-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- A National ID Card "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories" - Thomas Jefferson "[the obligation to produce an ID card] tends to make people resentful of the acts of the police and inclines them to obstruct the police instead of to assist them" - Lord Justice Goddard "The public should vote with its feet (and its cheque books) by allowing this ill-conceived and expensive scheme to die" - Sunday Telegraph Editorial Everyone likes a quick fix. A National ID Card is seen as a quick fix for many of society's ills - crime, social security fraud, bogus callers, conmen, illegal immigrants, tax dodgers, terrorists .... Repressive regimes like ID Cards - China, North Korea, Iraq. Free societies abhore ID cards and pride themselves on not needing an ID Card - Australia, New Zealand, USA, UK. There are some countries that fall into neither category. Germany is a free country, but its people are so regimented that they seem to be prepared to accept anything without so much as a murmur. It is difficult to imagine the Nazi Party gaining power anywhere other than Germany. The UK has always managed without an ID Card. The exceptions have been the Second World War (exceptional circumstances) and Northern Ireland (which no-one other than the bigoted Irish regard as part of the UK). This may be about to change. There has been for some time various noises about the introduction of a National ID Card. This is about to move up a notch. The House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee has produced a report that in principle raises no objection to a National ID Card. The Home Secretary, Anthony Howard, has persuaded his Cabinet colleagues to agree to a voluntary National ID Card. Peter Lilley (Social Security Secretary), and Michael Forsyth (Scottish Secretary) were reported as raising objections on libertarian grounds. Howard's proposals would require legislation in the next Parliamentary Session. The Labour Party supports the idea of a National ID Card, possibly a compulsory ID card. Far from aiding the war on crime an ID Card is likely to lead to a false sense of security and lead to a squandering of scarce resources. The money would be more effectively spent on crime prevention and crime fighting. An ID card is a conjuring trick by politicians to give the impression that they are doing something whilst at the same time giving them the opportunity to meddle in peoples' lives. Yet another job creation scheme for worthless bureaucrats. When Lord Justice Goddard ended the War time ID card he remarked upon the ill will it had generated amongst law-abiding citizens. No self-respecting burglar or thug is going to carry around a voluntary ID Card. Were it to be mandatory to carry at all times (as in Germany) there would instantly spring up a black market in forged and stolen ID Cards. It is laughable to believe that there is such a thing as an unforgeable ID Card. Were the card to be a smart card, these would be manufactured in Taiwan, China or Thailand. A National ID Card would allow common sense to be thrown out of the window, people would have the opportunity to not engage their brain (as if most people needed an opportunity). The ID Card would be used instead of biometric parameters. I used to work at a site that nominally had security. The security man, out of a sense of his own perceived importance, would insist upon seeing my ID Card even though he knew me by sight. No doubt a complete stranger could walk in on the flash of an ID Card. A few, albeit a tiny minority of police believe themselves to be Third Reich Storm Troopers. They'd love an ID Card. A friend used to live in Germany during the 1970s. On principle he refused to carry an ID Card, though in truth he could never remember it. As a result he used to have constant hassle from the police. The police have gone out of their way to stress that they are not in favour of an ID card and that they are strongly opposed to a mandatory ID card. They recognise that effective policing is only with the consent of the population and as Lord Justice Goddard recognised a generation ago an enforced ID card would lose the police that consent. An ID Card will have an associated User ID. The temptation will be too great to resist not using this as a general purpose User ID for any database. What this means is that it will be possible to gain access to many databases using information gleaned off an ID Card. It is not uncommon in the States for banks to use a client's Social Security Number as a PIN for access to bank accounts. A National ID Card would be linked to your credit card, bank account, medical records, library card, telephone number, e-mail account, driving licence. With a smart card all this and more could be on the card itself. A smart card would have a holographic image of its owner on the front, inside a high resolution hologram, retina scan, fingerprints, DNA profile and still leave room for plenty more. Everything that a person did would be visible to Big Brother. It would make computerised e-mail monitoring seem trite and trivial in comparison. Where a person went who they met, all would be monitored. The smart card itself would not show who you met but it would show who was in your vicinity, then turn to the ever present security camera .... The smart card could hold Digital Cash. Every single transaction of every single individual would then be open to scrutiny. This is the one scenario that is not likely to happen as pimps, drug pushers and politicians are not likely to stand for it. The British Labour Party has admitted to plans to establish a national DNA database. Blood samples would be taken of all babies at birth and anyone applying for a work visa. This database would be linked to a compulsory national ID card. Apart from any civil liberty implications these proposals ignore the growing scientific doubts as to the reliability of genetic fingerprinting. There would be a thriving black market in false ID cards. This would not just be the criminal fraternity, who would probably only be a tiny minority of the market, but anyone seeking temporary anonymity - the business man on an activity weekend with his mistress. Few people get less excited about their national flag than the British. But even the British have their limits. When rumours began to circulate that the national ID card would show the Euro flag, not the Union Jack, not only was that limit reached, it was well exceeded. A national outcry erupted, it even displayed the extremely boring news coverage of the Republican national convention in San Diego. The rumours illustrated where the pressure for a national ID card was really coming from. One more bolt of the Euro Police State was about to slot into place. As a democracy the UK is an anomaly, unlike many democracies the UK lacks a constitution. This is not quite the disadvantage it at first superficially appears. Unlike citizens of countries that are granted rights by their constitution the British have absolute rights other than those that Parliament has chosen to take away by legislation. For example I may park a car anywhere I so choose (provided that I'm not causing an obstruction), but if Parliament passes a law that says I can not park on double yellow lines then I lose the right to park where there are such marks on the road. That is the citizens may do anything they so choose unless Parliament has passed legislation to make such acts unlawful. Parliament may also choose to grant additional rights, such as the right to a state pension on retirement, the right to unemployment benefit. The introduction of an ID card upsets this delicate balance. Whilst the law may not make it a requirement to produce an ID card when stopped by the Police, or even a requirement to carry one, those that don't will be put at a disadvantage. Banks, employers et cetera may insist on an ID card as proof of ID. Those that lack an ID card will immediately be put at a grave disadvantage. By default they will have lost some of their rights as free citizens. The only way to restore such rights would be to pass legislation to protect those who don't carry an ID card. This simply adds unnecessary legislation and bureaucracy. Far better to attack the problem at source, that is to not have an ID card. What form of ID is needed to prove an identity to obtain an ID card? At present often one or two (seemingly independent) forms of ID are needed to obtain another ID. You may for example be required to show a drivers licence and something else to open a bank account, the bank account can in itself then be used elsewhere as an ID. Were a national ID card to be in force it no doubt would be accepted at face value and could be used to obtain other forms of ID, assuming these don't become displaced and subsumed by the National ID Card. We have a cyclic means of proof, any one or two are used to uphold or obtain the others. The strength will be highly dependent on its weakest link. In my local library some form of ID is needed to obtain membership and obtain a library card. This can be as easy as showing an envelope addressed to oneself. A local Technical College will issue a student card on payment of a course fee, there is no objection to payment in cash. The student card contains a picture, thus enhancing its authenticity. The student card can be used as proof of ID to obtain a Rail Card. At my Local Authority all members of staff sport an ID card. The card bears their picture and a signature from the Chief Executive. It all looks very impressive, that is until you realise that no check is made of the true ID, the chief executive has not met the individuals and wouldn't know them from Adam if he did. As can be seen its very easy to bootstrap oneself up the ID scale. In 'The Day of the Jackal' Frederick Forsyth showed how easy it is to create a false identity. He may be a lousy writer, but no-one has been able to criticise him on his meticulous attention to detail. To my knowledge that loophole has never been plugged. A professional money laundering outfit operating out of the UK, will, for a suitable fee, move any amount of money in any direction for anyone who cares to engage their services. They also have on offer ancillary services - false passport, forged documents et cetera. By all accounts they offer a very efficient service. These laundrymen were engaged to ship arms worth $6 million to the Sierra Leone government. The government fell in a coup before the weapons could be delivered. With a reputation to keep the laundrymen agreed to refund the money, less their fees and incurred expenses. The official who collected the money was 'killed'. The 'dead' official subsequently resurfaced in Europe enjoying a very luxurious life. No less a person than the Data Protection Registrar, Elizabeth France, has questioned the validity of ID cards. She notes that neither the databases of the Driver & Vehicle Licencing Agency nor the Passport Office are sufficiently reliable to guarantee a fraud-proof ID card. She gives as example the ease with which Birth Certificates can be forged to obtain a passport. She also questions whether the minor benefits of an ID card can justify the erosion of privacy. Whatever the arguments are for and against an ID card it would be built on a foundation of sand if sufficient care and attention were not paid to establishing the identity of recipients. If not, all the ID card would do would be to legitimise a false identity. The cost of this degree of checking would be prohibitively expensive and would in itself necessitate a Police State. Catch-22. If no-one took up a voluntary ID card how long would it remain voluntary? There are ways of making it voluntary such that you don't have a choice. Access to any form of Government grant or benefit (student grant, income support, unemployment benefit, housing benefit ...) access to free medical care, ID for any government or agency employee, a requirement for any staff of companies bidding for government contracts, a bank ID card for clients of banks that expect government business .... As the long hot summer of '96 wore on the proposals for an ID card began to fall apart at the seams. No one seemed to have a clue what the card was for, least of all the sponsoring Minister. Was it to be a card for claiming benefits, a drivers licence, an ID card only, a combination of all three, or three separate cards? If separate what was to differentiate between different cards? The police made it clear that they didn't want one and hadn't asked for one. Howard's original proposals put forward a couple of years before at a Tory Party Conference had been for a compulsory card. He quickly back tracked and settled for a voluntary card. Now with the likelihood of take-up rapidly approaching zero concerns that it may once again become compulsory were raised. Nationalists jumped on the bandwagon, seeing it as a loss of sovereignty. Was the card to be free? A fee of œ15-00 was floated. Even if 'free' the œ15-00 cover charge at least gave some idea of the costs - a cost that would have to be borne by the taxpayer. The most damning criticism was that 'it just wasn't British'. Were it to be a requirement to carry an ID card the only people without would be the criminals and drop-outs, plus a few civil libertarians who would feel it their civic duty to protest. - -- References -- Andr‚ Bacard, 'The Computer Privacy Handbook', Peachpit Press, 1995 Jeffrey Robinson, 'The Laundrymen', Pocket Books, 1995 Keith Parkins, 'Why Use Pretty Good Privacy?', 1996 Keith Parkins, 'Privacy in an Electronic Age', to be published 'In Committee', Radio 4, BBC, Sunday 7 July 1996 Richard Ford & Philip Webster, 'Voluntary ID card wins backing from the cabinet', The Times, Wednesday, July 10, 1996 Rachel Sylvester, 'Labour's gene database plan is shelved', Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, July 23, 1996 James Hardy, 'ID Cards: now Howard says you must buy them', Sunday Telegraph, 18 August 1996 'A question of identity', Editorial, Sunday Telegraph, 18 August 1996 Arthur Leathley & Richard Ford, 'Union Jack row delays launch of ID card', The Times, Monday 19 August 1996 'Stars and Snipes: ID cards have brought Howard nothing but Tory trouble', Editorial, The Times, Monday 19 August 1996 Rachel Sylvester, 'Major to intervene in identity card dispute', Daily Telegraph, Monday, August 19, 1996 'Card carrying citizens', Editorial, Daily Telegraph, Monday, August 19, 1996 'World at One', Radio 4, BBC, Monday 19 August 1996 'A Observers guide [to the proposed UK ID card]', Observer, Sunday 25 August 1996 Frederick Forsyth, 'The Day of the Jackal' (c) Keith Parkins September 1996 rev 4 pub 1024/B09CC89D 1996/04/22 Keith Parkins <10 GU14 6QJ England> Key fingerprint 2A 66 6A 8F 91 42 48 C8 48 98 38 AD 2F D3 45 08 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: cp850 iQCVAwUBMi3WKUXTJSWwnMidAQG2+gP/bKgaYAwKKssFZekvwDolEau8EhtW9Ntk 8dLVOwodnVfNUV7vxzP52yFThDLzDGd7vTweFaHV6g7ejfR7KQIoLFVDaZGUsTrA vUd9MuHmQ5bO0BO+noE4K2KcSFF84TES8VX5IdycO7autI26I6uQXtZ5zfzPCGE+ cOj9RP8R+cI= =6n2k -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----