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This morning, on Radio 4’s Today Programme, the agenda setting 8.10am interview (Podcast link) was on the subject of ID cards.

The 20 minute discussion involved first David Davis, Tory Home affairs spokesman and the favourite to take over as leader of the Tory party, followed by Charles Clarke, the current Home Secretary.

I listened to the discussion in some detail, and it deeply concerned me in a number of ways. Firstly, the primary opposition party actually agrees in principle with the idea, but disagree with the current proposal: Their lack of principles here is somewhat unsettling.

Secondly, the Home Secretary’s arguments were flawed in the extreme, shifting position once again. His arrogantly dismissive comments regarding well argued criticisms flies in the face of his supposed interest in provoking a debate.

Finally, the media itself is pushing the issue of “cost” and “law and order”, without actually addressing the underlying principle issues, including data accumulation (what is kept and for how long), security (controlling who has access), and - bluntly - the inability of the Government to manage any complex IT project much less one of this scale, sensitivity and importance. There is a focus too on the card itself rather than on the more important database behind it.

Principle doesn’t always hold much sway in public debates in this country: People need to see how it affects them. The debate concerns me as both sides portrayed the issues very inaccurately, with too little coverage of practical repercussions. I’ve made an attempt to sum up my perception, and criticisms of, the positions this morning. I also look at some of the more fundamental issues, and finally try and demonstrate some of the very likely personal incidents that might happen.

Tory Position: Flapping in the wind

David Davis, the Conservative spokesman on Home affairs, this morning was interviewed by James Naughtie, on the Today programme regarding the party’s views on the ID Card proposal coming before Parliament this afternoon.

I’m deeply concerned by the views put forward by this senior opposition spokesman, in that he appears to disagree with the ID cards legislation not as a matter of principle, but based on five back-of-the-envelope “tests”:

• What is the purpose of the cards?
• Does the technology work?
• Will the Government be able to manage the project?
• What are the cost implications?
• What are the privacy implications?

Five tests that, in my view, demonstrate that - in principle - the Conservatives are not actually against the idea of ID cards. They merely want to see that the proposal holds up to some loose scrutiny. A very Tory position, if ever there was one. No principled view, summed up by David Davis saying “There has to be a positive benefit before you do it”, and that “If it passes the tests, we’ll support [the ID card legislation]“.

What’s lacking is principle, and the Tory party have singularly failed to demonstrate they have any principles, much less a consistent position. A year ago they actually supported the proposal a little more clearly than now, and in the last Tory Government Michael Howard, then running the Home office, actually proposed ID cards!

In the forthcoming debate on this legislation, I’m deeply worried that the principle opposition comes from a party that used to support the idea, doesn’t actually disagree with it in principle, and are simply picking at the proposal rather than wholeheartedly opposing it.

 Labour argument: Inconsistency, arrogance and the need to control

In the same Today broadcast, Charles Clarke was asked a number of points, which generally focused around the following issues:

• Are we really going to be safer from crime and terrorists?
• Are the figures (costs and savings) accurate?
• Whether they ID cards would be compulsory?

The main argument for the ID card is that it will reduce fraud, cut crime, stamp out terrorism and generally make life easier for everybody (See the no2id FAQ on these issues)

All these points were made, and were easy to answer for the Home secretary. James Naughtie is an excellent interviewer, but once again I fear that they simply weren’t fully grasping the significance of some of the proposals, and the threat they pose, particularly from the database behind the scenes rather than the simple piece of plastic that is the card.

Asked about whether ID cards will reduce crime and reduce the threat of terrorism, Clarke actually suggested that the cards would be a means of “attacking [the] Big Brother society”. Quite how this logic works I have no idea. There was, and is, very little evidence that a compulsory ID card scheme, much less an initial “voluntary” scheme would reduce crime in any way. Indeed the legislation restricts Police powers to demand the card on the street. As Naughtie pointed out too, much “fraud” is actually committed outside ID fraud, eg. forging doctor certificates and claiming benefits.

How an ID card is going to stop somebody with the knowledge buying farm fertiliser, rigging a bomb, and driving a lorry up against a building to commit an atrocity, I have no idea. The claim is therefore without foundation, and the Government have seemingly dropped this as a major “benefit”, preferring - as in the interview this morning - to talk of speeding up verification of identity and improving reliability.

The claim was made that biometric identification is problematic. Anybody who’s ever had to use a fingerprint reader to access a data centre will know they are problematic and troublesome. A wider, national level roll out of such readers will undoubtedly mean unit cost matters significantly, and the most reliable readers are most likely to be at the higher end: So can we expect particularly reliable readers to be rolled out nationally? I doubt it. They claimed three metrics will be used, but what are we to see, queues of people at airports repeatedly struggling with different mechanisms? As the LSE report points out, multiple mechanisms to measure biometrics will increase cost accordingly: Three machines instead of one will potentially triple the cost of this - significant - part of the proposal.

As far as cost and ability to manage a large IT project, Clarke got rather excited by a claim that the passport agency has “the best customer service, above EBay and Amazon”. He was responding to the point that the Child Support Agency IT project was abandoned, and the Libra Court system linking a mere 385 courts, and overran from £184m to £390m before being abandoned. Customer service might be the best, but how about the disruption in the project? It demonstrates a poor implementation, and with personal identity information at stake, I hold no hope the home office can be counted as competent IT project managers.

Most ludicrous of all was Clarke talking about “Chip and PIN” as an example of an IT project. What has CREDIT CARD identification got to do with the Home office? This is a project that has NO GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTATION INVOLVEMENT AT ALL. Sure, it might have been encouraged by them, even guided by them. But that’s not a Government project, much less one I feel merits comparison with a national identity database.

Cost is key - at least to the media - the figure from the LSE of £10bn to £19bn is dismissed out of hand by the Government, and fingers pointed at one individual from the report as “highly partisan”, as if that somehow invalidates the report as a whole. And the home secretary isn’t partisan? The figure was dismissed this morning by the Home Secretary because the LSE claim the biometrics need to be refreshed after five years (and therefore the passport updated) rather than the current ten. The LSE figure is more accurate, as biometric readings are unreliable anyway, and people change. Graze your fingers, and your fingerprints are hard to match. A friend has experience of the US immigration service, and they request applicants refresh their fingerprints every few years, so go figure. I’ll take the LSE estimate over the government because it’s grounded closer to reality.

Further more, the LSE report was accused by Clarke as being a “deliberate leak to influence debate”. Ummm, SO WHAT? It’s the London School of Economics we’re talking about here, not a Government department. There’s nothing malicious about their report. They have a valid series of points to make, and make them they do. Hopefully people will look at the Governments experience with cost estimation, and judge for themselves.

As for compulsion, so many of the arguments put forward depend on the card being compulsory, but the risk in my view is that if it becomes compulsory any talk of the Police not having the power to demand the card be produced evaporates. “Legislation is required” to make this change, and with the electoral dictatorship we have, that’s easy to do.

What is missing from the debate

The media debate occurring right now is choosing to overlook some serious implications of ID cards, choosing instead to merely focus on “cost”. The recent LSE report puts a figure that is somewhat higher than the Government, but the Government latches on to the poor point this makes by dismissing the report.

The things I find most abhorrent about the ID card proposal are:

• Accumulation of data: As the card is used, records are kept of who is making the check. Over time, it will become possible to build a picture of an individual purely based on this information.

• Feature creep: Look at CCTV and speed cameras. Initially introduced for a very specific purpose, they now feature in everyday life. We’ve come to accept them. Now imagine the same for ID cards, and combine that with my previous point, and those in charge of the system will have a horrifically detailed picture of a persons life, interests, and associations.

• Competence: With this level of information available in one place, a screw up has much more significant implications. Look at the recent story of bank details for sale in India, and transpose it to a minimum wage data entry clerk on the ID system.

• Security: All the above points combined with a system that is insecure and poorly audited make me worried that any information held on me is open to unscrupulous people with inappropriate access. The more connections/dependencies there are in any system, the more complex it becomes, and the more open to abuse it becomes.

• Principles: There are few principles at work in the debate currently going on in the media. The government is changing its positions every few days, talking of fraud, terrorism, cost even - and this is Tony Blair - it just being an “idea whose time has come”. That last point strikes fear in my hear, because he’s stating he likes it because it’s now possible to do it? To quote Michael Crichton: Just because we CAN it doesn’t mean we SHOULD. But WHY should the Government insist we sign up to this scheme. I can identify myself through my passport and my driving license. I can produce letters, documents and references to vouch for me. Surely that’s enough without tracking every last piece of information?

How it will affect the man on the street

My personal reading of the situation is that, should ID cards become a reality, some of the problems could include:

• If compulsory, the ID card will become the all encompassing ID required by government and organisations alike. Changing address? Moving into a new flat? Marrying? Going on holiday? Signing up for a new insurance policy? All of these will - eventually - require the production of your ID, thereby increasing the information available to the Government.

• The cost is likely to be much larger than the Governments estimates. Whilst they may try to keep the cost down (aware of the poll tax comparison), it’ll cost the tax payer billions of pounds for very little verifiable gain in the reduction of fraud. Benefit fraud not reducing as expected due to various abuses through fraudulently obtained ID cards.

• Police power to demand ID be carried will eventually appear. Much as the Police currently have huge powers to restrict public demonstrations, they will argue - eventually - that people need to be able to produce “suitable ID” when stopped by a police officer. Consequently, such checks will appear on the records and inappropriate conclusions appear.

• The honeypot attraction: There is so much information held in the database, about so much of an individuals life, that it will attract wrong doing. It will become a target in itself because of what it might contain. It will be the single biggest repository of personal information in the country, and it is inevitable it will be targeted by criminals and less-scrupulous individuals.

• Security will be flawed, and within a few years there will be a number of high profile breeches and controversies as people gain access to inappropriate information. I’m sure the current tabloid campaign aimed at demonstrating how poor Royal security is will be brought to bear on the checks made on people with access to the information. The Sun will be gaining access to ministerial identity information records. Expect to see non-Governmental agencies given “restricted” access at some point in the future.

• Accuracy will be brought into doubt. Homebuyers unable to get a mortgage due to some incorrect data entry in the past; A job applicant being refused a position due to a unsatisfactory identity check.

• A major terrorist atrocity will occur, from somebody holding a valid ID card who had aroused no suspicions during their stay in the country (all assuming, of course, the terrorist wasn’t a UK national in the first place).

• Other countries will demand access to the information held, opening up data to foreign governments.

All in all…

And if all that doesn’t concern, then simply the list of items of information that will be kept should be cause for concern. Add a dose of the almost inevitable screw-ups associated with public sector IT projects, and the natural Sod’s law (How about the backup tapes going astray too? This has happened enough elsewhere that it’s a serious concern), the few nebulous “benefits” will be greatly outweighed by the disadvantages brought about at tremendous cost.

Finally, ask yourself, if you don’t trust neighbours to keep an eye on your house, should you trust every one of the thousands of people that will have access to this information about your very identity, to use it for the “good of society”. The legislation is so full of holes, and most concerning of all, the politicians themselves so oblivious to the risks this proposal brings, that I’m very concerned for the very foundation of the democracy in which we live.

What to do

• no2id.net : Campaign website opposed to ID cards
• Pledge to refuse to carry an ID card
• Write to your MP

Links

• Local groups campaigning against ID cards
• Glasgow campaign
• What the ID database will store
• ID Card FAQ

Interesting Weblogs/posts on the subject

• The Identity Corner
• Skakagrall
• Chicken Yogurt
• The Register
• Overdo

Political parties/organisations

• Labour Party
• Conservative Party

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 28th, 2005 at 4:15 pm and is filed under BBC, Campaigns, Id Cards, Media, Politics, Thoughts, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.