Blunkett's Identity Cards - what do you think?

[Tinker]

What are everyone's (anyone's?) views on these? My woolly liberal self was instinctively against but wasn't quite sure why. Read letter in today's Independent about how most people are asked for passport or driving licence or utilty bill as id and this discriminates against those who don't have any - often the poor. Fickle me is now persuaded that these are not a Bad Thing and pretty inevitable.

Any other views?

well I've always had one in France and don't have anything against them, they are a good proof of identity, and as you said, they avoid discrimination. We all seem to be on all sorts of databases now anyway, so I don't see it as taking someone's freedom away. Sure there are going to be some strong view against though...

Since I live in Spain, I have an ID card and to be quite honest I don't understand why people are against them. They make life much easier when dealing with banks etc; people in shops ask for your ID card instead of checking your signature when you pay by card (much more secure).

Spanish people often ask me what the british do when the police ask who they are. They find the answer ( "well, we just tell them" ) very funny. And I see their point: say there's been a nasty fight in a bar and the police need to know the names of all witnesses: as it is many people will lie (especially the perpetrators, but also others) wouldn't it be better if everyone had an ID card?

I guess the main argument against is the fact that people seem to think it would be compulsory to carry them at all times. But it needn't be: in Spain the police will just be extra wary and ask you more questions if you don't have your card - they never ask for it from passers by. But then maybe that's because they spend all their time in cafes or creating gridlock on the roads....

I have no problems with having an ID card at all. In fact in many ways it may make things easier - when asked for forms of ID, etc. However, I do object to having to pay for a card that will become compulsary.

I can't see how they're going to help. We have to pay £40 to get one. Any forger worth their salt will be able to reproduce them, so that's sent any ideas of preventing crime/terrorism to cloud cuckoo land. There's a danger of info creep (when once they're in new information gets put on it and new people get access to that information).

For example, would people be happy if their religion was put on the card? Wouldn't bother you? What if you were Muslim and that meant the police ended up stopping you more frequently because their policy at the time meant you fit the profile for terrorism?

I'm female, white, about to hit 30s. Probably won't affect me that much. If I was in a minority group I would be SERIOUSLY concerned right now.

It won't disadvantage the poor? What about the £40 EACH they have to pay for one? What about them more likely to be stopped by police to check they have it on them and more likely to be arrested/sent to jail if they're not carrying it? (After all, they can't afford a decent lawyer).

It'll do fuck all to reduce crime rates, might make a slight dent in benefit fraud, will cost me money and has the opportunity to hit civil liberties.

The amount of money it'll cost to bring this scheme in is far more than is lost in benefit fraud each year, and is unlikely to have that great an impact on it.

And that's not even getting into the safety aspects of iris scanning if they choose to use that biometric information. Or having your address on your card, in your wallet, so if your bag/wallet is stolen a thief would immediately know which house/car to try the keys on...

Can you tell I think it's a crap idea yet?

Well having just had to practically sell my soul to the council just to be turned down for council tax benefit I'm not really that bothered about carrying them.

Also I went to open a bank account where I already have several accounts but they wouldn't accept my paper driving licence, my passport was out of date, birth certificates are unacceptable and other cards don't count. Even though I had been with them for years I wouldn't have been able to open an account if I haven't remembered that I am on the voters register.

Yes to ID cards Much less hassle, everyone knows who you are anyway. I'm sure it won't be much more intrusive than a Tesco's clubcard! I mean they know how much you spend on Tampax a month!!!

Oh and you think identity theft is a problem now? Imagine how much easier we are going to make it for the thief if all we need to prove our identity is one piece of plastic...

I am certainly not going to pay for it though!

I agree with the point about it being hard to prove your identity at the moment. I can't drive so have no licence. I'm not planning to travel for a while and so have no current passport. And the utility bills are in dh's name (hee hee!). cue: violins.....

Since when was religion going to go on the cards?

Also as I understood it, the £40 figure is how much they will cost - not necessarily payable by the individual.

As for fraud, yes, but they will be a damn sight harder to forge than driving licenses, "prove it" age cards, utility bills etc.

PS if it does have to have religion, I'll have "Jedi"

Not at present - my point was once cards are introduced, it is then trivial for extra information to be added to those cards. It is already in the plans to centralise information between many agencies, it is not inconceivable that that type of information may well be added at a later date.

No, they will be easier to forge as only one document will need forging rather than several. They are not spending enough to make it high tech enough for forgery to be commonplace. Existing ID isn't checked carefully enough now. How much easier to commit fraud when you supposedly have a "master document" of an ID card?

I agree with GeorginaA - any half decent forger will be rolling these things out within an hour of them being produced, and if you get your bag nicked, or worse, mugged for it, you can be pretty sure your idenity will be swiftly assumed by someone up to no good.
I was once questioned by our caring, sharing police force for 3 hours because my old car had been used in a ramraid. The new owners hadn't sent off the DVLA paperwork to register it in their name (wonder why) so it was still registered in my name. And so the police were convinced I was involved. Took forever to convince them I was innocent and they weren't very nice about it - imagine how you'd be treated if they thought you were involved in a bombing because a terrorist had been using your ID card.
I think I can safely say that I WILL NOT have my personal information chipped neatly into a nice little card, all parcelled up tidily and ready to be abused.

Incidentally, a very good site about the negatives of ID cards is www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk

In particular is their pamphlet which can be found here (it's a pdf file though so you'll need Adobe Acrobat plug in to view it). Some of it is a bit paranoic and I certainly don't agree with all of the arguments against, but much of it really makes you stop and think.

But the ID cards will have photos - currently if your bag is stolen and it happens to contain an old-style driving license, you are stuffed. With ID cards they'd at least have to find someone who looks like you.

Also currently anyone with a good scanner and printer can forge a birth certificate, utility bill etc. ID cards will be much harder than that, though admittedly not impossible. Identity theft is a worry, but I really can't see how ID cards would make the problem worse.

Passports have a photo - they're relatively trivial to get forgeries of. People don't check signatures on the back of credit cards, do you really think in practise they're going to scrutinise a photo that carefully? Especially when we know how dire most passport photos come out...

Plus, how is it supposed to combat benefit fraud?! Only 5% of benefit fraud is due to identity fraud! Yet they are spending billions to set up and millions a year to maintain a system that will not help at all.

Will it stop terrorism? No, all the September 11th terrorists either had valid ID or such credible forgeries that they may as well have been.

Will it stop illegal immigration. Maybe, if you force everyone to carry it at all times. If you want to criminalise anyone who forgets to take it with them when they just pop out to pick their kids up from school (I hardly ever take a purse out with me these days unless actually shopping). If you have a scheme where you present yourself to a police station within x number of days (like a driving license) then yet again it defeats the whole point...

I have a gut reaction against ID cards, I don't really know why. I just reckon that so long as I have committed no crime, I should be able to take my dog for a walk in the woods without having to prove who I am! The problem of people not having ID for various transactions could be perhaps be solved by having a voluntary ID scheme.

We had to carry loads of ID in Indonesia, copies of passports, Immigration Visas, Police Cards - my purse was bulging with stuff for three of us -and it's a pain. It was horrible seeing my 6yo having to have her fingerprints taken. I also saw how their own citizens ID cards were used as a means to deprive people of services ("No ID card? Sorry, no education for your child, no job for you." and noted that there was a thriving market in forgeries. I know it isn't like that now in the UK, but I worry it could be the thin end of a wedge.

I don't believe cards would deter crime, either. I seem to remember that credit cards were supposed to make life better for us because no one would have to carry cash but the 'crims' have found ways round that, no problem.

I was under the impression that these cards, along with proposed new passports and driving licenses will contain biometric ID signatures (such as finger printing or using an eye print) rather than simply photographs.

It is also proposed that it wouldn't be compulsary to carry them for at least 10 years, when Government would need to vote for and against them anyway.

The first ones, which I understood that we would have to pay for, are not compulsary but the money raised will go towards further research into the use of biometric ID.

iris scanning - there are still no long term health studies which says this is safe and does not do damage to the eye. You think we had fuss about water fluoridation? Just wait until that one kicks off.

Many countries in Europe have an ID card system. They still have problems (in fact, higher than ours in many cases) with benefit fraud, illegal immigration, terrorism, illegal working etc etc. They also have written constitutions to protect their impact on civil liberties. We don't.

To put this in perspective. Conservative (with a small c) estimates are that to set this up it'll cost somewhere between 1.3 to 3.1 billion pounds (I suspect more as a huge computer database is going to be needed - that just screams spiralling costs to me). Three billion pounds would run a third of the primary schools in england & wales for a year...

That is why more research is to be done. I suspect the first form of biometric ID used will be finger printing. That has been used for ages by police so I don't think there are health risks there really.

I also think it is inevitable that we will have them eventually anyway. As GeorginaA says many other European countires have them anyway - only photo ones at present I think though. The biometric ID should be more secure against forgery, but obviously only if checked.

georginaA - really? get me one then would you?!

Yes, master criminals can forge things but an ID card would cut the opportunity fraudster out of the picture.

The figure of 5% of benefit fraud being identity theft may be true (I don't know), but remember that the vast majority of "benefit fraud" is from people who have a part time cash-in-hand job. Those people are not defrauding the state of very much and are also more likely to be caught anyway.

Anyway I do feel that most of the arguments against ID cards centre on what data will or will not be stored/accessed. Some of the data types suggested should not be stored, but why should that mean we don't have ID cards at all.

Also just been looking at the pdf article mentioned. I was struck by the (unsourced) comment that "countries with ID cards do not have lower crime rates"

Just checked. Here are the 2001 (or most recent year available) fraud rates per 100,000 pop. in some countries from interpol :

countries with ID cards and a national ID card register:
Spain: 43.45
Portugal: 82.89
Netherlands: 112.22

countries with ID card but no register:
France: 621.7
Germany: 1125.95

countries with neither:
UK: 613.09

Looks like a pattern to me (although I do not think that statistics prove everything).

Technology gets smarter every day. An opportunist forger probably wouldn't need that much to forge one enough to pass muster at a random police check (who is unlikely to be carrying iris scan/fingerprinting equipment but will glance at the photo) or at a supermarket verifying a credit card.

Plus you have the joys of hackers getting into the system or even people legitimately having access selling the info on... And with a single form of identity being more "trusted" there would be less checks not more which has me concerned.

Passports - for years there was a loophole that they didn't check for death certs. You found someone who was born roughly your age but died, legitimately bought the birth certificate, sent it off with a passport, bingo. I think they're only just closing that one down. There'll be other loopholes though you can bet. Same with ID cards ... there'll be "legitimate" ways to get phoney ones even if you're not a "master forger".

Fair point with the stats. Still, my point holds that most of europe has a constitution which we don't. And we still have a racism issue with the police - can you really believe minority groups won't get constantly hassled for ID simply because they "look" like an immigrant? I'm probably being highly cynical here.

Anyway, I'll try and bow out here. I just think the amount of money they're spending is so horribly horribly upsetting when it could be used for schools funding or on the NHS.

Um ... that should be sent it off FOR a passport not with.

The money is an issue, I agree.

But I do think you've been watching too much telly: Spanish ID cards (which don't have iris scans etc) are hard to forge. LIke I say, it's not impossible, but to me, extra barriers are a good thing.

For the record I would be against the police being able to "randomly check" people's ID cards anyway.

Also have you seen the new passport application forms? They closed the death-cert cross refernencing loophole a few years ago and have now made it rather too hard to get a passport.

Anyway, not trying to get the last word in or anything. Off to get tea!

I agree with GeorginaA and Suedonim. I'm instinctively against id cards, being a Tinker-like wooly liberal, but if I think about it, I can't see a legitimate argument for spending a huge amount of public money on them and can't believe there's a good cost/benefit argument (although I bet someone in Whitehall has made a good case for it). I also worry about the possible impact on civil liberties and speak as someone who deliberately doesn't have supermarket loyalty cards because I don't want to give Asda etc the information they'd like about me and my family. For example, the Nectar card wanted my mother's maiden name and my date of birth - information I'd only normally give to bankers/credit card companies - and yet it's a card that only exists to encourage me to spend more money with various companies and to give them access to a lot of lifestyle information about me (likely age of children, type of vegetables bought, what newspaper I read),my family and our spending. So I instinctively recoil from providing in depth information to anyone who doesn't, IMO, need it.

Given the recent behaviour of the police (well, amongst other things that is) I'm not sure I'd want to give them extra powers to stop and ask to see id cards and I suspect this would happen since you'd only bother with an id card if you're going to give various agencies the power to demand to see it. And what if various other information starts to creep in? HIV status? Sexual orientation? Voting record? Membership of Greenpeace/CND? No, don't like it, don't think it's necessary and I'm suspicious of the motives for it.

Also, anyone seen the film Gatacca? Discrimination taken to its logical conclusion.