The British government's quest to institute a national identity card faces a critical phase in the next few weeks, as the legislation will be scrutinized and amended in committee at the House of Commons before going to the House of Lords to undergo the same process there.
The Identity Cards Bill passed its second reading with a vote of 385 to 93 on Dec. 20. The cards are intended to begin rolling out in 2008, and Tony Blair's Labor government estimates the cost of the system at 3 billion pounds ($5.7 billion), though opponents believe it will cost at least twice that much.
The heart of the Identity Cards Bill is the creation of a national database to contain 51 categories of detailed information on every British citizen and resident, including fingerprints and an iris scan. The bill calls for a 2,500-pound ($4,760) fine for refusing to register for the card, and a 1,000-pound ($1,904) fine for failing to inform the government of changes in personal information.
Recent polls suggest that as much as 80 percent of the population is in favor of the cards. Opponents, such as the No2ID campaign, believe that sentiment will shift quickly once people realize how much they will have to pay to have the cards and what the consequences will be. Also opposing ID cards are organizations such as Liberty (the United Kingdom's equivalent of the American Civil Liberties Union), the legal and human rights organization Justice and Privacy International.
"I am convinced it will turn into something akin to the poll tax," said Phil Booth, national coordinator for No2ID. The poll tax, proposed by Margaret Thatcher's government in the late 1980s, was intended to replace property taxes with an individual tax based on entries in the electoral rolls. The tax was hugely unpopular, and had to be scrapped after riots of protest in London.
"Sooner or later," Booth said, "it's going to hit everyone where they live. They will have to pay money, turn up at the government's time and place to be fingerprinted and iris-scanned, provide a full history. And that is going to radicalize a lot of people."
The cards are, however, supported not only by the Labor government but, in a sudden reversal in mid-December, by the Conservative opposition, traditionally the party seen to be tough on crime. Officially, the cards are opposed only by the Liberal Democrats, but in the vote taken Dec. 20 there were 180 abstentions, a sign of dissension in the ranks of both major parties.
Until recently, identity cards have been a political impossibility in Britain, where many people normally carry no identification whatsoever. The last time Britain had compulsory identity cards was during World War II, when they were seen as necessary to protect against Nazi infiltration. In 1952, Winston Churchill dropped the cards as inappropriate during peacetime. Since then, proposals for identity cards have surfaced regularly with a variety of stated purposes, but have not made it as far as legislation.
Even so, according to Ross Anderson, a computer security engineer at Cambridge University and chair of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, governments of all persuasions have proposed them "every few years" since their abolition. Asylum seekers now have identity cards which they must produce in order to claim state benefits, an outgrowth of a failed 1990s proposal to give everyone entitlement cards.
The 2001 World Trade Center attacks significantly changed the climate to make identity cards more acceptable. Along with other antiterrorism and security measures, national identity cards were placed on the agenda almost immediately after the attacks. By July 2002, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government had launched a consultation paper, though it was cautious enough to present the cards as entitlement cards (.pdf).
The stated primary goal at the time was reducing fraud; the card was to be used to show that the bearer was entitled to such things as health care, education, employment and government benefits. However, the consultation paper -- just as more recent government statements do -- also claims the cards will prevent terrorism, help fight crime and prevent identity theft. Home Secretary David Blunkett promoted the cards with enthusiasm until his resignation Dec. 15. His successor, Charles Clarke, has made it plain he will not hesitate to do the same, calling the claim that the ID card might erode civil liberties "entirely false."
From here, the bill will go to committees to be discussed and amended before going to the Lords for a similar process. The Lords can't kill a bill entirely, but they can amend the bill in such a way as to make it unworkable (such as denying funding) before passing it back to the Commons for a final vote. The general consensus among those close to the process is that Blair wants to get the bill passed by April in preparation for calling a general election in May. Under the English system, Blair has until 2006 to call the next election, but the fact that the conservatives are split over a crime-and-security issue like identity cards makes his position strong enough that few political observers think he will want to wait.
