Ο προϊστάμενος της Μεγάλης Βρετανίας Κάρτες ταυτότητας το πρόγραμμα και η εθνική βάση δεδομένων ταυτότητας έχουν υπερασπίσει τα σχέδια καρτών κυβερνητικής αναθεωρημένα ταυτότητας παρά τους ισχυρισμούς μιας u-στροφής αφότου αποκλιμακώθηκε το πρόγραμμα.

Από Ρείκι εγκοπών

James Hall, διευθυντής της ταυτότητας και υπηρεσία διαβατηρίων (IPS), είπε το silicon.com που το αναθεωρημένο σχέδιο είναι πιθανό να κόψει £1bn από την ετικέττα τιμών £5.4bn του, ότι οι εργαζόμενοι σταθμών παραγωγής ηλεκτρικού ρεύματος είναι πιθανό να ενώσουν εργαζόμενοι αερολιμένων και ολυμπιακό προσωπικό ασφάλειας ως πρώτους βρετανικούς πολίτες στη γραμμή για τις κάρτες και ότι οι κάρτες μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν για να αποδείξουν την ταυτότητα μέσω του Διαδικτύου.

Αλλά οι βρετανικές επιχειρήσεις παραμένουν κρίσιμες, με τη συνομοσπονδία της βρετανικής βιομηχανίας (CBI) που φοβάται ότι οι επιχειρήσεις θα μπορούσαν να είναι εκτεθειμένες εάν παράσχουν τις ανακριβείς πληροφορίες στον εθνικό κατάλογο και την έκφραση ταυτότητας της ταραχής πέρα από την ασφάλεια των στοιχείων που θα κρατηθεί σε το.

Ο Υπουργός Εσωτερικών Δαβίδ Davis σκιών προώθησε μια περαιτέρω επίθεση, αναφέροντας τον κίνδυνο ογκώδους παραβίασης στοιχείων στο σύστημα. Είπε: «Είναι κάτι πολύ επικίνδυνο η κυβέρνηση κάνει. Θα ακυρώναμε αυτήν την βάση δεδομένων.»

Επίσης προέκυψε ότι οι εργοδότες των «εμπιστευμένων εργαζομένων» ποιος θα πάρει τις κάρτες πρώτος, όπως BAA, είναι πιθανό να συνεχίσουν το λογαριασμό για τους ελέγχους προϋπηρεσίας στο πλαίσιο του συστήματος καρτών ταυτότητας.

Η αίθουσα είπε ότι η απόφαση να καθυστερηθεί μια κοινοβουλευτική ψηφοφορία για να καταστήσει τις κάρτες ταυτότητας υποχρεωτικές για τους βρετανικούς πολίτες έως το 2015 ήταν ένα παράδειγμα της κυβέρνησης «ακούοντας τους ανθρώπους» και τις συστάσεις μιας ευρύτερης έκθεσης στη «διαβεβαίωση ταυτότητας» από τις προηγούμενες τραπεζικές εργασίες ο κύριος Sir James Crosby.

Ήταν βέβαιος ότι να καταστήσει το σχέδιο εθελοντικό από το 2010 θα αύξανε τη λήψη των £30 καρτών ταυτότητας μεταξύ του κοινού.

Η αίθουσα είπε: «Υποθέτουμε ότι θα πάρουμε πολύ έναν υψηλού επιπέδου της λήψης, περισσότερο απ' ό, τι με την προηγούμενη ρύθμιση με τη σύνδεση της λήψης στην ανανέωση διαβατηρίων. Υιοθετούμε μια όφελος-οδηγημένη μέθοδο. Ο καταναλωτής θα είναι σε θέση να επιλέξει εάν θέλουν να έχουν μια κάρτα ταυτότητας ή ένα διαβατήριο. Θα επιτρέψουμε στους ανθρώπους με τις κάρτες γρήγορα και εύκολα δημόσιες υπηρεσίες πρόσβασης.»

Biometric data for the cards is likely to be captured by private companies with people paying for the service.

Hall insisted that the changes were not what prompted Accenture, BAE Systems and more recently Steria to pull out of the procurement process to build the ID card computer system, describing the remaining bidders as “incredibly positive”.

He added that security and Criminal Records Bureau checks carried out with ID cards would be far quicker and easier for the employer and employees.

Hall said that cards could later be used to confirm identity online using a PIN stored on the card.

Anyone renewing or applying for a new passport from 2011 onwards will be required to add their biometric details to the National Identity Register but they won’t now be forced to pay for a physical ID card and can instead choose to just use their passport.

Foreign nationals living in Britain will have to register their biometric details on the National Identity Register and carry an ID card by the end of this year.

Iain Macwhirter

ISN’T IT reassuring that the finest minds of their generation are serving in Gordon’s government. Take home secretary Jacqui Smith and her brilliant solution to the problem of compulsory identity cards: making them voluntary! This oxymoronic U-turn sets a new benchmark in government dithering.

The whole point about identity cards - or so Tony Blair told us - was that they were meant to be held by everyone.

That way, wrong uns, illegals and people with dark faces (sorry, “criminally profiled terrorist suspects”) would be easy to spot because they wouldn’t have said card.

They could then be banged up for weeks without charge under the proposed law on detention of suspected terrorists.

Now that the cards are voluntary, the terrorists, illegals, etc, will not even have to go to the inconvenience of forging their own ID cards.

Only those who actually have the cards will be liable to arbitrary arrest and detention by the police, when they inevitably confuse Mr Oswald B Linden with Osama bin Laden.

We can sleep safely in our beds, secure in the knowledge that they know where we live.

In her further wisdom, Ms Smith has made students an exception to voluntary compulsion. They will all be expected to have identity cards.

Which is inspired because, of course, students are the one group in society that can be guaranteed to lose their identity cards, after using them to cut up lines of coke or whatever. This means that the government won’t have to go to the trouble of losing the identity cards itself, in the way it lost the child benefit records of 25 million citizens.

Senior managers at HM Revenue and Customs have been amply rewarded for losing our bank accounts, national insurance numbers and pension details and posting them in a Jiffy bag to al-Qaeda. A grateful government has increased their bonuses by more than 50%.

You might find it surprising that officials in dysfunctional government departments are getting any bonuses at all, but incompetence on this scale doesn’t come cheap.

It takes brains to lose £3.3 billion in overpaid tax credits, and civil servants need proper incentives or, heck, they might go to the private sector.

Talking of which, Gordon Brown himself must surely be in line for some kind of bonus for losing £4bn of our money on the bullion markets.

Gordo sold most of Britain’s gold reserves off the back of a lorry eight years ago when it was worth $275 an ounce. Now the yellow stuff is trading at nearly a $1000, which makes GB the biggest rogue trader since Jerome Kerviel.

You can see why banks are so keen on hiring top politicians like Tony Blair when they leave office. I bet Societie General will be lining up to hire Mr Brown, who will be able to name his price even if he can’t price his name.

Government and the Speaker of the House of Commons collude to try to abuse the 17th Century Bill of Rights to suppress the FOIA disclosure of OGC Gateway Reviews of the ID Cards Programme

Spy Blog 

The Bill of Rights 1689 a historical piece of the English Constitution, which was intended to preserve the rights and freedoms of the public and of Members of Parliament from abuses by the Executive branch of Government, which, in the 17th Century was:

Whereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of diverse evill Councellors Judges and Ministers imployed by him did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Lawes and Liberties of this Kingdome.

If you replace “the late King James the Second” with.”Tony Blair”or “Gordon Brown”, the words fit just as well.

We are astonished and furious, that this Bill of Rights, is being abused in the High Court to try to weasel out of having to disclose the early (and now very out of date) Gateway Reviews of the Home Office’s Identity Cards Programme (as it was then, circa 2002 / 2003), by the lawyers for the Government’s Office for Government Commerce, supported by, incredibly, lawyers for the Speaker of the House of Commons, in their Appeal against the Decision of the independent Information Tribunal, which ordered full disclosure, in the public interest.

Are the Government and their lawyers desperate, or evil ?

Why is the Speaker of the House of Commons helping the Executive branch of Government, to suppress freedom of speech and transparent open government, in a matter of huge public interest ?

Daily Mail / Mail on Sunday: 319-year-old law used by Speaker Michael Martin to gag ID report

Computer Weekly: Government seeks to bury ID card reviews

[hat tip to UK Liberty for spotting this before us]

Bill of Rights 1688 ( “Act declared to be a Statute by Crown and Parliament Recognition Act 1689 (c. 1)”)

That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.

See the history of this long running Freedom of Information Act disclosure suppression in our OGC Gateway Reviews of the Identity Cards Programme blog category archive.

The lawyers for the Government, seem to be desperately clutching at straws, by claiming that the Information Tribunal, in its very thorough 4 day hearing, involving submissions from top barristers Queens Councils and specialist professors of Freedom of Information Act law, somehow made improper use of a publicly published report from a Select Committee of the House of Commons, the one which scrutinises the Department for Work and Pensions.

See the House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions report: Third Report - 7 July 2004 - Department for Work and Pensions Management of Information Technology Projects: Making IT Deliver for DWP Customers specifically paras. 110 - 123 Publishing OGC Gateway Reviews

If they are allowed to get away with this line of reasoning, then there is no point in any of the supposedly powerful Select Committees whatsoever, if their official public reports following their inquiries and investigations, cannot be used to scrutinise the policies and decisions of Central Government Departments or Agencies.

Incredibly, they are being supported by a lawyer acting on behalf of the Speaker of the House of Commons, to help the Executive branch of the Government (i.e. no longer the Monarch, but a Central Government Department, which was not the case in the 17th Century) to suppress the rights of the public in general, and of the two people who submitted the original Freedom of Information Act requests, which have been considered together by the Information Tribunal. One of those people is actually a Member of Parliament !

This bit of law is what is supposed to protect Members of Parliament from libel cases for what they say, with Parliamentary Privilege, in speeches or debates, in the Chamber of the House of Commons.

This fundamental constitutional law pre-dates the official record of the proceedings of Parliament i.e. Hansard, which started out as a private sector journalistic publishing venture, and the general acceptance of press and media reporting of the procedures of Parliament. Neither of these existed back in the 17th Century.

Provided that these reports use fair and accurate quotations, then these media reports are themselves protected by Parliamentary Privilege from being accused of promulgating what might be a libel, if it had not been uttered by an MP within the House of Commons. This protection against libel or other civil cases also extends to the official written Reports of Select Committees of the House of Commons, and the Lords or Joint Committees of both Houses of Parliament.

There are perverse consequences of this Parliamentary Privilege e.g.
1995 case of the then MP Neil Hamilton (”Cash for Questions”), trying to sue The Guardian newspaper for libel, and being unable to, because The Guardian would not have been able to get a fair trial in a UK Court, by not being able to quote any of his speeches or the rules of the House of Commons. This anomaly was later amended by specific legislation allowing MPs to waive their parliamentary Privilege on an individual, case by case basis, so as to sue for defamation..

See Defamation Act 1996 section 13 Evidence concerning proceedings in Parliament

The provisos in this section of the Act explicitly cover Select Committee evidence and reports.

Information Tribunal was not criticising, let alone libeling or even “Questioning” the Select Committee report. The Information Tribunal simply cited this publicly published Report as evidence, noting the arguments, both for and against publication of such Gateway Reviews.

para 23In the course of this hearing, the Tribunal was referred to the
inquiry conducted by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions that reported in 2004 on Management of Information Technology Projects: Making IT Deliver for DWP Customers. It considered, amongst other things, the arguments for and against publishing GR’s.

The “Questioning” by the Information Tribunal Judgement was of the Office for Government Commerce, part of HM Treasury, headed, at the time (May 2007) by the “control freak” Chancellor / Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

That is definitely not anything to do with the “Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament” which is what the Bill of Rights clause is on about !

How can the High Court, Judge Mr. Justice Stanley Brunton possibly decide that reading or mentioning a Select Committee Report contravenes the Bill of Rights, without also destroying Hansard, official Government Press Releases, the wider Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press ?

How can he ignore the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 ?

The Speaker of the House of Commons should not be colluding with the Government and the civil service bureaucracy, he should be Ordering them, under threat of Contempt of Parliament, to obey the several cross-party Select Committees such as the Public Accounts Committee, the Home Affairs Committee, and the Work and Pensions Committee etc. have not even been allowed to see copies of Gateway Review reports, even in closed evidence sessions.

That is the scandal which the Speaker of the House of Commons should be employing lawyers to remedy.

He should not be helping to suppress proper public and Parliamentary scrutiny of massive Government IT projects, involving millions of pounds of public money, which will affect every person in the UK, individually.

The publication of the High Court’s Judgment could take several weeks or months. We await the result, with mounting despair and resentment of the English legal system, which is stacked by the Government so heavily against normal individual citizens, and which fails to uphold their fundamental human rights, in a speedy and just manner.

Nicol Stephen told the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference at the weekend that they must hold hard to the defining liberal issue of civil liberties.

Labour threatened to erode these through detention without trial, DNA databases, ID cards, biometrics, CCTV and stop-and-search powers, he told delegates in Aviemore.He said: “Our approach is founded on a fundamental principle that the rights of the individual are central to the freedoms and liberties that many Liberals have fought and died for over centuries of campaigning.”

He pointed to Labour’s attempts to push through laws allowing retention of the DNA of innocent people of all ages, and plans to link the planned ID card to students’ ability to secure a loan.

He said he had asked Alistair Carmichael at Westminster to head up a new “stop and search” LibDem hit squad to stop and search all new legislation that seeks to sneak through anything that further erodes civil liberties.

Ian GrantPeople will have to give explicit permission for the government to access their personal details held on various databases before they can get a national identity card, ID card minister Meg Hillier told MPs this week.

Hillier was giving evidence to the House of Commons’ Home Affairs select committee on the security arrangements for the controversial national identity register and associated national identity card.

There would be two databases, one for biometric data (fingerprints, facial images and possibly later, iris scans) and biographic data (name, address history, National Insurance number etc), Hillier said.

A Home Office spokesman said that when a person applies for an ID card, any information to be recorded in the National Identity Register will be checked against a number of public or private sector data sources to help verify the person’s identity. “This will build on existing best practice in processing passport applications,” he said.

Just over a year ago the government dropped plans to build the NIR from scratch. It opted to use Immigration computer systems to store biometric data and the Department of Work & Pension’s National Insurance database to store biographic data.

Hillier said fewer than 100 people will have access to the entire dataset of a NIR record. Each access to a record would have an audit trail, and access to some data fields in the record would require two simultaneous authenticated and credentialed users.

All transfers of data would be encrypted, she said. “There will be no discs flying around (with unencrypted data on them),” she said. This was a reference to the loss by HM Revenue & Customs last year of two compact discs containing the personal and banking details of 25 million child benefit claimants. Hillier admitted that the incident had “dented” people’s confidence in the government’s ability to protect sensitive personal data.

Hillier said she expected most external use of the NIR would be to confirm that a person’s identity was registered. Very rarely, and then only to agencies IPS audited for security, would further details be given, she said.

People would be entitled to ask the “identity custodian” who had looked at their records, she said. There were no plans to follow committee chairman Keith Vaz’s suggestion that IPS provide a “Google Alert” to warn people when someone looked up their data.

She said people don’t expect the credit vetting agencies to tell them when someone checks up on them, nor did the Passport Office when someone verified a passport’s validity. IPS was taking the same approach.

Duncan Hine, who is in charge of security arrangements for the NIR and ID card, said security on the biometric database would be the highest possible and certified by government, but security around the biographic data would be less stringent.

Hillier said that the procurement process now underway should be completed by the end of the year with roll-out of ID cards starting early in 2009.

Nick Heath

The latest government ID card plans have revealed people will face fines of up to £1,000 for skipping biometric scans.

Penalties ranging from £125 for not notifying the government of the loss of an ID card, to £250 for not applying for a card or missing an appointment for fingerprint and facial scans, were revealed in the Home Office consultation papers.

The fines would apply to foreign nationals entering or living in the UK, who will be required to have ID cards from November — ahead of the cards’ introduction for UK citizens next year.

Foreigners persistently failing to apply or turn up for scans face a charge of up to £1,000 but there would be a reduction in fine of up to £100 for anyone who could prove extenuating circumstances for non-compliance.

Any foreign national with limited leave to stay in the UK failing to apply or turn up for a scan three times in five years would have their remaining leave curtailed.

The Home Office documents predict the cards will be fitted with a “tamperproof chip” containing encrypted information, which would include the holder’s face, two fingerprints, personal details and immigration status.

Airport union Unite recently called for consultation on airport workers being among the first groups in the UK to need ID cards.

The widespread rollout to UK citizens, known as ‘Borders phase II’, is now slated to begin in 2012 - two years later than indicated in an earlier government action plan.

Critics of the scheme said the perceived two-year slip in the widespread rollout of the cards is another sign of wavering support among Gordon Brown’s government for ID cards. Doubts in the scheme were further exacerbated by Accenture and BAE Systems pulling out of the procurement process to build the ID card computer system.

Ian Grant

The government is close to releasing a critical report about the controversial £4.3bn ID-card plan.The report, now nearly a year behind schedule, is expected to spell out the government’s options on how it can best move forward with plans to provide everyone in Britain with a universally accepted form of identity.

Gordon Brown commissioned Sir James Crosby in July 2006 to produce a report on how the government and private sector can work together on identity management. The original deadline was Easter 2007.

Crosby chairs the Public-Private Forum on Identity Management, which drew input from the City of London Police, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, HM Revenue & Customs, the Identity and Passport Service of the Home Office and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. From the private sector, the forum heard from Barclays Bank, Boots the Chemist, British Airways, Compass Group plc, Linklaters and O2. It also heard evidence from civil society organisations such as No2ID.

Its role was to review the current and emerging use of identity management in the private and public sectors and identify best practices, consider how the public and private sectors can work together, harness the best identity technology to maximise efficiency and effectiveness, and produce a preliminary report for the chancellor of the exchequer and the Ministerial Committee on identity management by Easter 2007.

It explored how the public and private sectors might converge their respective ID management programmes, how consumers could be “encouraged” to look after their data better, and any legal barriers to sharing identity information between private and public sector bodies.

The London Assembly has called on the Government to abandon controversial plans to introduce ID cards and instead spend London’s share of the costs of the proposed scheme on tackling crime.

Jenny Jones AM, who proposed the motion, said:

“If the ID card scheme goes ahead it will lead to the creation of a massive database full of personal data and biometric information. There have been several incidents lately where public sector organisations have lost or misplaced huge amounts of personal data, making the information contained in an ID card database an accident waiting to happen. The money would be far better spent reducing crime in the capital.”

Bob Blackman AM, who seconded the motion, said:

“The proposals for ID cards are intrusive and serve no purpose beyond making people more vulnerable to having their personal data lost, sold or abused. If this type of comprehensive personal information were to fall into the wrong hands – which is a real possibility – it would be the average person who has done nothing wrong who would suffer most.”

The motion in full reads as follows:

“This Assembly expresses its alarm over recent government failures to protect the personal data of citizens, including many Londoners, and over major failures with government computer systems. It considers that these failures demonstrate further the huge risks of introducing a National ID Register, involving a massive accumulation of personal information, together with biometric ID cards.

The Assembly calls on the government to recognise these risks and abandon its proposals, including the introduction of ID cards by coercion as part of the passport and driving licence application process. It reiterates its call to government to redirect London’s share of the cost of the scheme to effective crime prevention and policing measures.”

By John Oates

British people are maintaining steady levels of disbelief over goverment claims about ID cards, according to official Home Office research.

Lobby group No2ID picked up on the research this week, but a spokesman for the IPS said it had been published on ips.gov.uk in November. Google has a cache from earlier this month.

The survey asked people how important proposed benefits of the ID card would be - 74 per cent chose “disrupting the activities of terrorists and organised criminals”, but 23 per cent of people thought this was “slightly believable” and 11 per cent thought it was “not at all believable”. Seven per cent of respondents did not recognise any of the eight benefits they were offered to choose between.

Researchers from Taylor Nelson Sofres summarised views as: “Across the board, full buy-in and belief in the schemes [sic] ability to deliver the proposed benefits is weak.”

Phil Booth, NO2ID’s National Coordinator, said: “After five years of trying to get people to like ID cards, even the Home Office’s own research says that only one in four believe they’ll do what they’re claimed to. And this is supposed to be positive spin. It’s both tragedy and farce.

“Mr Brown - if he’s in control at all - should shut down the ID empire-builders before this particular legacy of Blunkett and Blair gets any more embarrassing.”

The survey also noted that: “Interestingly prevention of illegal immigration is more “top-of-mind” than it was in wave 1 which is likely to reflect media coverage at the time interviewing was being conducted.”

The Tracking Research talked to people in October, the latest update should be published in the next month - we’ll bring you more belief-beggaring government research as we get it.

It will be interesting to see what impact the recent round of data losses by the UK government has on its believability quotient.

The survey used a sample of 2,052 people weighted to reflect the UK population.

The survey report is available from this page as a pdf.®

Anthony Wells

A new ICM poll for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust suggests 50% of people now think ID cards would be a bad idea, with 47% thinking them a good idea.

The wording in the question was the same as used in the series of polls done for No2ID by ICM, so it is directly comparable to previous questions - back in September before the loss of benefit data the same question was showing 54% in favour and only 42% against, though it should be pointed out that the opposition isn’t unprecedented, a poll in July 2007 found a majority against cards.

Despite the drop in support for ID cards and the recent data loss incidents, the public still seem positive about other proposals whee data security would be an issue - 51% said they would be comfortable with the government building a database of everyone in the country including their fingerprints (48% were uncomfortable), 67% were happy with the government collecting travel information on British citizens going in and out of the country (31% were uncomfortable), 53% were comfortable with the idea of the government making a database with information on every child in the UK (45% uncomfortable). Only with the idea of allowing government departments to share information provided to one of them to others were a majority (52%) uncomfortable.

By Nick Heath

Support for the UK’s national ID card programme continues to plummet as one quarter of people say they are strongly opposed to the scheme.

According to the ICM poll, 25 per cent of those surveyed thought it was a “very bad” idea - up from 17 per cent in September last year.

Opponents of the ID card scheme said the survey of just over 1,000 people, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, showed the government would be “unable to impose” the cards on the population.

But while 50 per cent said the cards were a bad idea in the ICM poll, 47 per cent of those questioned still thought they were a good idea. And 12 per cent of that group thought they were a ‘very good’ idea.

Phil Booth, national co-ordinator with pressure group NO2ID, said: “It shows that more people don’t want ID cards than do, as is clearly the case across the population.”

He said: “The number of people who look like they will refuse to have one has gone up massively, a quarter of the population are vehemently against them.”

The idea of the government taking data submitted for one use and sharing it between departments also made 52 per cent of respondents uncomfortable.

The poll found the majority support creating a separate database about every child in the UK, creating a central identity register and collecting personal travel details on everyone coming in and out of the UK.

The first ID cards will be introduced for foreign nationals by the end of this year.

The widespread rollout to UK citizens, known as ‘Borders phase II’, is now slated to begin in 2012 - two years later than indicated in an earlier government action plan.

National identity cards will be given to British citizens two years later than planned, it has emerged.

Leaked Home Office documents given to the Conservatives show the planned rollout of ID cards to British citizens has been delayed until 2010.

It was originally planned British citizens should be given ID cards from 2010, with foreign nationals subject to the legislation later this year.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said the delay showed the planned ID card scheme was “in the intensive care ward”.

Gordon Brown is reportedly less enthusiastic about ID cards than his predecessor Tony Blair, who promised to include legislation for compulsory ID cards in Labour’s next election manifesto.

Earlier this month, Mr Brown appeared to show more tentative support for compulsory ID cards, describing it as simply “an option” and pointing out it would be subject to further parliamentary approval.

It is thought the delay has also been prompted by security concerns as ministers grapple with the logistics of gathering and safely storing vast amounts of data.

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green told the BBC: “It’s clear that there are enormous practical difficulties in putting 50 different pieces of personal information including addresses of 60 million British citizens plus lots of foreigners into a single database.

“I think the reality is just beginning to bite ministers on this, so this delay is the first sign of reality intruding, let’s hope there are more to come.”

The leaked Home Office documents show Borders Phase 1, where ID cards will be rolled out to foreign nationals, is set to begin this year. From 2009 cards will also be issued to people “in positions of trust”.

But Borders Phase 2, when the cards will be introduced to all British Citizens, is schedule to begin in 2012, two years later than previously thought.

An Identity and Passport Service spokesman said: “We have always said that the sheme will be rolled out incrementally.”

But Mr Davis said the delay was intended to stop ID cards becoming an issue at the next election, planned for 2009 or 2010.

http://www.politics.co.uk

J. Mark Lytle

If you’re already concerned by the gradual erosion of our personal privacy in the 21st century, then the latest report from a pair of privacy watchdogs might make uncomfortable reading.

Privacy International from the UK and the Electronic Privacy Information Center in the US regularly assess how nations treat the rights of their citizens to live without government intervention. According to the 2007 report, both Britain and America are rock bottom “endemic surveillance societies.”

ID cards a risk

Not only does the UK have far more CCTV surveillance cameras than any other country, but it also has suffered a rash of electronic data leaks and placed its citizens even more at risk with plans for a national identity card.

Across the Atlantic, US residents continue to lose freedoms in the so-called ‘war on terror’ that has seen legalised spying introduced through warrantless phone taps and email snooping by the state.

Should you wish to continue an existence, whether online or off, that is free from fear of intrusion, then the report suggests Greece - the only country deemed to have adequate privacy-protection safeguards in place.

tech.co.uk

Poll shows growing opposition to ID cards over data fears

· 25% now strongly against their use, says ICM survey
· Majority concerned about sharing of personal details

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Wednesday February 6, 2008
The Guardian

The number of people strongly opposed to the introduction of a national identity card scheme has risen sharply, according to the results of an ICM poll to be published today.Those campaigning against ID cards said last night that the poll, with results showing that 25% of the public are deeply opposed to the idea, raises the prospect that the potential number of those likely to refuse to register for the card has risen. If the poll’s findings were reflected in the wider population, as many as 10 million people may be expected to refuse to comply.

The ICM survey also shows that a majority of the British people say they are “uncomfortable” with the idea that personal data provided to the government for one purpose should be shared between all Whitehall-run public services.

The poll, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, shows that British public opinion is deeply split over the introduction of identity cards, with 50% against the idea and 47% in favour.

Recent disputes over the further delays to have hit the project have strengthened opposition to the scheme, with those who think it is “a very bad” idea rising from 17% last September to 25% now. This compares with only 12% who think that pressing ahead with ID cards, which will cost around £93 per person when combined with a passport, is a “very good idea”.

In the aftermath of the government’s recent embarrassing losses of confidential personal data, public opinion appears to have turned sharply against the idea of sharing information within Whitehall and the creeping introduction of the “Big Brother” state.

A majority - 52% - say they feel uncomfortable with allowing “personal information that is provided to one government department to be shared between all government departments that provide public services”.

However, the poll does show that clear support exists among the public for setting up a central identity register and collecting personal travel details on everyone coming in and out of Britain. It also reveals some support for the creation of a separate database about every child, including details about their parents and carers.

Phil Booth, of the No2id campaign, said: “With a quarter of the country deeply opposed to ID cards, and a clear majority reluctant to have their personal information shared even for public services, the government needs to fundamentally rethink its database state.

“These figures suggest that millions will simply refuse to comply.”

He said the results showed that between 10 million and 15 million could refuse to register for the card.

The Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said that public opinion was moving sharply away from the government’s ID card scheme as more people understood how intrusive it was going to be, and the more they saw that officials were unable to keep confidential and personal data secure.

Huhne said: “These polling figures are a body-blow to the government’s hopes of introducing ID cards and the associated personal database, as they suggest a large pool of people who may refuse to cooperate.”

Leaked Home Office documents suggested last month that the planned large-scale voluntary rollout of national identity cards for British nationals had been delayed by two years until beyond the next general election.

The first ID cards will be introduced in December this year for foreign nationals resident in the country. It will follow a pilot scheme to be run in London from April to test the technology. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has confirmed that legislation will have to be introduced before it becomes compulsory for British nationals to register for the ID cards scheme.

· The ICM poll interviewed a represent-ative sample of 1,008 people between February 1 and 3, 2008

Leaked UK gov’t doc reveals plan to “coerce” Brits into national ID register

 
Phil from the UK anti-ID-register group NO2ID sends in this nugget — note the call to action there. We’ve got a sensitive government document revealing the British government’s plan to trick us into a database state and we need as many copies as possible, as quickly as possible!

If you mirror this document, please add a link to it in the comments for the post.

UK campaigners NO2ID this morning enlisted the help of bloggers across the world to spread a leaked government document describing how the British government intends to go about “coercing” its citizens onto a National Identity Register. The ‘ID card’ is revealed as little more than a cover to create a official dossier and trackable ID for every UK resident - creating what NO2ID calls ‘the database state’.NO2ID’s national coordinator, Phil Booth, exhorted bloggers, freedom lovers and anyone who gives a damn about personal privacy to mirror the annotated document on their site.

“The charade is over. While ministers try to bamboozle the British public with fairytales about fingerprints, officials are plotting how to dupe and bully the population into surrendering control of their own identities.”

“Biometric ID cards are a sham; a magician’s flourish to cover the biggest identity fraud there has ever been.”

1.2MB PDF Link (mirror this file!)