous, it also runs the risk of making children more vulnerable. Women’s Aid have raised concerns that the storing of information as specified in the current Children’s Bill could allow mothers to be more easily tracked down by violent partners. Terry Thomas, Professor of Criminal Justice Studies, also believes that the measures greatly restrict the next generation’s right to personal freedom; that “children are being inducted into the world of the ’surveillance society’ without really knowing what it means.”
So what would it mean? Anti-terrorism laws have already restricted the right to protest and the right to privacy. We now have one CCTV camera for every 14 people and a DNA database bigger than most dictatorships. Such moves have fundamentally altered the relationship between citizen and state, and the introduction of ID cards will crystallize this: forcing citizens to provide biometric data that will be stored by the state, requiring them to prove their identity on demand, and fostering a climate in which the desire for privacy insinuates guilt.
Perhaps Aaranovitch finds all of this to be part of a paranoid fantasy but then, as the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid about your civil liberties being eroded, it doesn’t mean your civil liberties aren’t being eroded.
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Our government, of whatever political persuasion, seems to be hell bent on making every citizen a criminal. Once we all are 'criminals' , either by getting caught out doing a couple of mph above the speed limit, dropping a biodegradable apple core on a grass verge or the simply act of mistakenly putting the wrong type of rubbish in our domestic refuse, then they will happy as they will be able to control us to their hearts content.
This has to stop!!! Is there a way that us, Joe Public, can put an end to this run away paranoia on the part of our supposed leaders?
I think maybe suggesting its pure paranoia on the government's part is letting them off lightly, but agree that whatever the motives, the culture of fear and suspicion it breeds is destructive.
Campaigning organisations like NO2ID (http://www.no2id.net/)have already done lots of work, and the scheme is increasingly losing public support. Actually the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith set up a website for young people called 'My Life My ID' which was recently taken off-line after her target audience branded the scheme 'dirty' and 'illegal.' The worrying thing is though that the legislation is being pushed ahead regardless, and when it comes to implementing mandatory cards most people with a family to support etc wont want to face large fines and risk criminal prosecutions by refusing them.
The UK is a nest of bad ideas. They have tried everything except effective measures to reduce crime, particularly violent crime, in which they lead the world per capita and approach the US in sheer numbers in some areas. Gun bans, kinfe bans (knife murders up 39% in four years), CCTV all over, imprisoning citizens because they "are a menace to burglars" (the judge, in denying parole to Tony Martin, while the burglar who tried to rob him went free).
Since these ID's are man-made, of course someone will figure out how to replicate them illegally. There is money in it, just as one can get a firearm in London as easily as in Los Angeles or Chicago, without regard to gun bans.
Unfortunately, bad ideas travel fast among the political class, so no doubt this is coming to the US if it is more comprehensive than RealID…
To be honest, my personal philosophy where buglars are concerned is that I would rather end up in jail and alive with the burglar dead than either me or my family dead or badly injured (or my wife and daughters raped). I would not hesitate in beating the living daylights out of a burglar.
Kevan, we are of the same mind but I am an older guy without a lot of skill in hand-to-hand combat with multiple assailants. The choice of jail or beaten is one forced on us by people like Mike Bloomberg, who has all the taxpayer armed security he could ask for, and millions of personal wealth to pay for whatever isn't otherwise paid for..but he knows we slobbos don't need to worry about self-defense…"his boys will handle it all". That is low-grade night soil, but it sells among the "liberal and caring" portion of the political class, and their drones eat it up. I guess it is a death wish, or a release from personal responsibility such voters seek. Daddy will see to it, go back to sleep.
Self-defense starts with the individual, and there is no morality in calling 911 and dying because when seconds count, the police are just minutes away. It has happened twice in as many months out here in Los Angeles…that the newspapers will print it. The LA Times is very in favor of disarming the law-abiding, and manages the news.
further…
One way to guage their attitude is to read an article about corrupt local politicians and see when they mention party affiliation. Front page article today about a local worthy who screwed up too badly to be overlooked. A Democrat. I can tell because his party affiliation was never mentioned. Republican, you bet it would be out there in big letters. Any thinking person has got the scam figured out. Over the last three years anyway, you can tell a Democrat with his tail in the gate because party affiliation is missing from the story.
To come back to your point, maybe we should form a "bad victims" club…"good victims" cooperate fully and happily, see my essay on the 2nd Amendment in the CF archives.
Hi Harry. I'm not so spritely myself at nearly 46. Ok, I should be but I'm actually riddled with arthritis. I'm also not well versed in one to one combat having never been in the army or other services and never have I been the sort fo person who looks for fights. However, I did participate in contact karate when I was much younger and I'd use those moves I learned to the best of my abilities if I needed to. Add to that there are many objects in the average home that can be used as an impromptu defensive weapon if need be
To get back to the original debate about ID cards and to tie this 'home intruder' offshoot into it. How would an ID card help in this case? Answer….not at all. Is the burglar (note I didn't submit a typo this time…) going to flash an ID at the homeowners if he/she is disturbed? Nope. If the police do manage to catch him/her then again an ID card means nothing in prosecuting them. Tying this in with the usage of ID cards in combatting illegal immigrants, again, how will it help? They have to be caught first and if they are going to be then they will be card or no card. Add to that, as has already been said but I'll rephrase it to the way I always state it, "if man can make it then man can break it". In this case "man can also fake it".
I shall await the first prosecutions of innocent members of society who have forgotten to take their ID card with them in the Summer and they have shorts on and t-shirts. I often go out with shorts that have no pockets. Forget chains or clips on the cards I used to work at a local university so I know just how easy it is to lose those forms of attachment.
Apologies for rambling and going off topic somewhat.
Kevan
Another bizarre child-targeted ploy – Playmobil are now making security checkpoints for kids:
http://www.amazon.com/Playmobil-3172-Security-Che...
Some of the comments by customers are definitely worth a read.
I see you got that viral email too…:-)