{"id":1883,"date":"2007-12-03T10:55:06","date_gmt":"2007-12-03T10:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/surveillance-big-brother\/poll-shows-more-people-now-oppose-id-cards\/1883\/"},"modified":"2007-12-03T10:55:06","modified_gmt":"2007-12-03T10:55:06","slug":"poll-shows-more-people-now-oppose-id-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/surveillance-big-brother\/poll-shows-more-people-now-oppose-id-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll shows more people now oppose ID cards"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Philip Johnston<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>More people now oppose Labour’s proposed ID cards than support them, a poll for The Daily Telegraph has found.<\/p>\n

  • Have your say: Have data-protection fears put you off ID cards?<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\n

    Just 43 per cent of those questioned said they favoured the introduction of a national identity scheme compared with 48 per cent who were against. It is the first time YouGov has found more against than in favour.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    When the ID scheme was first proposed by the Government in 2003, YouGov found 78 per cent supported it and just 15 per cent were opposed.<\/p>\n

    Since then, there has been a gradual erosion in support for ID cards and the recent loss of the country’s entire child benefit records on two CDs seems to have tipped the balance.<\/p>\n

    Yesterday, it emerged that the Department of Work and Pensions let a contractor keep two discs with thousands of benefit claimants’ details for more than a year.<\/p>\n

    The last time the pollsters asked the same question in July 2005, shortly after the London bombings, 45 per cent were in favour and 42 per cent opposed.<\/p>\n

    The poll findings will be another blow to ministers who have been adamant that the ID project would proceed despite the child records fiasco.<\/p>\n

    ID cards are due to be introduced from next year for foreign nationals and from 2009 for all British citizens applying for a new passport.<\/p>\n

    The charge for a combined ID card and passport will be more than \u00a3100 in order to fund the \u00a3550 million annual cost to the Home Office.<\/p>\n

    Ministers have said the project should be self-financing and not a drain on taxes.<\/p>\n

    The Government has made a number of claims for the advantages of an ID scheme, including making it easier to track terrorists and criminals, bear down on ID fraud and tackle illegal immigration.<\/p>\n

    But the recent disclosure that illegal immigrants were licensed to work as security guards by a Government agency and the ease with which the personal data of 25 million families were lost have clearly been a blow to public confidence.<\/p>\n

    There is also a growing number of opponents who would pay a fine or risk prison by refusing to hand over their details.<\/p>\n

    Phil Booth, of the campaign group No2ID, said: “Clearly a majority no longer trust that the Government can secure their personal information.<\/p>\n

    “It’s hard to say whether proceeding with an ID scheme that will log your every application for credit, or registration with a clinic and add fingerprints to the data that officials will then lose or compromise is more pig-headed or foolhardy. Either way, public opinion is against the scheme now.”<\/p>\n

    David Cameron recently told the Prime Minister that the public would find it “bizarre” if the Government was not willing now to “stop and think” about ID cards.<\/p>\n

    However, at the weekend Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, continued to defend the scheme and said the inclusion of fingerprints would ensure the data’s security.<\/p>\n

    “I will be able to be confident that my identity\u2026 will be linked to my fingerprint so just knowing who I am, where I live and what my bank details are will not be enough to be able to take my identity,” she said in a television interview.<\/p>\n

    “It is an increased protection even against times when people’s biographical details are stolen or lost.”<\/p>\n

    The Government has dropped plans, on cost grounds, to build a new database for the scheme. It will instead ”piggy-back” on an existing Whitehall IT system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Philip Johnston More people now oppose Labour’s proposed ID cards than support them, a poll for The Daily Telegraph has found. Have your say: Have data-protection fears put you off ID cards? Just 43 per cent of those questioned said they favoured the introduction of a national identity scheme compared with 48 per cent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1614],"tags":[37],"class_list":{"0":"post-1883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-surveillance-big-brother","7":"tag-id-cards"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}