David Cameron: Pledged to scrap ID cards Act at a meeting in Bristol last night
By Christina Zaba
David Cameron has pledged to the people of Bristol that he would repeal the Identity Cards Act if he became Prime Minister.
Speaking to a packed audience of 200 people at Horfield C of E primary school last night, he described the Labour Government’s Identity Cards scheme as “a giant waste of money. We will get rid of the whole thing.”
The National Identity Management System proposed in the 2006 Act plans a voluntary biometric ID card linked to a vast personal database, called the National Identity Register.
Those who get an ID card or biometric passport will be issued with a personal identifying number, under which all the information is to be gathered about them in the database.
Privacy groups warn that, under the legislation, Identity and Passport Service staff will be able to supply personal information without consent from the National Identity Register to many Government departments and agencies, including the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Transport, the police, GCHQ, and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
But a Home Office spokesman said: “Only around 100 vetted Identity and Passport staff will have access to the database. Other organisations, including other government organisations, will only be able to ask for information to be verified. They will not have access to the database. No other government databases will be linked to the National Identity Register.”
Mr Cameron, however, said the issue was enough for him to reject the plan. “Gathering all that data together is dangerous. It’s not about the piece of plastic, it’s the database and the sharing of data that is the issue.”
An ID card currently costs £30. However, once entered on the National Identity Register, from which people cannot be removed, an individual faces a £1,000 penalty if information on the card, such as change of address, is not kept up to date.
The Labour Government originally estimated the cost of introducing the scheme at £5bn. But as long ago as 2005 a distinguished panel of experts from the London School of Economics put the likely cost at closer to £19bn.
Identity cards are already being issued to residents in the north-west of England, supported by a £1.3m Government-funded advertising campaign, including a mailshot through every door, advocating take-up of the cards.
Although the Tories have said before that they would scrap the cards and the National Identity Register if they came to power, to repeal the Act would imply a much wider dismantling of the entire system of linked government databases currently being built in Britain by largely overseas computer companies such as US giant IBM.
The Conservative leader went on to outline his vision for a “responsible society”, saying: “We’re about giving people power and control, about empowering them and trusting them. That way, people will be stronger, happier, more contented.”
He answered questions from people across the city who had to apply for tickets and did not know the location of the event in advance due to security reasons.
Speaking about the Chancellor’s tax hike on cider, Mr Cameron said he thought it was totally the wrong approach to tackling binge drinking.
“Instead of the government’s 10% across the board tax on cider, I would tax drinks like ‘White Lightening’,” he said, “which as far as I know has got no relation to apples.”
Yesterday, a homelessness charity today welcomed the Chancellor’s Budget decision to significantly increase the tax on cider from Sunday and to impose higher taxes on super-strength ciders from September.
Thames Reach has also called on Alastair Darling to introduce similar measures on super-strength lager.
Annie, I’m afraid you’re wrong on several key points.
The ID card itself does carry more personal data than the passport – the chip embedded in the card, for example, contains two fingerprints.
You *are* required to be fingerprinted for an ID card, and all ten prints are kept on the National Identity Register (the ID database behind the cards) for the rest of your life. As is a whole range of other information – anyone interested can read the list of 50 categories in Schedule 1 of the Identity Cards Act: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060015_en_5#sch1
Countries such as Germany are constitutionally forbidden from centralising citizen information in this way. ID systems across Europe are not all the same.
The government may be charging £30 for the card at present, but you have to have a passport (current price £77.50) in order to get one. Not such good value for those on a budget, after all. And you simply don’t know what it’ll cost when it comes time to renew in 10 years, and for the rest of your life…
The penalties for failing to report changes in personal details to the Home Office are not the only ones – they can also issue penalties for failing to tell them within a month if your card is lost or stolen (and you’ll be charged a further £30 for a replacement) or damaged or tampered with. If the scheme is supposed to be ‘voluntary’ and for people’s benefit, why the need for such penalties at all?
There’s a good reason so few people are volunteering to be ID guinea-pigs – just a few thousand out of the millions who are “eligible” so far. The more people find out about the Scheme, the less they like it. It’s what the Home Office isn’t telling people that you have to watch out for.
If you’re happy to pay £107.50, to be fingerprinted and indexed in a central Register and to have to report yourself to the Home Office for the rest of your life, you are free to do so. NO2ID is fighting so that everyone else has the freedom to choose not.
Living in the NW I’m now eligible for this ID card and for me it is just an EU passport, carrying no more details than a regular passport, so what’s the harm. And for me, someone with not a lot of money and only ever travelling inside the EU and needing ID to buy alcohol, it’s a great idea and great value at £30. No fingerprints or any extra details taken or stored.
Just the same as most countries in Europe.
And that ‘fine’ for not having correct information disappears as soon as you change the details.
David, Mr Cameron said at that meeting that they were going to keep biometric passports and "of course, proper biometric visas". The Tories are big on border control and, as I understand it, ID cards for foreign nationals come under other legislation than the ID Cards Act 2006. So my guess is they could get away with not scrapping them and still keep their election 'pledges'.
So far the ID cards for foreign nationals are not connected with the National Identity Database, of which only a limited version has been built at the moment. So their cards don't build up the detailed electronic audit trail which is provided for in the Act. Not yet, anyway.
None the less, I have spoken with several foreign groups, including foreign students, who find their UK ID cards really hard to deal with and feel discriminated against, as well as inconvenienced and criminialised, by having to give in their fingerprints to the police, especially when no-one else has to. Some students have found registration a distressing experience.
The students point out that foreign university students bring some £8bn of revenue to the UK each year – a high figure, which the country needs, surely, since we have a deficit of £160bn. The students ask why, when they're bringing such wealth into the economy, are they being treated like criminal suspects? They say it's very bad PR for Brand UK and will end up with fewer students coming here. They are not being heard.
Given how far the ID cards scheme is already rolled out, and the databases that have been built, and given the cost of dismantling it all and breaking huge contracts that have already been awarded, I do wonder, if he is elected, whether any of these words of Mr Cameron's will translate into action – and if so, how far. We'll see.
If Cameron agrees that "Gathering all that data together is dangerous" will he also agree to scrap the ID cards that foreign nationals are already required to carry, given that ethnic minorities are clearly more vulnerable.
Lots of people do care about what the government does with their information. And many care even more about being fingerprinted, numbered and indexed – and furthermore having to pay for the priviledge – let alone being forced under pain of penalty to keep their official record up to date for the rest of their lives! Repealing the ID Cards Act and scrapping the massive 'gold-plating' of the passport will save billions, even if you aren't concerned about privacy and freedoms.
Cameron is often accused of being another phoney Tony. Seeing as he is likely to be our next PM, I am somewhat reassured that he takes a stand on issues which the public have yet to grasp.
From the start, this ID database was designed to link up the extraordinary amount of information that individual government departments hold on us.
It was designed to tell whichever Government happened to be in power who their political enemies were, what they were doing, where they'd been, what tax and benefits they'd paid/claimed and what medical problems they had.
In short, it would recreate the Stasi, stories about which have been told in recent films like The Lives of Others.
There are also various corporations who would pay tens of £billions for this data – and remarkably, the ID Card Act allows them access.
And if that's too much for you to take in, there's always the £300 per family member you won't be asked to pay out, nor the £1000 fine for not telling the Govt when you've moved house.
Excellent. Cameron focuses on what most people don't much care about or even give a passing thought to. Another PR triumph.