You describe a problem whereby retailers, banks and estate/letting agents are all required to ask people for more ID. Such problems are brought about by government creating legislation that requires them to do so, or from a culture whereby Identity checks are ingrained as a social norm.

Remember you currently need a British passport to apply for an ID card for British Citizens. You can get a different type of ID card as a non-EAA foreign national. So they will not help people without any ID.

What would help those people without ID is if government stopped creating legislation that attempts to control and monitor people’s interactions and transactions with each other. If for instance there was no requirement for employers to check someone has ID under the Asylum, Immigration and Nationality Act 2006 then it wouldn’t be a problem if you were an immigrant without much ID.

Data collected for one purpose can have a variety of uses for other purposes. The appropriation of data by an authority that appoints entitlement to citizens is in itself an abuse of their liberty and their ability to freely associate and determine their own ways to determine identity.

which civil liberties would be compromised by this database, and how?

Oh, and the general freedom we should have to live from interference and being constantly watched, every detail being recorded on databases for the sake of administrative convenience.

This freedom isn’t written down anywhere, but I think people will be inclined to agree that we ought to have it.

As for non-database tied ID cards, they are an essential part of any functioning welfare state, and it’s frankly medieval of the UK not to have them.

Why are ID cards essential for the functioning of a welfare state?

It’s all well and good for a bunch of educated, reasonably well off dudes like yourselves to say how easy it is to get by without them. But as someone who came here as an adult with nothing to prove I exist except for a passport that opens from the wrong side and is full of funny writing, let me tell you that it’s less than a pukka picnic. Banks and government agencies may be operating under regulations, but my local video shop (oh, sweet anachronisms!) or temp agency or estate agent are not bound to accept any form of ID as a binding and legal one. If they want to use one’s lack of a UK driving license or passport (as signifiers of middle class respectability, more than as proofs of identity) against one, and discriminate covertly on that basis, then they can. And they do.

Of course such things are a problem. But it’s not a problem that only this particular ID (and the rest) scheme can solve.

I’d be a lot more worried about it if anyone gave a convincing example of what it is that Teh Guvammint (duhduhduh-dum) is supposed to be wanting to do with all this info. … which civil liberties would be compromised by this database, and how?

In terms of the European Convention on Human Rights? Article 8, right to respect for private and family life, is clearly engaged (to understate things somewhat), because of the blanket and indefinite retention of personal, sensitive data.

See Why Not, particularly Papers Please (inevitable, and led to the downfall the UK’s previous ID scheme), Third-Party Abuse (happens all the time), and Lost Identity.

As for non-database tied ID cards, they are an essential part of any functioning welfare state, and it’s frankly medieval of the UK not to have them. It’s all well and good for a bunch of educated, reasonably well off dudes like yourselves to say how easy it is to get by without them. But as someone who came here as an adult with nothing to prove I exist except for a passport that opens from the wrong side and is full of funny writing, let me tell you that it’s less than a pukka picnic. Banks and government agencies may be operating under regulations, but my local video shop (oh, sweet anachronisms!) or temp agency or estate agent are not bound to accept any form of ID as a binding and legal one. If they want to use one’s lack of a UK driving license or passport (as signifiers of middle class respectability, more than as proofs of identity) against one, and discriminate covertly on that basis, then they can. And they do.

This scheme has been rebranded several times, painting ID cards as empowering when obtaining one requires placing the Home Office in charge of an ‘official’ and defining record of who you are as a person is not empowering.

She has recently also said ID cards might help protect children online, might be linked with phone SIM cards or link in with Iphone applications. Yet all these things such as online verification, mobile technology are currently missing from the Government’s scheme. As a ‘state-of-the-art’ system it’s already looking pretty out of date for the needs of a modern online business world. What have IPS been doing all these years to have only now created a very simple card based system that just works like a passport but with a system of fines and data collection.

Instead of having a modern way of proving your identity that could place individuals in charge of their own information via encryption techniques and third-party verification we have an outdated model of controlling people based on a 19th Centaury understanding of government that supposes you need one central database/ file system and authority to govern all interactions.

about 4 checks a year,

per person.

The Home Office prediction of 163 million ID checks per year is much less than my own.

It works out to about 4 checks a year, which is hilarious based on all their guff about the number of times everyone has to prove their identity.

As for scanners and the rest of the infrastructure, another article on SpyBlog is worth a read.

Don’t forget that fake ID cards that pass casual inspection will become common currency. People will be trained, initially, to assume that possession of a credible ID card is proof of identity. … Those who do not have access to a terminal will revert to the conventional ID checks: does the person act right and does s/he have secondary ID. Thus the card will fail as conclusive ID (without access to a terminal) and we’ll be back where we are now, only poorer.

Um, that’s my point about what a waste of time and money it is.

A work colleague did the same thing and attempted to open a new ISA at a bank who didn’t know him. He had a passport, no utility bills, no driving licence. So no new ISA.

The cost of some paper records is worth paying.

The Home Office prediction of 163 million ID checks per year is much less than my own. I presume that the up to “48,000 accredited private sector organisations” who stump up for a terminal and access to the NID database will use the facility. I assume that use of the NID database will become a cover your arse exercise whenever a terminal is available.

Don’t forget that fake ID cards that pass casual inspection will become common currency. People will be trained, initially, to assume that possession of a credible ID card is proof of identity. When that fails, those who have access to a terminal will be trained to use it.

Those who do not have access to a terminal will revert to the conventional ID checks: does the person act right and does s/he have secondary ID. Thus the card will fail as conclusive ID (without access to a terminal) and we’ll be back where we are now, only poorer.

The kind of civil disobediance we showed by not registering would be impossible under New Labour’s next term.

ID hasn’t really been an issue though: I still get by.

Hence, what’s the effing point in the scheme?

@32 Robert Sharp: Why on earth should local authorities become enmeshed in this fiasco? Local authorities have administered benefits in the past that relate to their functions as housing authority or council tax collector. However they have no role in NID, and presumably central government will have to pick up the tab for the most destitute or for prisoners. It is possible that supporters of NID have thought these things through, but they certainly haven’t communicated their thoughts well.

@34 jesusjohn: A powerful yet simple argument against NID is the number of false negative assessments (ie people who have a valid ID card but who fail the biometric test when their card is used). Assume a population of 50 million adults who use the card 10 times a year. If the biometric system is 99.999% accurate, there would be 5,000 false negatives each year — people being denied access to services whilst their identity was further checked. That’s bad but not too bad. However, when the NID database is used by commercial organisations, card usage will increase as will the false negatives.

99.999% accuracy is a tough target to achieve. If the biometric is fingerprints, there will be some manual occupations (eg brick laying, car body repair) where that score will never be achieved.

Still works in practice, the passport interview should theoretically nullify the whole thing but it really doesn’t.

NI number cards cannot be used as ID. They even say so on the back!

And yet… the state has allowed them to be used as ID.

And how is the ID scheme going to pay for itself? If it can, then it might be worth looking at again, but I can’t see how it can possibly pay for itself.

It can’t pay for itself, we pay for it, through our taxes and by buying passports and/or ID cards. There might be ‘efficiency savings’ to be made, as David Varney hoped in his review of transformational government*. But who knows? The only public alleged cost-benefit analysis talks about some imaginary scheme (see below about visual checks, for example), not about what is actually happening.

back of envelope… Originally, at some £5bn to setup and run the scheme (note: not actually be able to use it) over ten years, with (today’s) 80% of the population (~60m) on passports at ~£70 and the remaining 20% forced coerced volunteering to get ID cards at ~£35.

48m with passports at £70 = £3,360m
12m with ID cards at £35 = £420m
total £3,780m or £3.78bn
£1.22bn to recoup over ten years.

(They’ve changed these numbers since, e.g. passport price has increased, and the estimate of the setup and running cost has decreased from £5.8bn, hahahaha, but they remain of that order)

The stated intention was to recoup the remainder from the Identity Verification Service. But, given that the acceptance that the majority of checks will be merely a visual check of the ID card (because there’s no effing way that a. there will be the infrastructure for proper IVS without spending £shitloads, and b. who’s going to pay for it exactly?), you have to wonder how much money that will actually end up being.

Also, some people might want to ‘downgrade’ from their passport to an ID card when it comes up for renewal because the ID card is supposed to allow travel around Europe – if they are only interested in popping to Benidorm there’s no point in forking out more than double the money for a passport. I’ve seen no sign of this consideration in the costings.

There will be some money from replacing lost documents.

(* Varney’s review had a few interesting factoids including the number of benefit entitlement forms, 63 if I recall correctly. Surely streamlining that would ‘empower’ the poor somewhat?)

And how is the ID scheme going to pay for itself? If it can, then it might be worth looking at again, but I can’t see how it can possibly pay for itself.

@ 36 No – you need a (provisional) driving licence to have lesssons but you can apply for one at any time once you are 17.

Ah, fair enough – my mistake!

The argument that ID cards will somehow help the poor is nonsense IMHO.

Agreed – same as the arguments that they’ll stop paedoterrordogs™. And as I’ve mentioned before, all arguments in favour of (and against) ID cards should be dropped until after the election. It’s unlikely our gov for the next five years will want them.

The bigger point is that in order to be issued an ID card you must need ID in the first place, (Kafka wrote, or could have written, a novel based on this bureacratic catch 22) which will cost money and/or time and hassle. The argument that ID cards will somehow help the poor is nonsense IMHO.

If they don’t have any ID, how do you know who they are when you enrol them in the first place?

You don’t need any ID to get a replacement birth certificate (I assume the registrar actually finds the original or a record thereof when they issue a replacement) with that (and an endorsement) you can get a driving license, with those two (and an endorsement) you can get a passport.

I don’t agree that the poor lack forms of identification, [...] national insurance number cards [...]

NI number cards cannot be used as ID. They even say so on the back! And to get a driving license don’t you have to pass a driving test which also costs money? So the basic point about poor people having little official ID still stands. Although granted birth certificates & bills normally suffice (from personal experience).

This post was mentioned on Twitter by robertsharp59: Me again, with a report of that @SMF_Events from earlier-> RT @libcon New Arguments for ID Cards http://bit.ly/a1aOTz...