{"id":5243,"date":"2009-02-15T16:06:31","date_gmt":"2009-02-15T15:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=5243"},"modified":"2009-02-15T16:06:31","modified_gmt":"2009-02-15T15:06:31","slug":"scottish-ministers-completely-opposed-to-id-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/surveillance-big-brother\/scottish-ministers-completely-opposed-to-id-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Ministers &#8216;completely opposed&#8217; to ID cards"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_text\" class=\"articleText\">\n<p>The Scottish Government today denounced Westminster plans for identity cards as &#8220;unacceptable&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In a strongly-worded letter to the Home Office, community safety minister Fergus Ewing said the Scottish Government remained &#8220;completely opposed&#8221; to the scheme.<\/p>\n<p>He told junior Home Office minister Meg Hillier: &#8220;Given the current financial climate, the UK Government should have better uses for the vast sums of money being spent on this scheme, which presents an unacceptable threat to citizens&#8217; privacy and civil liberties, with little tangible evidence to suggest it will do anything to safeguard against crime and terrorism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"midpagempu\" style=\"display: none;\">\n<div class=\"adtxt\">advertisement<\/div>\n<p><script><\/script><a href=\"http:\/\/ads.newsquest.co.uk\/RealMedia\/ads\/click_lx.ads\/www.theherald.co.uk\/news\/news\/display.var.2489328.0.Scottish_Ministers_completely_opposed_to_ID_cards.php\/245053269\/Frame2\/default\/empty.gif\/34653230343063633439366530363330\" target=\"_top\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.newsquest.co.uk\/RealMedia\/ads\/Creatives\/default\/empty.gif\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"2\" height=\"2\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Mr Ewing&#8217;s letter was the Scottish Government&#8217;s formal response to a consultation exercise on proposed rules relating to the scheme.<\/p>\n<p>These set out regulations and a code of practice that has to be in place before the first ID cards can be issued under the Identity Cards Act later this year.<\/p>\n<p>His letter also sought &#8220;clarification&#8221; on some of the detail of the proposed regulations &#8211; and queried the legality of the national identify register under European human rights rules.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Ewing said today the overall costs of the scheme could be \u00a34.8 billion UK-wide, rising to \u00a35.11 billion if costs associated with foreign nationals were included.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This money could and should be used to pay for much more worthy causes like more teachers, nurses or police officers or more schools and hospitals,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All citizens, including Scots, will be expected to fork out for a card and to enrol on the national identity register when this becomes compulsory in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The initial application fee has been fixed at \u00a330 and that is supposedly a cut-price offer to entice citizens to get one before they become compulsory. How much they will cost from 2012 is anyone&#8217;s guess.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Citizens would also have to pay to enrol their biometric data, fingerprints and facial image, he said &#8211; yet it was &#8220;far from certain&#8221; that ID cards would help prevent crime and terrorism, and there are &#8220;real concerns&#8221; at the potential for fraud.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although ID cards are a reserved issue, it is the case that every person in Scotland will be affected,&#8221; said Mr Ewing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Only late last year, the Scottish Parliament urged the UK Government to cancel its plans for the National Identity Scheme.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Given the current difficult financial climate, the UK Government should have better uses for the vast sums of money being spent on this scheme and ditch this costly, ill-conceived scheme.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a9 All rights reserved<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Scottish Government today denounced Westminster plans for identity cards as &#8220;unacceptable&#8221;. In a strongly-worded letter to the Home Office, community safety minister Fergus Ewing said the Scottish Government remained &#8220;completely opposed&#8221; to the scheme. He told junior Home Office minister Meg Hillier: &#8220;Given the current financial climate, the UK Government should have better uses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1614,1615],"tags":[37,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-5243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-surveillance-big-brother","7":"category-uk-news","8":"tag-id-cards","9":"tag-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}