Identity cards revisited

A post concerning the merits and risks of the national identity card, and a little of its UK history.

Veteran readers of the blog may recall my 3 April 2021 post concerning the Identity Cards Act 2006, and the Act’s demise in 2011 on the passing of s.3 Identity Documents Act 2010.

The National Identity Scheme died an ugly death-by-ritual-shredding in Whitham Essex at the instigation of former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, calling the scheme ‘a direct assault on our liberty‘. His statement now seems quite ironic considering, since February 2022, he has held the office of ‘President of Global Affairs’ for Facebook, the largest private collator of personal information in the world!

Today, Tony Blair and Lord William Hague, normally political opponents, reached a rare agreement that digital ID cards would make it easier and more secure for people to access services, and for the government to understand their needs and better target support. Their joint statement reads:

“In a world in which everything from vaccine status to aeroplane tickets and banking details are available on our personal devices, it is illogical that the same is not true of our individual public records.” They draw attention to the fact that other countries have embraced a digital revolution for data, and that the UK risks falling behind due to fears relating to the protection of privacy.

As mentioned in my 2021 post, those of us who purport to guard our personal information are only too quick to share it with poorly regulated business users such as Amazon and Facebook. We readily provide details of our date and place of birth, sex, gender, ethnicity and bank details to companies that ask in the knowledge that they will exploit it for commercial gain. To comply with the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, we already hand over to banks, building societies, estate agents and others our passport and driving licence, meaning that the recipient has a clear profile of our identity.

A card containing biometric information that identifies the holder conclusively could be a gateway to the future, especially if linked to an app or text confirmation before sectioned sensitive data is released. In addition to passport and driving licence information, it could enable access to national insurance and medical records (most useful after an accident, stroke or heart attack), and perhaps comprise data space that would dispense with travel cards, entry permits – and even provide remote access for our cars and homes. Needless to say, a properly designed card would be useless without both the presence and authorisation of the holder.

Like you, I can think of a hundred situations where an identity card could create risks, even down to the paralysing consequence of the card’s loss. We would certainly need legislative protection as to the use or dissemination of data contained in it. Above all, we would require reassurance that state access without individual consent was entirely proscribed.

However, to say that adequate protection may be a too difficult task is akin to suggesting that the development of a multi-dimensional identity card would be too challenging a project. When Barclays Bank issued the Barclaycard in 1966, the belief was that the then simple and now ubiquitous credit card would have minority appeal. Look at it now!

Rather than getting hung up on conspiracy theories or approaching identity data cards with luddite suspicion, perhaps we should put our minds to how we would wish our data which is already in the public and commercial domain, to be managed and protected?

And as I said back in 2021, wouldn’t it be nice to be relieved of the wad of cards that currently bulk out our wallets and clutter our purses?

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