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06 Jan 2008

Gordon Brown current thinking on ID cards

From today’s Observer

‘We shouldn’t rule out a way to protect people’s identities’

The prime minister on ID cards

Interview by Nicholas Watt
Sunday January 6, 2008
The Observer

ID cards are seen as a tool for dealing with terrorism but there is a debate about whether they are an encroachment on civil liberties. Are you still committed to pressing ahead with them?

I think this debate has to be one where people can see where there’s agreement as well as where there’s been a debate that’s led to disagreement. If someone said to you that I’m going to give you a better form of passport with biometrics and I’m going to include the current passport information in that; if someone said to you ... that if someone comes to this country as a foreign national, given the worries about illegal immigration, they should carry some form of identity, I think most people would agree.

Well think again matey.

And I think we’ve got to get the debate about, if you like the management, the identity management to a reasonable level.

But people seem confused as to what they are for. Is it specifically to guard against foreign nationals working and living illegally here? Or is it aimed at domestic security?

There are two things. One is, when it comes to foreign nationals coming in and the danger of illegal immigration. I think most people would support there being some form of identification that people are asked to produce.

Right. So you’re asked to produce your ID to show you’re an illegal alien. But if you’re not, ie if you’re a British jobs for British people type of good guy, you’re not asked for your ID in the first place. Just how does this work, exactly? With X-Ray specs so you can see people’s union jack underpants?

Is that the principal reason for ID cards?

As far as the individual is concerned, the danger for me and you in the modern world is that our identity is easily stolen.

Indeed. The private sector is especially agrressive about seking unnecessary details, and the public sector unbelievably careless and sloppy about leaking it. Lack of ID cards is not the problem here.

And people feel worried when information that is personal to them is lost, and rightly so. And I think if we were giving a better means by which people could protect their identity, then in the private as well as the public sector people are looking at biometrics. I mean maybe in a few years’ time on your computer you will need biometrics rather than a password.

Fingerprints have soled crimes for a century. But we didnt keep a central encyclopedia of everyone’s dabs

Maybe when you go to a supermarket, as happens in some parts of the States and Europe, you are going to be safer, instead of carrying a credit card which can easily be stolen, to use your biometrics to shop. Maybe in relation to banking to use biometrics or fingerprint biometrics, you might find that you are safer in your banking transaction than if you carried a card and a number. But the very fact that you’ve got biometrics now in a way that you didn’t have two centuries ago gives you opportunities to protect people’s identity and I don’t think we should rule out the use of that. In fact, I don’t actually think most of the general public think that the use of biometrics is in itself wrong, either for private transactions or for passports or whatever.

So are you committed to ID cards?

We’re committed to the proposals we put forward which are essentially that the information you now use to get your passport, linked to the biometrics now available, give you a better form of protection. But I’m happy that this debate continues, because I believe that over the course of it some preconceptions will be dealt with.

So it looks set to continue to be a “you can talk about it but we won’t even pretend to listen because we’re going to do it anyway” sort of “debate”

So would it be that British citizens and non-British citizens would need them?

Yes, but under our proposals there is no compulsion for existing British citizens.

Yes, so try to look British so nobody hassles you in the first place…

• Posted by William Heath on 06/01/08 at 12:21pm
• Categories · "What do we want?" · Foundation of Trust · Identity
• Comments (6)  Permalink

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