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A Few Simple Questions for Alan Johnson

Alex Massie

Friday, 3rd July 2009

Home Secretary, is "identity theft" unknown in countries that already have identity cards?

If it isn't, then how will Britain's ID cards solve that problem? (A problem that is, in any case, vastly smaller than you claim.)

You now say that ID cards will be "voluntary". Doesn't that compromise their (putative) effectiveness?

And if the case for ID cards is so compelling - as you insist it remains - why has your government been backtracking on the matter?

You argue that you are "committed to delivering them more quickly to the people who will benefit most". Previously this was everyone. Who "needs" them "most"? Or, to put it another way, who doesn't need an ID card? Who will benefit least from an ID card?

You say that you are "pleased that the government will be looking at bringing forward proposals for pensioners aged 75 and over to receive an identity card free of charge." What about 74 year olds? Why should they have to pay? Don't their identities need "protecting" too? Why will your government "protect" a 75-year-olds' "identity" but not that of someone born a year later? Do your proposals make any sense?

Mind you, even ancient people looking forward to free ID cards ought not hold their breath (for, er, all sorts of reasons) since you're only "looking" at "bringing forward" a "proposal".

Or is this just a PR gimmick? Surely not!

If the case for ID cards "has been made" why do you think "getting a card will be a big decision for some people" ? Do you really mean to draw a comparison between getting an ID card and procuring an abortion? Because that's what it sounds like.

And yet you persist, like your predecessors, in pretending that ID cards are wholesome and nutritious and good for us. So why not make them compulsory? The government in which you serve, after all, has had few compunctions about compelling people and businesses to knuckle under any number of terrible ideas before. If even you don't have the courage of your convictions why should the electorate respect those convictions? Or are you simply making it all up as you go along?

Finally, when Gordon Brown asked you to serve as Home Secretary why on earth did you say yes?

Filed under: Britain (275 more articles) , ID Cards (2 more articles) , Labour (338 more articles) , O Tempora, O Mores (145 more articles)

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Tom Willis

July 3rd, 2009 1:20am Report this comment

ID cards are a complete straw man. The aim is to get everyone on the National Identity Register (NIR), a more complete invasion of privacy than in any other country with the possible (but not probable) exception of Malaysia. Look at the ranking of the UK on the Privacy International chart.

ID card or no ID card, you will have a database entry with your complete residence history, list of all other ID cards, complete access history and mandatory update duty on your behalf, at least if you have a passport (and in future, perhaps other designated government documents like driver's licence or benefit card).

This sort of thing is attractive to an authoritarian government, and is not on the list of voluntary arrangements. The ID card title has very successfully replaced the much more complex NIR issue, to the extent that the climb down on ID cards is seen as a climb down in toto.

when you hear something about ID cards, try asking the question "but what about the National Identity Register?" That is the real issue.

C Powell

July 3rd, 2009 12:57pm Report this comment

Tom is absolutely right. The database is the key issue and until that is abolished the fight to remove this pernicious scheme needs to go on. Johnson's announcement was no more than his version of "reculer pour mieux avancer".

Incidentally, if you want to avoid being put on the database get an Irish passport which anyone with one Irish grandparent can get automatically. That way they can't get you when you renew your UK passport, though I know this only helps some of us.

Steve.W

July 3rd, 2009 5:09pm Report this comment

I agree with the above posts. And it's no good assuming the EU will ride to our rescue. The EU has plans for a Europe wide scheme which will take control of all national ID card and database schemes.

So another reason to DEMAND a referendum on Lisbon from the Tories.

FrancisT

July 3rd, 2009 7:44pm Report this comment

I did a longer fisking (http://www.di2.nu/200907/03a.htm ) noting that he likes the idea of hasssling would be drunken teenagers

Roger

July 6th, 2009 1:20pm Report this comment

I believe that these biometric ID cards will backfire because for these cards to work everyone should have them and that every point of transaction should have equipment to read these cards.

Nationally it is impossible to satisfy both these conditions and hence it is obvious that these cards will fail.

In reality criminals will be tempted to use fakes of these cards as IDs where there is no reading equipment and hence rather than deter will boost more identity fraud thus making bad problems worse.

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