[IP] UK ID Card Bill
Begin forwarded message:
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 28, 2005 7:02:45 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: UK ID Card Bill
Dave:
The UK Parliament is today debating the Government's bill to
introduce a national ID Card System. There is growing opposition to
this, but it is predicted that their Bill will bet through this first
hurdle. One of the most surprising sources of public opposition is
the Information Commissioner - see attached story from today's
Guardian newspaper. (The Information Commissioner's Office is a UK
independent supervisory authority reporting directly to the UK
Parliament, which oversees and enforces compliance with both the Data
Protection Act 1998 and Freedom Of Information Act 2000.)
ID cards 'will reveal details of daily life'
Information commissioner warns of surveillance society
Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent
Tuesday June 28, 2005
The Guardian
The information commissioner, Richard Thomas, yesterday issued his
most detailed and hard-hitting attack so far on the government's
plans for identity cards.
Mr Thomas, appointed by the government to report to parliament on
privacy issues, described the scheme as part of Britain's growing
"surveillance society".
He focused on the unprecedented recording of information about
individuals on an unnecessarily intrusive government-controlled
central register. He accused the government of planning to retain
information on the register that went beyond the needs set out in
the ID card legislation itself.
Article continues
Although Mr Thomas has voiced concerns over the privacy issues
raised by ID cards before, his latest critique came just a day
before MPs vote on the second reading of the government's bill.
It also follows the publication of a report from the London School
of Economics yesterday which suggested that the cost of a card
could pass £170 - well beyond government estimates.
Mr Thomas argued that the measures in the bill go well beyond
establishing a secure, reliable and trustworthy ID card, risking an
unnecessary and disproportionate intrusion into individuals' privacy.
"There can be little justification for retention of all such
details in a central national identity register," he said.
"The extensive personal information retained on the proposed
national identity register and the requirement on individuals to
keep notifying changes is excessive and disproportionate."
He cited the fact that the government's plans require individuals
to list all their addresses and not just their main residence.
"If a person issued with a card buys a second home this cannot
affect their identity, which would already have been verified and
tied to them by a unique biometric," he said. "The requirement to
register another address is excessive and irrelevant to
establishing that person's identity."
He claimed the government was planning to create an unnecessary
data trail of when a card is checked against the national identity
register. "This will show who checked it and when ... thus building
up a picture of an individual's card use and a detailed picture
from this of how they live their lives.
"The creation of this detailed data trail of individuals'
activities is particularly worrying and cannot be viewed in
isolation of other initiatives which serve to build a detailed
picture of people's lives, such as CCTV surveillance (with
automatic facial recognition), use of automatic number plate
recognition recording vehicle movements for law enforcement and
congestion charging, and the proposals to introduce satellite
tracking of vehicles for road use charging."
He said retention of such information went beyond the five stated
purposes of the bill - "national security, prevention and detection
of crime, enforcement of immigration controls, enforcement of
prohibitions on illegal working, efficient and effective delivery
of public services".
"If we are to have an identity card, the information commissioner
would like it to be a tool to assist individuals to demonstrate
their identity when they find it useful," he said. "It should be a
tool within the individual's control.
"The information commissioner is concerned about the way in which
demands will grow for individuals to prove their identity. The
broad purposes permit function creep into unforeseen and perhaps
unacceptable areas of private life". But he did not give any
examples of how this might occur.
Other systems of checks are perfectly feasible, such as a local
card reader and biometric reader verifying identity, removing the
need for central records to be kept.
He also complained about the breadth of organisations with access
to the register and gaps in the oversight arrangements, including
lack of comprehensive powers for the commissioner to check on data
protection compliance.
The aim should be for people "to reliably identify themselves
rather than one which enhances its ability to identify and record
what its citizens do in their lives".
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1516116,00.html
cheers
Brian
--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon
Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxx PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/
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