The Scottish Government must be heartily commended for its decision to resist the imposition of compulsory national ID cards on Scottish airport workers and students. In doing so, it serves well the clearly and repeatedly expressed will of the Scottish Parliament. Compulsory ID cards and the associated database are not welcome here.
The Home Secretary's announcement on Thursday was important not because she announced a further two-year delay to the troubled ID scheme, nor because this was the first time the Home Office has admitted publicly its intention (leaked by NO2ID in January) to threaten the livelihoods of targeted groups of workers. Jacqui Smith's announcement was intended to pre-empt and partly bury the Crosby Report.
Sir James Crosby is a former chairman of HBOS and deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority. In 2006, he was commissioned by the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to undertake an independent review of identity management. The report was due to be published early last year, but has remained hidden until now. It could not be more scathing of the Home Office scheme.
Having consulted a wide range of organisations from across the public and private sectors, including government departments, the police, banks and security experts, Sir James sets out 10 principles to which he believes any successful ID scheme must adhere. Among them are the maxims that any scheme must be independent of government, and that it must minimise the amount of personal data held. The report also highlights the inherent conflict between the needs of government and the needs of citizens or consumers.
There is no way of reconciling the Crosby Report with the government's current ID proposals. The Prime Minister must make a decision. Will he trust the panel of independent experts that he appointed, or the incompetent and duplicitous Home Office that still seeks to impose its unpopular and intrusive registration scheme on an unwilling public?
Quoted in the Focus section
[Home Office statements] did not reassure Geraint Bevan, who speaks for NO2ID, a fast-growing group campaigning against the cards and the National Identity Register, in Scotland. "What we are talking about is a giant metadatabase from a government that has already lost the details of 25 million people. The little plastic card is just an excuse to grab people's information. And, let's face it, the government doesn't exactly have a good record with IT projects."
Following the Home Secretary's announcement about changes to deployment of the ID scheme, the first item on STV's Five Thirty programme focused on ID cards, including an interview with me.
Giving evidence to the (House of Commons) Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Meg Hillier, Minister for ID cards, said we should see the cards as "passports in-country".
Such candour from a Home Office minister makes a refreshing change from the usual spin and deception. Perhaps in this apparent new spirit of openness and transparency, the government will be prepared to engage in a rational debate about where its transformational government agenda is taking our society.
Do we wish to live in a country where citizens are controlled by the state; a database state in which the intimate details of our lives are recorded by bureaucrats for administrative convenience?
Under Soviet rule, an internal passport (propiska), officially a record of a person's address, was required when applying for jobs, for a place in higher education or for obtaining medical treatment.
Without judicial oversight, officials were able to withdraw a propiska from anyone whose activities were deemed anti-Soviet. The similarities to the UK's proposed National Identity Scheme are, frankly, disturbing. The Prime Minister speaks eloquently of liberty and British values. Following a path that was widely condemned in the free world during the cold war is a strange way of promoting the values of which he professes himself to be so proud.
On February 21, 1952, Winston Churchill's Minister for Health, Harry Crookshank, announced to the House of Commons that ID cards would be scrapped. This Thursday, 56 years later, the government would do well to remember how unpopular those cards were.
Although introduced as an emergency measure in 1939, the cards were used increasingly to exert control over people's lives, particularly for enforcement of rationing. Two years after the war concluded, Aneurin Bevan, speaking from the Labour government benches, denounced the retention of ID cards.
He said: "I believe the requirement of an internal passport is more objectionable than an external passport, and that citizens ought to be allowed to move about freely without running the risk of being accosted by a policeman or anyone else, and asked to produce proof of identity."
However, Clement Attlee's government - beloved of bureaucracy - retained the cards, which began to encroach further into people's lives. By 1951, the British Housewives League had taken to burning their ID cards in protest. Matters came to a head when Constable Muckle stopped a 54-year-old motorist, Clarence Willcock, who refused to produce an ID card, stating defiantly that he was a Liberal. Willcock was arrested and convicted, but the case reached the High Court where Acting Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard, upholding the conviction, said: "Because the police have powers, it does not follow that they ought to exercise them on all occasions as a matter of routine. From what we have been told, it is obvious that the police now, as a matter of routine, demand the production of national registration identity cards whenever they stop or interrogate a motorist for whatever cause."
"The National Registration Act was passed for security purposes, and not for the purposes for which, apparently, it is now sought to be used. To use Acts of Parliament, passed for particular purposes during war, in times when the war is past, except that technically a state of war exists, tends to turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs."
Later that year, Labour was swept from power by a Conservative and National Liberal coalition, with the Conservatives promising to "set the people free". Today's Labour government has inherited an ill-conceived database-backed scheme that promises to intrude into our lives far more extensively.
Five years ago the Home Office claimed 80% support for the scheme. Now two-thirds of people in Scotland are already opposed. Everyone makes mistakes - governments too - but wisdom comes from recognising those mistakes and avoiding them in future. Prime Minister Gordon Brown should demonstrate his wisdom by taking charge and dropping the national identity card scheme before it goes any further.
Sir, The Home Office-sponsored survey that claims public support for ID cards ("ID card scheme gathers public support as more databases set up", Feb 13) does not reflect current reality. The poll was conducted in October, before the loss of the child benefit database propelled data insecurity firmly into the public consciousness. More recent independent polls show that a majority of the public do not now support a national identity scheme.
Furthermore, it would be wrong to conclude that there was widespread support for the identity scheme late last year. The survey questions were highly leading, for example: "All respondents were shown a list of eight proposed benefits of the scheme and asked to indicate which they were aware of."
As ever, the Home Office is relying on propaganda to disguise the myriad flaws and deep unpopularity of its proposals for compulsory national registration.
Jack Straw is almost correct when he says that it is completely unacceptable for an MP to be bugged while attending to constituency business. Generally, everyone should be free to speak to their member of Parliament or legal representatives without being monitored.
However, the bugging by Scotland Yard of an MP's visit to a prison is no more offensive than the powers for more than 650 bodies, including local authorities, the ambulance service and the Financial Services Authority, to tap the phones of each and every one of us; powers that enable them to go on fishing expeditions to combat crimes as serious as fly-tipping and benefit fraud.
The bugging is also less intrusive than the requirement for communication providers to maintain records of all our phone and internet traffic for two years, in case the government wishes to see who we have been talking to. And it is certainly less disturbing than the Home Office's plans to place us all under continual automatic surveillance using the national identity scheme.
Sympathy for Sadiq Khan MP must be tempered by the knowledge that, despite being a former chairman of Liberty, since entering Parliament he has consistently backed the government's privacy-eroding measures. His outrage at being bugged could be regarded as somewhat hypocritical.
It is a fundamental tenet of a representative democracy that law-makers should be subject to the same laws that they impose upon the rest of us. We all have a right to privacy and information security.
When they have got over their self-interested outrage, MPs should consider how they can start to restore the privacy of everyone, not just themselves.
Quoted in an article about the introduction of fingerprinting of domestic passengers by BA at Heathrow.
Geraint Bevan, spokesman for No2ID Scotland, said the technology highlighted the vulnerability of people's privacy because it could be open to abuse by staff or passengers who could easily forge fingerprint details to avoid immigration checks.
He said: "At the least, it will cause complacency among check-in staff who may not pay as much attention to your boarding cards if they are busy checking fingerprints and photographs."
"There are also rogue workers in any industry who could take advantage of this information. Once you give information to anybody, you are at their mercy and must hope they act responsibly with it."
George Smith offers the entertaining suggestion that there is a conspiracy to undermine ID cards (Letters, January 21). It is certainly true that many civil servants privately express deep reservations about the national ID scheme. Many at the sharp end of government IT systems are supporters of NO2ID. However, there is a more mundane explanation for the recent spate of reported data losses; and it does not require any fanciful conspiracy theories.
Years of woeful scrutiny by parliament have resulted in a government that seeks primarily to serve itself. Bureaucratic convenience is first and foremost in the minds of ministers who are incapable of recognising the difference between the public interest and bureaucratic self-interest.
Data protection has never been taken seriously by Whitehall. The UK Government chose to exempt itself from the Data Protection Act rather than burden itself with the duty of care that is owed to citizens. As Christine Grahame, the SNP MSP, has just discovered, DVLA has been profiting handsomely from the sale of driver details: more than five million driver records have been sold to private companies since 2002.
At the heart of government policy is the Transformational Government agenda, the deliberate aim of which is vastly to increase data-sharing while stripping away the minimal protections that currently exist. It is an agenda that serves bureaucrats rather than the needs of citizens.
Ministers talk of protecting our identities, but like all protection rackets, the national ID scheme is designed to benefit the racketeers, not the public.
Neil Craig says there have been only two deaths from nuclear power in the past 20 years. Even though this time-span conveniently omits the deaths caused directly by the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986, many people have since contracted fatal and non-fatal cancers as a result of the radiation it released. The ultimate human toll of the disaster is the subject of much controversy, with estimates and predictions ranging from a few thousand fatalities to hundreds of thousands. Nevertheless, these victims must be included in any statistics for the period, despite numerical uncertainty.
Danny Kelly interviewed me about my research.
Neil McNamara (Letters, December 22) is right to recall the "can't pay, won't pay" campaign against the poll tax when considering likely resistance to the national ID scheme.
There are several similarities between the poll tax and the ID scheme: both are taxes on existence; both intrude on domestic arrangements; both were fated to suffer from dramatic increases in hostility once people became aware of what was going on. But, most significantly, the poll tax and ID scheme both rely on the active cooperation of the whole population if they are to have any chance of working. The can't pay, won't pay campaign showed how vulnerable the government is when it requires our cooperation. But lessons have been learned. The Home Office is determined not to have newspapers reporting on grannies in court as ID martyrs.
To neutralise resistance, the identity cards Act is written in such a way that refusal to register will not be a criminal offence. Instead, the government is relying on denial of services, such as provision of passports, to force initial registration. Then civil penalties - fines issued by the Home Office without judicial oversight - will be used to enforce subsequent compliance with reporting requirements.
The Home Office intends to deny refuseniks a day in court, but its strategy may backfire. It has left the door open for people to resist without breaking the law. If enough people do resist, the scheme is doomed to certain failure.
To help matters along, NO2ID has just launched a new pledge; an undertaking to be made by anyone in the presence of a witness. Full details of the pledge are at www.no2id.net/pledge. NO2ID will continue campaigning for the repeal of the identity cards Act and an end to the database state.
The World Today (news programme repeated throughout the night) included a brief interview about my research.
Drive (4pm to 7pm) included a brief interview about my research.
The Weekend News (8pm to 10pm) included a brief interview about my research.
An article by Richard Gray about my research.
Any motorist who has had another car pull out in front of him or her will know about the split-second decisions needed to avoid an accident.
But now a team of British engineers wants to take such choices out of drivers' hands. They are developing a "crash proof" car that takes control if it senses danger.
The engineers, working with DaimlerChrysler, have created a system that can sense when a car has pulled out at a junction or when traffic ahead has stopped suddenly.
The developers claim that the computer-controlled car will react faster than motorists and perform the manoeuvres needed in emergencies far better.
But some motorists will find the idea of a computer grabbing control difficult to accept, and even dangerous, while road safety groups fear that such systems may be unable to react adequately.
Geraint Bevan, who is working on the system at Glasgow University's Centre for Systems and Control, insists that a computer can control a car far better than the average motorist.
He said: "If you have someone like Michael Schumacher driving your car, he will probably be able to manoeuvre the car at its limit, but most drivers will either swerve too fast or too hard, meaning they lose control."
Major car manufacturers have been attempting to introduce crash avoidance in their vehicles for years, and systems such as anti-lock brakes are now standard on many vehicles.
The new collision avoidance controller, which is being developed as part of a Europe-wide project, combines braking with the ability to swerve to avoid an accident. Mr Bevan said that the system used collision avoidance technology similar to that found in aircraft.
Radar and cameras mounted on the front and sides of the vehicle detect obstacles while a global positioning system helps the on-board computer work out the layout of the road before taking evasive action.
The researchers now hope to test the system in a real Mercedes provided by DaimlerChrysler, the Mercedes parent company.
However, there are potential drawbacks. Mr Bevan said: "If you were in town, for example, it might be better to hit the car that has just pulled out in front of you, rather than swerve into the crowd of people standing at the side of the road."
A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) said: "It is important that motorists do not become overly reliant upon technology."
"It would be too easy for them to relax and believe technology can get them out of a situation, but things can go wrong."
Doug Maughan's pre-flight checks (Letters, December 21) are unlikely to uncover concealed explosives, but the checks harm no-one. Random searches of rail passengers by police are similarly unlikely to detect terrorist activity, but are not so benign.
Transport minister Tom Harris may enjoy the prospect of the police reading personal and confidential correspondence, or rifling through packed underwear in public, but this pointless intrusion is less welcomed by those of us who risk arbitrary detention by the Transport Inquisition while going about our lawful, everyday business.
The government's policy of instilling fear in the population does nothing to make us safer. The notion that we must give up our privacy or liberty to protect our way of life is absurd.
Police should stop trying to terrorise us and get back to proper community policing.
Alistair Darling's promise to increase penalties for wilful misuse of data is a wholly inappropriate response to recent data losses. If the police are unable now to apprehend fraudsters operating from beyond British jurisdiction, such legislation will be no deterrent to further criminal activity.
Instead of diversionary legislative theatrics, the correct response is to prevent sensitive data from being exposed in the first place. That requires that HM Government stop collecting and centralising so much personal information and that Whitehall curbs its promiscuous data-sharing habits.
In stark contrast to the incompetence now routinely on display in Westminster, the Scottish Government and Parliament are to be applauded for the resolution on data protection that was passed last Thursday.
The Liberal Democrat motion - amended by the Greens and supported by the SNP and independent MSPs - will greatly improve confidence in the handling of personal information in Scotland.
The cross-party consensus resolves to seek additional powers for the Assistant Information Commissioner for Scotland; calls for government data audits to be independent and accountable to Parliament; calls for a review of Citizens Accounts; and demands that all data-handling procedures be fully compliant with data-protection principles.
Significantly, the Scottish Parliament also resolved that the Scottish Government, local authorities and public bodies should deny the Home Office access to personal information for the UK ID database.
UK ministers must accept that any case for the national ID scheme and Transformational Government agenda has been undermined entirely by the blizzard of revelations in recent weeks.
While the Chancellor's mind is focused on data protection, he should take a firm lead. In his next statement to the Commons, Mr Darling should announce that all funding for the ID scheme will be withdrawn.
SOME 42 days from now, Christmas will be a memory, New Year resolutions will have been broken and the evenings will be getting lighter.
I long ago learned of distant lands where the interests of the state and its rulers override human rights. Until recent years, I believed I was very fortunate to live in a country where such things would never happen. Forty-two days is an intolerable length of time to hold someone without charge (as is the current 28 days). We have had internment before in part of the UK; it did nothing to quell the troubles in Northern Ireland.
If I were detained for such a period, I am sure that I would emerge extremely angry. I cannot imagine that it would produce less of an effect on those who may already feel alienated from society.
When the Home Secretary introduces her Bill to extend pre-charge detention, MPs should instead amend the legislation and reduce the existing period to 14 days.
A D Cunningham suggests that HM Revenue & Customs is not aware of encryption technology (Letters, December 5). The immediate risk of bank fraud would have been reduced if the lost CDs had been encrypted; that they were not was clearly reckless. But encryption is not the real problem.
Eight basic data protection principles, enshrined in the Data Protection Act and enforced by the under-resourced Information Commissioner's Office, place obligations on processors of personal data. Personal information must be fairly and lawfully processed; processed for limited purposes; adequate, relevant and not excessive; accurate and up to date; not kept for longer than necessary; processed in line with individuals' rights; secure; and not transmitted to other countries without adequate protection.
Even if the data on the CDs had been secured, the transfer of the data would still have failed most of the remaining tests.
The National Audit Office had no interest (legitimate or otherwise) in people's bank details. The people to whom the data related had a right to expect that the information would not be transferred outside HMRC or used for purposes other than payment of Child Benefit. Consequently, the data should not have been transferred by any medium - encrypted or not.
Fundamentally, the problem is that the civil service holds more personal information, and shares personal data more widely, than is necessary. Government has no respect for privacy. That must change.
I was one of the interviewees for "The Investigation" into our surveillance society, by David Calder.
According to Geraint Bevan of No2ID, 650 other organisations will be able to see it as well, from the Gaming Commission to local authorities.
"This data will be logged for a year," he said, "and every minor official could be able to have access to your phone records. There's no privacy anymore."
The suggestion by James Hall that Project Stork (Letters, November 29) has nothing to do with the national identity scheme is risible. The roadmap for the project was presented on June 13 at this year's European e-identity conference in Paris. Frank Leyman, manager for international relations at FEDICT (the Belgian public service responsible for e-government), described the project thus: "Implementation of an EU-wide interoperable system for recognition of electronic identification and authentication that will enable businesses, citizens and government employees to use their national electronic identities in any member state."
Mr Leyman's presentation placed identification at the heart of the project and explained how Belgian ID cards would link into the system. Although final project details were still to be formalised, the schedule showed the UK government taking responsibility for Work Package 4: identification, digital signatures, and association and provision of personal data. To suggest this is unrelated to the national identity scheme is beyond belief. Meanwhile, Mr Hall states that the national identity register will hold only "core identity information". His notion of what constitutes core data will not be shared by most readers.
Few people would consider details of visits to clinics or applications for credit to be core identity data. Yet these will be recorded on the ID database. The Identity Cards Act specifies approximately 50 categories of information to be registered.
Fraudsters will find the database immeasurably more useful than child benefit records: it will contain everything the discerning conman could need to practise identity fraud. The biometric data will prove priceless for criminals. Unlike passwords, fingerprints cannot be changed after hackers gain access.
The register will store full names and details of all places of residence - a matter of concern to people who are trying not to be found by those who would do them harm, such as men and women fleeing domestic abuse. The government has demonstrated time and again that it cannot be trusted to look after our personal data. A degree of transparency and honesty from ministers and officials seeking to seize more data still would not go amiss.
Sir: James Baring suggests that it would not matter if data leaked from an ID database because the biometric information would be of no use to criminals (letter, 24 November). He might be less confident about security if he realised that biometric data can be spoofed.
Fingerprints - obtained from a database or from glasses in a pub - can be used to create gelatine moulds that are capable of fooling biometric scanners. Contact lenses can be coloured or patterned to match recorded images.
DNA is irrelevant to the ID debate: the Government is not proposing to use DNA verification because the process takes too long to be practical for routine transactions.
Furthermore, any biometric data used for identification will eventually be converted into a set of numbers for comparison against stored values. If hackers are able to capture these numbers and inject them into other systems, they are capable of impersonating anyone.
Biometrics are not a panacea for information security. Those who believe otherwise have been misled by the hype.
Sir, David Blunkett (letter, Nov 23) is in denial that his beloved ID scheme has been dealt a fatal blow. His argument, essentially, is that it would not matter if even more data were lost from a national identity register because it would be useless to criminals without biometric authentication.
Leaving aside his incredible lack of respect for people's privacy, or the fallibility of biometric technology, his comments demonstrate a remarkable inability to think things through. To require biometric authentication for every transaction would put an end to online banking. It would put an end to telephone banking. It would put an end to all online purchases and dealings where both parties are not present, and we would all be returned to a world of visiting travel agents to book our holidays.
Mr Blunkett's dystopian world is not one that most people care to share.
Following the news that the personal and banking details of all recipients of Child Benefit have been lost in the post, several members of NO2ID Glasgow - the campaign against ID cards - have contacted their banks to get new account numbers.
Everyone else in Glasgow whose bank and personal details may have been on this database should do the same.
There is no reason why any civil servant should have been able to copy to disk the entire database including children's names, addresses, dates of birth and parents' bank details. The government demonstrates repeatedly that it cannot be trusted with sensitive information and has little regard for our privacy.
Matters can only get worse if the ID scheme is ever implemented.
The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, acknowledges that losing two computer discs containing personal details of half the nation is an extremely serious failure; a breach of established standard practice; the third in recent months. He blames junior civil servants for ignoring established procedures.
And yet the Chancellor made clear the government still intended to proceed with compulsory national registration and build a national identity register - a database far larger than any other it currently maintains. As well as bank account details, names, addresses and dates of birth, it would also record visits to clinics and other interactions between residents and the state.
Promiscuous sharing of personal data by government presents a real danger to citizens' privacy . The government should not be seeking to collect and collate as much information as possible about each of us. The national identity register must be abandoned.
David Stevenson (Letters, November 21) is correct. The casual disregard with which HM Revenue & Customs has treated the personal details of 25 million people does, indeed, blow a hole in assertions that centralising information on government databases enhances security.
Half the population will now have to pay particularly close attention to their bank accounts (I would recommend that everyone affected insist on a new account number from their bank), while people who do not wish to be found by ex-partners will fear the possibility that their names and addresses may end up being published on the internet.
This hole has been blown many times before, of course, although usually on more limited scale. Only 15,000 Standard Life customers were affected when HMRC decided to pop a CD of their pension details in the post. And a mere 13,000 civil servants were affected when their data was stolen from a payroll database at the Department of Work and Pensions.
The 2000 people with their ISA details stolen last month are barely worth a mention now. Nobody seems even to notice when the Independent Police Complaints Commissioner worries about long-standing problems with unauthorised access to data on the Police National Computer, and the DVLA is still selling data from the driver database to private companies.
But the scale of this latest fiasco is beyond belief. The Chancellor has already tried to blame junior officials and attention will certainly turn to the methods by which data is transferred in future. But there are deeper questions.
Why should any civil servant - junior, senior or permanent secretary - be able to access and copy the bank details of half the population? And, given that they had access, how could any civil servant possibly think that it would be acceptable to transfer such information to anyone else, by any method?
Whether the data is transferred on unencrypted discs in the back of a commercial van (as in this case) or via quantum cryptographic cables with the end points under armed guard, such data should never have been transferred from the host system.
This must now, surely, be the end of the government's drive towards collection and centralisation of personal information. It is inconceivable that the national identity register could go ahead after this.
But the government already holds vast amounts of data about each of us - data which is not adequately protected.
Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, has been warning for several years that personal data is not adequately protected. NO2ID is now calling for a full and independent audit, to establish precisely what information the government holds about each of us, how that information is used and how that data is shared between government departments.
The government has been promiscuous with our personal data for far too long. It is time for some protection.
Proposing still greater surveillance of each of us as we go about our daily lives, the Prime Minister now wants our luggage to be searched at busy railway stations.
Could a supporter of this policy please explain what possible benefit it would bring?
There is no reason for a bomber to board a train at Glasgow Central Station or Edinburgh Waverley while it remains possible to board trains at smaller unmanned stations. Nor, indeed, is it even necessary for a bomber to board a train.
During the 1990s, several bombs exploded on British railway lines. Screening baggage at the busiest stations will do nothing to prevent such simple attacks.
A more successful strategy for preventing terrorism would be effective screening of those seeking election to government.
We could start by eliminating those who believe illegal wars and authoritarian security theatre are the route to a peaceful and happy society.
Lord Carloway appears to be confused about the role of defence lawyers in the legal system, complaining that law agents should not attack the courts or the law. Defending Mohammed Asif Siddique, it was Aamer Anwar's duty to represent his client, not to act as an ambassador for the court or Parliament.
Aamer Anwar has maintained that he was, indeed, espousing the thoughts of his client. Yet even if they were his own beliefs, the notion that lawyers are not at liberty to set forth their opinions should offend everyone who believes in freedom of speech.
Should we next expect to see Baroness Helena Kennedy QC tried for her continuing eloquent and lucid criticism of anti-terror laws?
15,000 Standard Life customers are at risk of identity fraud after HM Revenue and Customs lost a CD in the post - a CD containing their names, addresses, national insurance and private pension details. The government refuses to say whether the data were encrypted, which one would assume means that they were not.
This casual disregard for the sensitivity of personal information demonstrates, yet again, that HM Government cannot be trusted to handle such data securely. If there is anyone who still believes that there is any merit to the government's proposals to create a National Identity Register - a vast database containing detailed personal information about each of us - this episode should cause them to think again.
There was consensus in Glasgow City Chambers yesterday. Debating Councillor Stuart Clay's (Green) motion opposing ID cards, many councillors spoke eloquently of their opposition to the scheme. It is significant that here, in Labour's Glasgow heartland, not one councillor was prepared to defend the government's ID scheme.
Westminster should take note.
Today, Glasgow councillors will vote to confer the Freedom of the City on Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma (Myanmar).
After this noble gesture against state repression, they will debate their stance on the UK national identity scheme. The parallels with Burma may surprise them.
In Burma, citizens are required to apply for ID cards - which are called national scrutinisation cards by the Ministry of Immigration and Population - when they reach the age of 10. They must then apply for renewal at the age of 18, normally at township immigration offices where they must wait for cards to be issued or renewed.
Applicants are required to fill out a form describing their family history and must also provide a number of documents, including birth certificate or proof of age from school, national scrutinisation cards from their parents, household record, blood-type certificate and residence recommendations from the township peace and development council.
The ID card must be produced by every person to obtain a wide range of services and the right to vote, to purchase tickets to travel internally, to stay in hostels or with friends and family outside one's ward of residence, to receive health and educational services and so on.
If the UK scheme goes ahead, every person over 16 will be required to attend one of 69 interrogation centres every 10 years to register or renew their application for an ID card. At the interrogation centre they will be required to answer questions from a dossier about their personal history, including their education and healthcare, after supplying supporting documentation to the Identity and Passport Service.
The cards will be required for access to a wide range of services. Ministers have singled out healthcare, education and the right to vote. Residents must continually notify the authorities of their whereabouts, updating their address each time they move, and it is clear that the cards will be used as internal passports by airlines.
Councillors have the opportunity to strike two notes for liberty and democracy today. Hopefully, they will set party politics aside and vote in the best interests of Glaswegians, the majority of whom are opposed to the ID scheme.
Doug Maughan suggests that International Development Minister Shahid Malik's experience at Dulles airport may provide a reality check. If so, it is long overdue.
Mr Malik speaks fine words. Before becoming a minister, he suggested the approach of security services should be intelligence-led, not beard-led. On home affairs issues in the Commons, he has consistently referred to the need to balance liberty and security.
Yet when voting, Mr Malik has fully endorsed the government's security theatre agenda and attacks on liberty, voting for ID cards, the introduction of house arrest and extension of detention without charge or trial.
As the MP for a constituency that was home to one of the 7/7 bombers, he should be well aware that ID cards could not have prevented that attack; that they will do nothing to prevent terrorism.
As a former commissioner for racial equality, he must realise that the introduction of ID cards will harm race relations and alienate some of the most marginalised members of society.
Perhaps Mr Malik's detention at Dulles airport will lead him to reflect on the misery that can be caused by petty bureaucrats when they are granted too much power by the state.
Hopefully, he will conclude that the ongoing reversal of the relationship between citizen and state is undesirable.
Maybe then he will cast votes that match his rhetoric. If so, the US immigration service may have done us all a favour.
Prompted by a conference in Scotland about surveillance, a reporter from Good Morning Scotland interviewed Simon Davies (Privacy International) and me about the issue. The Scottish Assistant Information Commissioner, Kenneth MacDonald was then interviewed and described the need for more oversight to protect the rights of individuals. (9 mins)
Quoted briefly in an article about Scottish National Entitlement Cards
Geraint Bevan, the spokesman for NO2ID Scotland, said: "In the past they have promised opt-outs to cards and to data being shared."
If convicted of a crime, should a person have the right to demand another trial? Should defendants be able to keep trying a new defence until they find one that works? Of course not. So why should the rules be any different for the prosecution?
It is a long-established principle that it is better to let the guilty go free than to convict the innocent. Angus Sinclair remains sentenced to life in prison whether innocent or guilty of the World's End murders. Despite widespread interest, as far as justice is concerned, any outcome of the trial would have been of little practical significance. No-one would have been any safer had a conviction resulted; no dangerous acquitted killer is roaming the streets because of a failed prosecution.
If any single case can ever be sufficient to overturn centuries of legal protection from the state for accused citizens, this is not the one.
Victims' families often demand justice, but justice is not to be had from emotional appeals. The mental anguish for those accused of a serious crime is intense. Trying someone again and again may eventually provide closure for the families, but to remove the finality of an acquittal for the innocent is an unbearably high price for society to pay.
TONY Roberts says everyone should be on the DNA database provided proper safeguards are in place. What safeguards would he consider proper? How would he enforce them?
The DNA database shows familial links. What safeguards would prevent people from discovering that their loved ones are not as closely related to them as they previously thought? Are all police officers certain about their parentage or the paternity of their children?
Informed consent is, or should be, a fundamental tenet for anyone participating in medical research.
What safeguards will ensure that future governments do not give researchers blanket authorisation to analyse samples for investigating disease? It will surely be hard for any government to resist such calls.
Insurance companies could profit handsomely from access to DNA data. We have already seen the DVLA is happy to sell drivers' details for commercial gain. Will we soon face the prospect of the Home Office selling our DNA samples for similar profit?
The only meaningful safeguard against inappropriate use of our DNA is to ensure the government does not collect it in the first place.
Society is the Herald's Tuesday supplement focusing on the public sector: local government, education, social work, voluntary organisations, &c. I was invited to write an opinion piece on behalf of NO2ID to explain our concerns about Scottish Entitlement Cards and Section 57 of the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006. The version here is the text of my pre-print. With a couple of very minor changes, it appeared in print on Tuesday 11th September.
In the months leading up to September 2001, after years of plotting, a small team made final preparations. Then, the attack. The Home Office's grand scheme, Blunkett's vision: Entitlement Cards.
Ever since war-time ID cards were abolished in 1952, elements of the civil service had been trying to reinstate national registration -- first introduced to Britain in 1915 to aid conscription. This time the intentions were disguised by talk of entitlement, but press and public refused to accept the ``Entitlement Card'' spin.
The Home Office introduced its Identity Cards Bill to Parliament. In fact, most of the bill was concerned with creating a vast surveillance database to record personal information about each of us; creating new offences; and providing new powers for the Secretary of State. The cards themselves barely got a mention; a mere pretext.
Civil liberties groups were horrified. A new campaign was formed -- NO2ID -- to stop ID cards and the database state. You have probably heard of us.
We are the ones warning that the Home Office wants to fingerprint you like a criminal and scan your irises;
--- that you will be called to an interrogation and compulsory registration when you apply for a passport or other ``designated document'';
--- that after registration you will be liable for a fine of up to £1,000 every time you fail to notify the authorities of a change of circumstance;
--- that everyone will be required to give details of all their residences, so the database will learn about everyone you ever live with;
--- that every time your identity is checked, it will be logged in the register -- recording which clinics you attend, with whom you bank, where and when you apply for credit;
--- that you will have no control over who can access your file, containing all these data that Ministers routinely describe as ``basic'' personal information.
It is all there in the Identity Cards Act, which MPs finally put on the statute book in 2006.
Victims of domestic abuse seeking refuge won't be able to hide their addresses from the register; nor crime victims; nor witnesses in criminal cases; nor those just seeking a bit of privacy.
Here in Scotland, polls indicate that two thirds of people are opposed to the national ID scheme. Would you sign up for one of Blunkett's Entitlement Cards -- an ID card linked to a vast intrusive database?
What would entice you not to resist, to give up your privacy without a fight? A free bus ride, perhaps?
To popular acclaim, the Scottish Executive introduced free nationwide bus travel for pensioners. All they had to do was return their old bus pass and sign up for a new Scottish Entitlement Card. Well, why not? What's the difference?
Once upon a time it was sufficient to show a pass to the driver while boarding a bus. It will soon be routine for pensioners and young Scots to swipe the Entitlement Card while the driver records the destination, as already happens in Shetland.
As a convenience measure, the Scottish Entitlement Card can also be used to access other services, such as libraries -- where they do, of course, have to record which books are taken out.
The cards can also be used to access leisure services -- where it is useful for a record to be kept of facility usage to help with resource allocation.
There will be a records of where you travel, what you read, what you do in your spare time. All these records will be tied together by the number on your Entitlement Card, the index to a ``Citizens Account''. An account is being created for every person in Scotland. There are undoubtedly good reasons for recording all of these data, but do we really want databases to know so much about us? It was never previously necessary for the government to track the movements of pensioners. Who will have access to these data? What will they do with the information?
The Registrar General has recently acquired some new powers -- from Section 57 of the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006. There was a public consultation on many aspects of this bill, but Section 57 was inserted after that had concluded; without further consultation.
The General Register Office asked for Section 57 after discussing Citizens Accounts with officials from the UK Identity and Passport Service -- the department responsible for implementing the UK National Identity Register; shortly after the Scottish Parliament voted to ensure that ID cards would not be required for access to devolved services. What powers does it give them?
The powers are simple. Section 57 sweeps away the long established rules of confidentiality and rule-of-law that protect privacy. It says that the Registrar General can record any information about you and share it with anyone, or words to that effect, all without Parliamentary oversight. It is a recipe for promiscuous use of your personal data by public bodies.
Citizens Accounts will form part of a de facto population register recording the details of our lives. A Scottish Identity Register.
There is a further danger. Notwithstanding Section 57, the Identity Cards Act gives the Secretary of State the power to appropriate data held by any public body to populate the National Identity Register. If there is a record of your journeys, reading preferences and leisure use, it can all find its way on to the National Identity Register.
NO2ID are not opposed to free bus travel or library cards, but these Citizens Accounts are being implemented without regard for basic data protection principles. The Scottish Government has a duty to protect our privacy. Until it does, I would not advise anyone to accept an Entitlement Card.
What price a free bus pass? To journey blindly towards a database state? Protect your privacy: say no to ID. www.NO2ID.net.
Patrick McNally writes that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips in new e-passports are expected to have far shorter lifetimes than originally intended. This should surprise no-one. Such technological incompetence is par for the course where the Home Office is involved. However, it is likely that this particular display of ineptitude will be a blessing in disguise for many passport holders.
In its unseemly haste to dance to the tune of the US State Department, the Passport Agency failed to introduce adequate security measures. Weak encryption coupled with a lack of basic radio shielding means that these chips can be read surreptitiously by electronic eavesdroppers.
Researchers working with NO2ID have already demonstrated the ability to read a new passport - still in its unopened delivery packaging - and extract the data necessary to clone it.
You will never know if someone cloned your new passport while it was en route to you. Nor, while the unshielded chip continues to broadcast data, will you know if someone is reading it while it rests in your pocket. Perhaps the person sitting beside you on the bus to the airport has an RFID-scanning laptop computer in their bag.
While you are sunning yourself at the beach, criminals may be applying for credit in your name using the data it broadcasts. Ironically, your passport will become safer when this so-called security measure fails. Fortunately, it will remain a valid travel document even after the chip is inactive.
I should caution readers wishing to improve the security of their new passports that the document remains the property of HM Government and prolonged exposure to the inside of a microwave oven will cause visible signs of burning. The Home Office is kindly providing kiosks in passport offices so you can verify your chip still works.
Dave Biggart criticised my stance against ID cards and the DNA database. Of four replies published the next day, one was from me:
If Dave Biggart wishes to carry a card containing emergency medical information, NO2ID would certainly not deny him that right. However, if he has a serious medical problem, I would recommend investing instead in a medic alert bracelet (eg, SOS Talisman). There is far less chance of a bracelet being lost, stolen or damaged in an accident.
Unfortunately, Mr Biggart will be disappointed to discover that the government's £20bn card will not function as a driving licence. He will have to carry two cards if he wishes to prove both his identity and his entitlement to drive.
He will also be disappointed to learn that the national DNA database is of no use for medical research. The 10 points of junk DNA that are recorded in a genetic profile carry no information of use to doctors or researchers.
Although the profiles contain no useful genetic information, they do show familial relationships. This will undoubtedly be welcomed by people who find that they are not as closely related to their loved ones as they thought previously.
Revelations will also be welcomed by the small proportion of the population that have chromosomal abnormalities (eg, XXY instead of XX or XY). They and their spouses will surely be delighted to learn about their hitherto unknown sexual ambiguity.
Compulsory DNA sampling for all may well be a boon for genealogists and psychological counsellors. In the future, it is also likely to be profitable for insurance companies who will be better able to avoid taking on bad risks - surely of great benefit to the global economy.
Mr Biggart is obviously ill-informed about the details of DNA profiling, so it is unsurprising that he jumps to erroneous conclusions about the impact of extending sampling to the innocent. In 2004, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, the pioneer of the technique, warned that the increasing number of records on the database meant that matches were "no longer foolproof". As the database is polluted by irrelevant profiles, the chance of false matches increases, leading to a corresponding reduction in the usefulness of the tool to the police.
Lord Justice Sedley may be a senior judge, but he is clearly not an expert statistician, (your report 5 September).
DNA profiles recorded on the national DNA database do not uniquely identify an individual. Matching relies instead on a genetic fingerprint comprising ten points. As the number of people on the database increases, there is a corresponding increase in the number of people likely to match any particular profile and hence a reduction in the usefulness of the database for identifying suspects.
Polluting the DNA database with profiles from innocent people will be counter-productive for law enforcement purposes, leading to trial by database and so infringing the right of citizens to be presumed innocent.
Lord Justice Sedley suggests compelling everyone to submit samples of their DNA to a national database. He proposes this measure, which he himself describes as "authoritarian", as a solution to the disproportionate number of records relating to ethnic minorities because of ethnic profiling. A better solution is to remove all samples unless they relate to someone charged with, or convicted of, an offence.
Quoted briefly in Mark Howarth's article about the introduction of Scottish National Entitlement Cards and Section 57
NO2ID Scotland, which staged a protest against the cards at Holyrood last week, said the law must be scrapped. Spokesman Geraint Bevan said: "This cannot be what MSPs intended. Section 57 should be quickly repealed."
Harry Reid (August 23) does not believe referendums are compatible with representative democracy. I beg to differ. The Scottish Parliament is a modern law-making body comprised of elected representatives. There are constraints on its powers, and the approval of a higher authority (Westminster or the people) is required if MSPs or the Scottish government wish to expand those powers.
This is entirely as it should be. Elected representatives legislate where they are empowered to do so, but it should not ultimately be for them to decide what powers they have.
Unfortunately, centuries before any of us was born, the Westminster Parliament came to believe that it was somehow sovereign; that its members could legislate on any matter and alter their powers at will. The sustained attack on civil liberties for political profit which we are experiencing is a direct result of politicians seizing powers to themselves without regard for a higher authority: citizens.
Fundamental reform of our tattered and noxious constitution is essential if we are ever to have a true democracy in this country. Whether that comes about through independence or reform of Westminster does not matter greatly to me, but either way, it should not be for politicians to decide their own powers.
Referendums are an essential part of a healthy representative democracy.
Iain Macwhirter mocks Wendy Alexander's decision to focus on "electronic stranger danger"; in fact, her decision should be applauded (August 20). For when Ms Alexander considers how to tackle this threat, she will surely conclude that there are simple measures that can protect the nation's children.
Simple measures such as ensuring that the addresses of children are not readily available to all and sundry; that their medical data are not exposed to people they have never met; that sensitive issues such as behavioural problems or previous abuse remain private; that basic information about their lives should not be revealed to just anyone with access to a computer. In short, that children's electronic privacy should be respected and they should be taught to protect it.
And when Ms Alexander considers which strangers might conceivably pose a threat to children, she will no doubt consider the hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers with access to government databases.
Today, NO2ID Scotland is launching a campaign for the repeal of Section 57 of the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act, which provides the General Register Office with the power to record and share any personal information (including health data) about anyone: the power to create a Scottish Identity Register to support the Citizens Accounts that underpin the new Scottish ID cards.
The next leader of the Labour Party can help to protect our children, now and in the future, by joining our fight against the database state.
We would welcome her support.
There may be a case for breaking BAA's airport monopoly. There may also be justification in the criticism that BAA has invested in shopping facilities instead of improving waiting areas. But it is very harsh to blame the airport authority for inducing stress in the journey from terminal to aircraft.
Most of the blame should instead be directed at the British government, with its penchant for security theatre and absurd restrictions. The government appears to have a policy of deliberately introducing ineffective but inconvenient measures for the sole purpose of convincing the public that something is being done.
If some sanity were to be reintroduced into the embarkation process, tired passengers would not have to fret about how to fit all that they need into one carry-on bag, nor fear confiscation of expensive bottles of spring water. Nor would they need to spend so long waiting around pointlessly, thus reducing the need for extensive and elaborate waiting facilities. In the hours before boarding a flight, I would rather spend my time at home than in an airport lounge, no matter how luxurious.
The Information Commissioner is right to be concerned about the proliferation of data sharing. Unfortunately, the idea that the risks can be mitigated if only people are aware of their rights is misplaced. The biggest danger is the notion of "transformational government". This is the driving force behind the national identity scheme that will entail the creation of a vast National Identity Register, specifically designed to help spread data more widely.
New passport applicants are being summoned to attend the interrogation centre in Blythswood House where, as well as facing the prospect of having biometric data scanned and recorded, they are confronted with personal dossiers compiled from a host of databases. The main purpose of these interrogations is to tidy up existing databases to aid the creation of a national register.
It is not sufficient that we know our rights. As far as the government is concerned, we have none. The Data Protection Act does not prevent the government from sharing data whenever it believes that to be in the public interest. What government department ever believes any of its actions are not in the public interest? We must all take responsibility for protecting our personal data, but that requires that we learn to say no when asked for too much information unnecessarily. We should prepare to say no when summoned to participate in national identity registration. We can start by writing to our elected representatives and telling them that we intend to refuse to participate.
So, biometric ID is to be Gordon Brown's third line of defence against terrorism. We had better pray the first two lines hold. Great fanfare is made of the point that foreign visitors will need biometric ID - but only if visiting the UK for more than six months. I'm not convinced potential terrorists will have difficulty finding the five-and-a-half-month loophole in that system.
It is a shame Mr Brown did not expand on how he believes biometric ID will aid security. ID cards didn't prevent the Madrid bombings; they would not have made any difference to the London bombings; and it is hard to see how they could have stopped the Glasgow Airport attack.
The last time the Home Office tested its electronic fingerprinting technology, the system failed 20% of the time. In a year, that would equate to approximately 1.5 million false identifications at Glasgow Airport alone. But that doesn't matter. No-one expects taking fingerprints to improve security anyway. If the visitor has not visited Britain previously, there will be no records to compare prints against.
Quoted in an article about a NO2ID protest the previous Saturday.
No2ID's Scotland coordinator Geraint Bevan said the presence of the councillors demonstrated how opposition to ID cards cut across party lines. He added: "People from all political affiliations - and none - are united in opposition to this attack on our civil liberties."
There is a fundamental flaw in the idea. Dr Johnston suggests that the election result would not be finalised until "things have reached a steady state". There is no guarantee that the system will ever reach a steady state. In technical terms, the system may not be stable.
The most likely outcome of such a voting method would be endless oscillation as committed followers of competing parties try every possible combination of votes to ensure that the other lot don't win. Without some way of introducing "damping" into the system, it could easily oscillate forever. To allow people to change their vote requires that the system can identify which votes are cast by which voters. That precludes anonymous voting.
It is not necessary that voters know how their vote will affect the end result. A good electoral system should ensure that each elector can express their genuine preferences in the knowledge that their vote will count. The council elections came closest to achieving this goal.
SIR - John Shearon (Letters, June 5) urges the Government to require ID cards for access to health services.
Has he considered the impact that this will have on public health?
When people with communicable diseases start avoiding health services for fear of having their immigration status checked, everyone will suffer.
Diseases won't be checking ID before infecting communities.
When teenagers fear going to family planning clinics for fear of having their visits recorded on the intrusive national identity register, sexual disease and unwanted pregnancies will become greater problems than now.
No doubt Mr Shearon will then be writing to complain about the number of single mothers contributing to housing shortages.
Ian Bell rightly identifies the dangers we face from the government's sustained attack on civil liberties and human rights (May 30). There is something utterly grotesque about the prevailing notion in government circles that the supposed security interests of the state should come before the rights of the people the state exists to serve; that the state is more important than society.
But it is worth remembering that these measures do not provide any additional security. The Home Office vaguely mentions terrorism in relation to ID cards every now and then, but experts consistently denounce the idea these would contribute to solving the problem.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Janet Williams of the Metropolitan Police has said: "ID cards are not the solution to terrorism or serious and organised crime. Look at the bombers in Madrid. Spain has ID cards but it still has bombers." Dame Stella Rimmington, former head of MI5, has branded the case for ID cards as a counter-terrorism measure as "bogus". Even Charles Clarke, when Home Secretary, conceded that ID cards would not have prevented the 7/7 London bombings.
Meanwhile, in this letters page we hear from Les Wilson, an airline pilot prevented from taking a bottle of Tabasco sauce on to a flight. In complete control of a fuel-and-passenger laden aircraft, what possible need would a pilot have for additional fluids if wishing to wreak havoc? Preventing pilots from carrying items on to the flight deck is pointless; inconvenience and officious meddling merely for the sake of being seen to do something.
Benjamin Franklin said: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." How much more scathing would he have been of those who would trade in their freedoms for a mere illusion of security?
The police have long had powers to stop and question anyone they suspect of involvement in a crime. So what can be the point of new police powers suggested by the government? Are they suggesting it is a good use of scarce resources for the police to spend time checking identities of people they "don't" suspect of any involvement in crime? Andy Burnham MP, when minister for ID cards, said: "It is part of being a good citizen, proving who you are, day in day out." Mr Blair and Dr Reid are clearly determined to bring this dystopian vision closer to reality.
Sir: Joan Ryan MP asserts that the Government wishes to protect our identities. As with any protection racket, the catch is what happens when one declines the offer: in this case refusal of access to services or hefty fines.
I was pleased to see that my MP, Ann McKechin, was not among those who voted for parliament to be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and I trust that she will vote against the Bill when it returns to the Commons. However, looking down the full list of MPs who did vote for exemption (www.publicwhip.org), it is noticeable that Tom Harris and John Robertson were not the only ones on the government payroll. Among the 79 Labour MPs who supported the Bill were 30 ministers and parliamentary private secretaries.
And among those 30 ministers were Joan Ryan, current minister for ID cards; and Tony McNulty, the previous holder of that post. Apparently, these ministers, who are so intent on intruding into our personal lives with such little regard for personal privacy, wish to exempt from scrutiny their work which is paid for from the public purse.
The culture of secrecy runs deep at the Home Office. It is a pity that those who work there do not have more understanding of the need to respect other people's privacy.
What makes a good day to bury bad news? A day when the Prime Minister announces his resignation, perhaps? The Home Office have just sneaked out the news that cost estimates for the ID scheme have risen by the best part of half a billion pounds in the past six months.
The figures were required by law to be released several weeks ago.
Unsurprisingly, the government decided to keep quiet until there was other major news to help hide the announcement.
The London School of Economics warned before the legislation was enacted that the government had severely underestimated the costs, but MPs chose not to listen. Now the costs are escalating even before any contracts have been awarded or any ID cards issued.
MPs have a duty to scrutinise public expenditure. They should take this opportunity to scrap the expensive, ill-considered and intrusive ID scheme.
The sacking of the sixth fingerprint specialist at the heart of the Shirley McKie case will perhaps be one of the final chapters of this long and wretched affair. This case has demonstrated beyond doubt that biometric identification is not infallible. Problems arise even when forensic specialists working in laboratory conditions, without significant time pressures, have access to recent full-rolled prints from a cooperative suspect. Surely no-one in Scotland can now believe anyone who claims that partial fingerprints, scanned and matched by computer in seconds against a database of ageing prints, could ever be a "gold standard" of identification.
Moreover, this case all too clearly shows the devastating effect that misidentification can have on an innocent person wrongly accused.
The Home Office is planning to take the fingerprints of every resident in Britain, including the many law-abiding citizens who have never been convicted of any crime. It proposes to allow the police to use these records to find matches against the, often unclear, prints obtained from crime scenes. If allowed to do this, there will be many more failures of identification, with the consequent risk of miscarriages of justice. Furthermore, most of those accused will probably not be serving police officers with the strength and determination to clear their names in court battles lasting for the best part of a decade.
Technologically-illiterate government ministers have been dazzled by consultants into believing that immature biometric technology could be a panacea. They should try to forget about the technology and their shiny new databases and consider what really happened in the Shirley McKie case. Then they must abandon their plans to force the population to submit to biometric data-rape. Now is an ideal time for Labour to abandon the ID scheme, potentially one of Blair's most enduring follies.
In the same week that you reveal the detrimental impact that the Medical Training Application Service is having on the careers of junior doctors, the service saw fit to accidentally publish intimate details of applicants on the web: names, addresses, phone numbers, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, etc.
Yet another reminder about the insecurity of government databases.
Harry Reid is right to be concerned about the rapid growth of the surveillance state and the threat to our liberties from those who should be safeguarding them (The Herald, April 26). However, I cannot entirely agree with his statement that it is impossible to have a mature and reasonable argument about identity cards because we no longer trust those in authority. They may not be trustworthy, but that is not why we cannot debate the issue sensibly.
There can be no sensible debate about the ID scheme because the government refuses to enter such a debate. When NO2ID Scotland wrote last year to invite the Home Office to send a minister - or anyone else - to Glasgow for a public meeting in the run-up to these elections, it declined. When the BBC recently asked for a minister to go up against me on Scotland Live, the Home Office instead provided a civil servant on the strict condition that there be no discussion between us. Requests for information about the scheme are routinely denied; the government certainly shows no lack of initiative when evading the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act.
The government offers no defence of its position. Whenever its assertions are proven to be baseless, it fails to explain itself, instead constantly shifting its ground, offering alternative motives and veiling the scheme in a shroud of secrecy. Instead of justifying its policy, it attacks critics.
Readers of The Herald will have seen for themselves how Joan Ryan MP, the current minister for ID cards, prefers to accuse campaigners of "scaremongering" - on the basis of things we haven't said - rather than to engage in any kind of constructive dialogue.
When the LSE published its report into the proposed ID scheme, detailing its cost estimates of £20bn and suggesting alternative ways of implementing ID cards that would be less intrusive and allow citizens to maintain some privacy and control, the government refused even to consider the contents of the document. Instead it singled out one of the dozens of the academics who compiled the report and subjected him to vilification by ministers in both Houses of Parliament.
A mature and sensible debate on ID cards is not possible when the ID protagonists refuse to engage. But NO2ID will continue to present compelling arguments backed by evidence and research rather than spin and evasion. I would hope that the government would be prepared to enter the debate on such terms also, but alas experience has shown that there is little prospect of that. No matter. As people learn more about the scheme, public opinion is shifting inexorably in our favour. All recent polls show a clear majority opposed, particularly here in Scotland.
The ID card scheme cannot operate without the cooperation of the population. Just as when the Conservatives introduced the poll tax, the government will soon discover that there is little co-operation to be had.
The NHS IT project is massively over budget and years behind schedule. One of the chief architects of this scheme is currently responsible for another huge government IT project: the national ID scheme.
Ruth Wishart writes about recent measures at court 13 in Glasgow Sheriff Court that have helped to tackle domestic abuse cases (April 4). While such initiatives are to be welcomed, it is unfortunate that central government, and the Home Office in particular, is simultaneously trying to make it impossible for people fleeing domestic violence to ensure their own safety and that of their children.
The national ID scheme will involve the creation of a national identity register, a vast database that will record the names, addresses and many more personal details about every UK resident. This database will be accessible nationwide by a host of government departments and agencies. It is also intended that access will be provided to private companies so that they can verify individuals' details.
Anyone failing to keep their record up to date will face fines of up to £1000. They may also find that they are denied access to non-emergency health care; unable to enrol their children in school; unable to claim benefits; unable to obtain a passport or driving licence; and even unable to open a bank account or apply for credit.
For those who fear being found by an abusive ex-partner, this national identity register will present a grave risk. One need only consider the sale of information from DVLA's driver database, or the theft of information from the Department of Work and Pensions and even the police national computer, to realise the impossibility of securing such a large system. It is inconceivable that anyone recorded on it will be able to escape being found by someone who is sufficiently determined.
Unfortunately, people fleeing domestic abuse will very often be the people who can least afford to resist registration and shy away from interaction with the state. This ill-considered scheme is being driven from London, but local politicians can mitigate its effects. In the last Scottish parliament, politicians from across the spectrum supported a motion insisting that ID cards, and hence compulsory registration, should not be required for access to devolved services. However, some MSPs have indicated they will seek to reverse that decision in the next parliament.
On May 3, voters have an opportunity to ensure they elect MSPs and councillors who will protect us all from the worst facets of the ID scheme and make it feasible to resist without foregoing health care and children's education. Before going to the polls, readers should be sure that they know where candidates stand on compulsory national ID registration.
Patrick McNally asks "when was the last time you saw a family do the week's shopping at Tesco by bike?" With a large rucksack and a decent set of panniers, it is simple to carry a week's shopping home by bike.
Even the rucksack is not necessary if you decide not to do the whole week's shopping in one go. There is no law limiting you to one shopping trip per week.
Daily trips in a car might be excessively polluting; on a bike they keep you healthy.
BBC Radio Scotland reported from the NO2ID "ID Day" protest outside Glasgow's future Interrogation Centre. The 20 minute Scotland Live report features interviews from Patrick Harvie MSP, passers-by, me and local campaigners, James Hall (CEO of IPS) and Prof. Patrick Dunleavy (LSE). Clip starts 24 minutes into the show.
Apparently, the Identity and Passport Service has discovered that it issued 10,000 fake passports just as it is preparing to announce intrusive new measures to inconvenience passport applicants (your report, 21 March). How convenient.
The truth is that this is more spin from the Home Office as it desperately attempts to justify its ID scheme. The intrusive interrogations that new passport applicants will have to undergo have nothing to do with preventing false documents being issued. Instead, it is the mechanism by which the government intends to force people on to the National Identity Register.
Compulsory interrogations will allow officials to clear up some of the inconsistencies in their existing databases, so that the computer systems can be combined into a single sinister surveillance system. The interrogations will also afford the authorities the opportunity to perform their data rape, compulsorily taking of fingerprints and iris scans from unwilling individuals.
THE argument that state funding of political parties is necessary for a healthy democracy is based on a false premise: "That parliamentary democracy cannot function properly without robust and healthy political parties."
Parties are spending ever more to elicit votes from people who are not impressed by any of them. Most people are not prepared to contribute to ludicrous campaign expenses only to be rewarded by the sight of "loyal backbenchers" following their leaders through the divisions regardless of the merits of the case put before them.
The electorate are being attracted to single-issue campaigns in ever-greater numbers as disillusionment grows with our elected "representatives". If political parties cannot attract enough supporters to fund their ambitions, then it is better that they wither and make room for political movements that do command wide support.
Instead of stealing our taxes to fund their own parties, MPs should consider ways to make parliament a real debating chamber, able to make decisions instead of acting as a rubber stamp for an executive that wields power through patronage.
JOAN Ryan, minister for ID cards, would do well to read the Identity Cards Act herself - particularly Schedule 1 (It's on the cards, Readers' Letters, January 20).
Contrary to her assertion that the National Identity Register would contain only basic personal information such "name, nationality, age, address and gender", the NIR will also record data such as:
* biometric measurements (e.g. fingerprints, iris scans);
* an audit trail recording verifications of identity, such as access to non-emergency medical services or clinics, applications for credit, opening of bank accounts, etc.;
* every address at which a person has lived (here or abroad), with fines of £1,000 pounds for failure to notify the authorities of your future movements so that records can be updated;
* and national insurance, passport, driver numbers and a wealth of other information that will be of use to fraudsters wishing to impersonate a person for criminal purposes.
Joan Ryan is wrong to say that the database will help us to protect our personal information from abuse. The best way of protecting our identities is to ensure that our personal details are not all collected and collated in one vast, vulnerable Stasi-like database.
THE prime minister's insistence that concerns about the impact of a surveillance and control ID database on civil liberties is out of step with public opinion is not borne out by the evidence.
National polls are consistently finding a majority of people opposed to compulsory national ID cards, while a recent poll of hundreds of shoppers in Glasgow found two thirds of people oppose the scheme.
Mr Blair may believe that a national ID database is an indication of "modernity", but that does not seem to carry much weight with our modern teenagers, who object to being fingerprinted and iris scanned like criminals, and having their visits to clinics recorded for all time on a database over which they have no control.
Nor do claims of modernity carry much weight with our elders who remember the abolition of war-time ID cards and the sacrifices made by so many of their generation to protect the freedoms our prime minister is eager to throw away.
When Mr Blair pauses in silence on Armistice Day, he would do well to consider just what it was that so many have fought and died for.
It was not so that we could hear cries of "papers, please!" on our city streets.
Following the information commissioner's stark warnings that Britain had become a surveillance society, and the release of a study by Privacy International which ranks Britain barely above China, Russia, Singapore and Malaysia for monitoring of the population by the state, the defence of a national ID database by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, this week was a pitiful plea to "modernity" (your report, 7 November).
However, that argument does not carry much weight with our teenagers, who object to being fingerprinted and iris-scanned like criminals, and having their visits to clinics recorded on a database over which they have no control. Nor does it carry much weight with older people who remember the abolition of wartime ID cards and the sacrifices made by so many of their generation to protect the freedoms Mr Blair is eager to throw away.
BOB Thomson (November 4) laments that MPs' votes are rarely recorded in the press, hindering the electorate from making informed decisions at the ballot box. Readers wishing to see how their representatives vote on their behalf might be interested in a couple of websites, produced by volunteers who care about democracy, which provide detailed and easily digestible records of our politicians' activities.
www.theyworkforyou.com extracts data from Hansard to show MPs' speeches and votes at every division and includes a simple-to-use search interface. Meanwhile www.publicwhip.org.uk records votes and attempts to discern voting patterns within the data.
Readers who are incensed by what they discover might wish to avail themselves of www.writetothem.com which provides an easy way to contact councillors, MSPs, MPs and MEPs.
Iain Macwhirter remarks that the Tories historically have been more concerned about the protection of freedom than Labour (October 4). He goes on to ask if they are sincere.
David Cameron and David Davis both for a long time have expressed their opposition to ID cards and it is certainly very welcome that their one policy announcement so far is to abolish ID cards. However, it should not be forgotten that Conservatives in both the Lords and the Commons, including the Shadow Home Secretary, voted in favour of the Identity Cards Act earlier this year when they could have blocked it.
It is to be hoped that the Tories are sincere in their commitment to scrap ID cards if they get into power, but they must go further. They must commit themselves to repealing the entire Act, including the nasty and intrusive National Identity Register, which is a far greater threat to privacy and liberty than the pointless pieces of plastic on which the index number to the database will be written.
Recent polling suggests that more than two-thirds of Glaswegians are opposed to ID cards, with many more having grave concerns about the government's inability to store our personal identity data securely. Opposition to this acutely authoritarian Act will bring an electoral advantage for any party or candidate that commits itself to repealing the entire sinister scheme.
Quoted in an article which published results from a Glasgow No2ID survey
Geraint Bevan, spokesman for No2ID Scotland, said: "We found that 67% of them were opposed to the cards. In the first question we asked how they felt about the fact that the ID cards will cost £93 and 58% said they were against the cost."
Bevan said the ID cards were over-complicated and has no doubt that more people will fall prey to identity theft after their introduction. "We will all be issued a national identity number, which will follow you your entire life. If someone were to steal your number then they could pretend to be you," he added.
"What was also interesting about our findings was that 90% of the young people we talked to were concerned about data security, and of the nine civil servants we surveyed all of them said they didn't trust the government's computer systems."
Perhaps the security services succeeded in foiling a terrorist plot this week after months of patient surveillance, or maybe they have made a colossal mistake and we will see the detained suspects quietly released without charge. Whether or not a plot has been foiled, there has been no failure of security that would demand further curtailment of our freedom, despite the well-timed speech from Dr Reid the day before the arrests. There is certainly no justification for the Home Secretary to run off to Europe to demand an EU-wide biometric database containing the fingerprints of citizens from across the continent.
Recording and checking our fingerprints would offer no protection, even if the technology were to work reliably; suicide bombers tend not to be repeat offenders so the security services would not know which fingerprints to track. It is the intention, not the identity, of travellers that airport security officers must attempt to discern.
The government seems keen to seize any opportunity to start cataloguing the population, perhaps because it is starting to realise that its dreams of a national identity register are destined to lie in tatters, particularly now that every opposition party is committed to abolishing ID cards.
Before demanding that we give up our privacy and liberty, perhaps the government would care to explain precisely how it believes that its attempts to introduce yet another surveillance and control database might offer any additional protection, or how such intrusion would protect our traditional values which allow people to go about their lawful business without excessive interference from the state.
Your report (7 August) that the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, intends to raise revenue by selling access to personal data stored on the National Identity Register confirms just how little regard the government has for our privacy.
It is becoming clearer that the government intends to become the vendor of choice for wholesale distribution of our private data. Yet as the details of our lives are shared ever more widely, the risk of identity theft increases for all of us. The only effective system of identity management is to keep personal data confidential and to allow individuals to disclose information as and when they see fit to do so.
Labour is wrong if it believes ID cards will help it as a central plank of its next manifesto. A recent ICM poll showed that support for the scheme is continuing to collapse, with 60 per cent of Scots now opposed.
The concept of the NIR is flawed in principle. As the Commons select committee on science and technology suggested last week, the government's attempted implementation is also flawed in practice. It should now be considering how best to repeal the Identity Cards Act rather than proposing to expand its use.
The government's identity scheme is in meltdown. Following the revelations contained in the e-mails of senior managers in the civil service which were leaked over the weekend, it has now emerged that the process of tendering contracts to establish the scheme has been put back indefinitely, following a review of the Home Office ordered by John Reid.
The Home Secretary is to be applauded for taking such decisive action. He may now wish to reflect on the news (11 July) that the Identity and Passport Service had to withdraw its new online application service after just three weeks, by when a backlog of 5,000 applications developed. This service was, bizarrely, used as an example of a successful deployment of IT by the Prime Minister in recent months.
The concept of the National Identity Register is folly and unworkable.
Leaked e-mails reveal that the senior civil servants responsible for introducing ID cards are questioning whether the scheme is "remotely feasible". Concerns are expressed about the "lack of clear benefits" and the "[un]affordability of all the individual programmes." None of this can be a surprise for the government -- independent technologists, civil liberties campaigners and academics have been saying just this for years now. It is no wonder that the government is refusing to release the results of departmental feasibility and impact studies into the ID scheme.
However, the leaked correspondence also reveals that the Prime Minister has decided a "face-saving" solution should be implemented; a watered-down scheme that would offer absolutely no benefits to the public whatsoever but would allow ministers to pretend that the whole failing project is not the result of total incompetence and appalling judgment.
Prepared to waste billions of pounds of public funds and shatter our civil liberties and notions of personal privacy merely to present an illusion that it knows what it is doing, our government is demonstrably not fit for office. There are real problems facing the country for which that money could be genuinely useful -- keeping hospitals open; paying for teachers to invest in our children's future; putting more police on the streets to protect our communities; investing in renewable energy to combat climate change.
Our Labour MPs should be ashamed of themselves. Did they really enter politics to engage in mass deception of the public instead of tackling society's problems? Having failed to adequately scrutinise the government's ID proposals in the first instance, they are entirely complicit in this charade. Now that the truth is out for all to see, it is time for them to make amends. They must demand that all government-held information about the ID scheme be released for public scrutiny. Then they should repeal the Identity Cards Act.
LAST month the Information Commissioner ordered the Department of Work and Pensions to release three reports relating to a feasibility study that it had conducted into the costs and risks associated with the introduction of ID cards. The government were given a deadline of July 5 to comply. On July 5 the DWP decided to appeal against that decision.
A New Labour refrain on the ID scheme was "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear". So what do the government have to hide now? For a government so keen to monitor and record every minor aspect of our private lives on an intrusive National Identity Register, they seem remarkably reticent to allow anyone to know anything about what public servants are doing on our behalf. The government know that the ID scheme will not bring any real benefits. They should make all such departmental reports available for scrutiny and allow MPs to pull the plug on the entire project.
REG McKAY is right to be worried that Government agency computer systems make identity theft easier.
But things are set to get much worse. Soon ID thieves won't need to rummage in bins anymore.
The National Identity Register will contain everything they could ever wish to know - names, addresses, NI and passport numbers, bank accounts and credit applications - and they'll give internet access to it all!
The Home Office will start collecting the data from October when they introduce personal interviews for passport applicants.
Details of the Renew For Freedom campaign can be found at www.renewforfreedom.org
Lord Carlile hosted a seminar at Glasgow Trades Hall as part of a public consultation on the statutory definition of terrorism. Newsnight Scotland reported on the meeting and included a short clip of me speaking. The report starts at approximately 13:25.
The Leader of the House, Jack Straw, has said part of the difficulty the Home Office faces is it deals with "people who do not wish to be subject to social control: the purpose of the Home Office".
The Home Office had better get used to it. As soon as compulsory enrolment on the National Identity Register begins, it will find there are many people unwilling to submit to the kind of surveillance and control provided for in the Identity Cards Act.
Those wishing to protect their privacy would be well-advised to renew their passports now so they are not forced onto the NIR for ten years.
That thousands of people have been wrongly reported as criminals because of errors in Criminal Record Background checks is a striking illustration of the problems innocent people can face when government databases provide inaccurate information, and records from one person are mistakenly matched with those of another.
As state surveillence and monitoring grows, such errors will occur increasingly. The vast quantity of information to be stored on the National Identity Register, with thousands of access points across the country and updated every time an identity is verified, will provide enormous scope for bungling bureaucrats to inject confusion and chaos into our lives.
If the Identity and Passport Service succeeds in procuring a register before the government realises the folly of its current proposals, we can look forward to all sorts of mayhem: innocent people being confused with terrorists and prevented from flying when identified at airports; sick citizens being confused with illegal immigrants and denied access to healthcare; pensioners being confused with schoolchildren and denied access to benefits.
Recent revelations from the Home Office - failing to consider foreign convicts for deportation, employing illegal immigrants, losing thousands of passports, accidentally making it legal to possess false passports - demonstrate that the only thing at which this bureaucracy can succeed is taking incompetence and maladministration to new levels.
Under no circumstances should it be entrusted with a new database and identity scheme designed to intrude into every aspect of our lives.
Yet again the government is asserting that ID cards somehow will resolve magically all issues related to illegal immigration. Yet again, they fail to say how. It is truly absurd to suggest that our borders would become more secure if we were all required to present a little plastic card when entering and leaving the UK; we already have a document perfectly suited to that task - the humble passport.
Of course, everyone knows that passports are not a magic solution to questions of immigration - nor can any document be. The release without consideration for deportation of more than 100 foreign prisoners from jails was not because of any question about the identity or whereabouts of those concerned; rather, it was the failure of the Home Office to follow its own procedures.
The Home Office is used to failure. Errors in the drafting of the Identity Cards Act mean that it is no longer a criminal offence to be in possession of false passports, while news that the Identity and Passport Service has allowed thousands of passports to go astray despite the introduction of a "secure" delivery service should lead people to consider the effect that a more sensitive ID card going astray might have on their lives.
At a time when astounding levels of incompetence and ineptitude are revealed at all levels within the Home Office, a department which recently failed to satisfy the auditors that its accounts were in order, we should not be allowing it to waste £20bn on the most intrusive and complex IT system ever attempted by a government.
Rather than wasting money on a National Identity Register, the Home Office should be abolished and replaced by smaller and more focused departments that could concentrate on doing their jobs properly instead of dreaming up ever more ridiculous schemes to increase their powers while failing properly to execute those that they already have.
It is reported that organised criminals have been colluding with civil servants to steal personal details from Home Office databases. This a clear illustration of the impossibility of ensuring that any large government database can be kept completely secure and serves to highlight some of the dangers that the proposed National Identity Register (NIR) will have in store for UK residents, for such a database will be a boon to criminals.
Many people have plenty to fear from others learning their secrets: victims of domestic abuse fear violent ex-partners discovering to where they have fled; undercover police officers and journalists investigating organised crime fear having their identities revealed to serious criminals; investors in some pharmaceutical compan