Why I say NO2ID.

A couple of weeks ago I added the NO2ID logo to the sidebar which started a discussion in the comments section of a completely unrelated thread, with various people agreeing and disagreeing with whether or not the introduction of compulsory identity cards in the UK represents a threat to people or whether they are simply "a bit of plastic", not unlike any other form of identification that we routinely carry around with us.

So I decided to do a post outlining why I object to the introduction of ID cards in the UK and challenging the arguments that I most often hear being argued in their defence.

Firstly, if this was simply an identity card used to prove that I am who I say I am, I would have no difficulty with this legislation. As many people rightly point out, that would simply be another piece of plastic.

My objection is not to the card, my concern is with the National Identity Register that the card will be linked to.

More on that in a minute. Let's start by how you get the card if Blair is to get his way.

You will attend an appointment given to you by the government at which you will be photographed, have your fingerprints taken and have a copy of your iris scanned. If you fail to keep this appointment you can be fined up to £2,500. Additional fines of £2,500 may be levied for each subsequent appointment that you fail to attend.

All of this is before you get the card. Once you have the card, if you do not promptly tell the police if you lose your card or it becomes defective, you face a fine and/or up to 51 weeks imprisonment.

You will also be required to use it to prove who you are when you rent videos, borrow from the library, buy alcohol, etc, etc.

A copy of it - and the number on it that uniquely identifies you - will be needed by your bank and numerous other organisations that we deal with in the normal course of everyday life.

All of these sources will gather and store information on you.

Now, of course, the government argues that it has no intention of having anything other than the most basic information about you on the card. However, it is worth remembering that when ID cards were introduced in this country during World War Two they had only three functions. By the time they were abolished in 1952 (against the will of the government) they had 39 administrative uses.

However, even according to present plans - and this is before any of the inevitable extensions - you will not be able to buy, rent or sell a home without one. You couldn't stay in a hotel, buy a car or a mobile phone, open or use a bank account, travel, register with a doctor, work or run a business without first showing your card.

If the uses for the card expands, as it inevitably would, no doubt citing terrorism, paedophilia and the usual reasons for expansion, the government Data bank on you could include:

• your spending habits
• your ethnicity
• your religion
• your sexual preferences
• your political leanings
• your health records
• your criminal records
• your driving record and convictions
• what you read and what DVD's you rent
  

Nor do you have any guarantee over who would one day have access to this register.

It is not a proper function of government to engage in blanket surveillance of ordinary law abiding citizens, to force compulsory identification of those citizens, to open a file on each citizen, or to criminalise citizens who refuse to comply.

Privacy and freedom are ours by right and we only give our government permission to curtail our freedom and privacy in very limited and very important circumstances.

A government should be the servant of the people, not it's master.

If a government suspects me of committing a crime they are given permission by a judge, under very strict circumstances and for a limited amount of time, to invade my privacy and - in more extreme cases - to deny me my freedom.

This legislation fundamentally changes that balance.

Which brings me to the arguments often made in favour if this legislation.

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

It does not naturally follow that, if I wish to preserve my privacy, I must automatically have something to hide. My privacy is mine and, as long as I remain within the law, it is my choice who I allow access to it. Moreover, people died in two World Wars so that I could enjoy my liberty and my privacy. I will give up neither without a fight.

Of course, I could extend this pro-ID argument and say if we were to take it to it's logical conclusion then it would be better for all of us if the government opened all our mail and taped all our mobile and land line conversations. Perhaps we could even install cameras inside our homes. However, most of us recognise that this would transform us into living under a Totalitarian regime.

If it saves just one life....

Why don't we apply this logic to any other area of public life? Cars kill and injure thousands every year in Britain, but I hear no calls to outlaw them. Cigarettes, alcohol? Both killers and yet both are legal.

What's wrong with ID. We need it.

Of course we do. What we don't need is the database recording so many other aspects of our lives in one centralised place accessed by God knows who.

If it will stop terrorism then I'm in favour of it.

It won't stop terrorism. Even Blair has given up arguing that canard after 7-7 was carried out by home grown terrorists who would have had ID's anyway were the system to be made compulsory.

And like everything else, real crooks and terrorists will find ways to fake them. It's the ordinary law abiding citizen who will be subjected to a level of scrutiny that we have never been subjected to before. Even Blunkett, the former Home Secretary and one of the most right wing men ever to hold that office stated, "ID cards won't stop terrorism."

So having dropped the argument that it will stop terror attacks and having given the racists a wink with the hint that it will help stop illegal immigration, Blair finally gave the nearest thing he will ever give to an honest answer to the question, "If they don't stop terrorism, why do you want them?"

Blair replied, "Because the police asked for them."

I can understand why the police would make such a request. However, it is not the proper function of a citizen's government to give the police everything and anything simply because they ask for it.

A balance has to be struck. And in this case the price is too high and the advantages to having the cards introduced is nil.

For all of these reasons, I object to this legislation.

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Tags: compulsory, ID, cards, UK, Britain,