False Identity?

As a toddler, once you had mastered your name, address and telephone number, what did your parents persuade you to learn next? In my case it was VDXU 312. That was my National Identity Number. They were issued to every new-born babe in England in April 1945 in the form of an ID Card.

So what is all the fuss about now? We were at war then – and we are told we are at war now against deadly international terrorism. Most people (around 80%) don’t seem to mind very much either way – until told how much it will cost (estimates range from £90 to £300 per person). Surely security is beyond price? Eventually we’ll all have to have them, so why not stick it on the tax bill?

Some people feel so strongly about the principle at stake, that they oppose ID Cards whatever the form of words set out in the Bill and however convincing the technical solutions proposed. In coming to my decision to vote against Second Reading, I studied the Bill from cover to cover and I sought independent technical advice from local scientists and technologists as well as the flood of journalistic and ‘expert’ outpourings of recent weeks.

Scarcely a day goes by without someone asking for my help to unscramble a bureaucratic breakdown in one way or another related to computers. I have chosen those words carefully. I am just not convinced that the best of available computer-based ID card solutions are fit for purpose. And, as usual, security is as strong as the weakest link.

We are told that the best biometric security systems are up to 98% accurate. Sounds good? Not if you say instead that on every jumbo jet there could be over a dozen passengers with faulty ID. Once again we need to understand the nature of risk in everything we do.

As for cost, I accept that if we wish to travel to countries that insist on expensive biometric ID chips in their passports, we will have to pay. That is our choice And if you add up the cost of all the forms of plastic and paper-based ID we currently carry around, it wouldn’t be much cheaper than the enhanced benefit card proposed. To force everyone to fork out several hundred pounds for a combined card is very different.

Then there’s the principle involved. I still miss my old blue passport – but even the red European Union thing demands that every British Citizen be allowed to pass freely and without let or hindrance in the name of Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State. In other words, it is no business of anyone else who I am or where I’m going. Just as an Englishman’s home is his castle, personal freedom and rejection of state supremacy run very deep in our culture and national personality. That is a wonderful and praiseworthy state of nationhood. However, it is probably going too far to insist on the right to remain anonymous in the face of legitimate security concerns.

There comes a point at which my desire for privacy gives way to my desire to be able to prove who I am by producing a foolproof ID document. Identity theft is a serious and growing threat to each one of us. The proposed ID Card would carry on it over 50 items of the most personal and detailed information. True, the government and its agencies already have that information – but not all at once, on a single sheet of plastic!

Over the years and under Governments of different complexions I have seen Ministers and Civil Servants ‘making it up as they go along’ – but never as blatantly as this! Before the General Election the Government sought to rush through this legislation. We gave them five tests – the clear purpose of the ID Cards; guaranteed technology; was the Home Office capable of implementing the scheme; is the scheme cost-effective; and what are the implications for civil liberties. The Government has failed to give the nation the answers we deserve – and they should be denied their legislation. If the Bill emerges from Commons and Lords largely unscathed, this Government will have altered fundamentally the relationship between the Citizen and the State - and in the wrong direction.

England’s Green and Pleasant land…?

Wiltshire is at its greenest, its softest and most gentle in this glorious month of June. How lovely – and how fortunate we are to live here. How flawed and how scarred, then, our community looks when a young thug attacks an 81 year-old woman and schoolchildren cheer him on and call it ‘happy slapping’.

For the next three months the long, light and warm summer evenings will be a real test for all of us, young and old. We have the technology to identify the thugs and cowards who breach the peace – and Parliament has given the Police the power to use it. We have the CCTV cameras to track the boy-racers and randomly scan vehicle number plates, identifying those suspected of criminal links.

In our hearts and minds do we have the will and the courage to say, ‘enough’? I hope the Salisbury Journal will work with our community to name and shame the tiny minority of kids (and their parents) who need to turn their problem into life worth living.

Robert Key MP
28th June 2005