Who Owns Your Identity

8/14/2019 Who Owns Your Identity

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Identity, individuality and legitimacy in a modern age

WHO DO YOU THINK

YOU ARE?


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This New Statesman round table, which took place on30 November 2006, attempted to explore the socialsignificance of identity in a modern age-our individualientitlement and legitimacy-and look at how a nationalidentity card would work.

The round table is a part of the New StatesmanNew MediaAwards programme, which looks at how information andcommunication technologies can be applied to make publiclife better. The whole programme is sponsored by Atos Orig

15 January 2007

New Statesman52 GrosvenorGardens,London SW1W 0AUTel 020 7730 3444Fax 020 7259 0181E-mail [email protected]

Caroline StaggPhotographsJoel ChantCover pictureScott Rothstein,Dreamstime.comSub-editorSue Laird

2 | NEW STATESMAN | 15 JANUARY 2007

Philip Chalmers

Director,Atos Origin

Gareth Crossman

Director of policy,Liberty

Carolyn Quinn

(chair)

Presenter, TheToday Programme,BBC Radio 4

Commander

Williams

Deputy assistcommissionePolice of theMetropolis

Nick Johnson

Director of policyand public sector,Commission forRacial Equality

Richard Thom

InformationCommissione

Professor Ian

AngellProfessor ofinformation systems,London School ofEconomics

Liam Byrne MPMinister of State,Home Office

James HallChief executive,Identity andPassport Service

Professor AnSasseHead of humacentred technUniversity CoLondon

Professor Anthony

GraylingProfessor ofphilosophy,Birkbeck College,University ofLondon

Clive Reedma

Managing direIdentity Solut

Round table participants


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15 JANUARY 2007 | NEW STATESM

Carolyn Quinn (chair) Thank you all for coming. Letus make a start. Liam Byrne, welcome.

Liam Byrne I hope that the issue of identity and IDcards in particular is going to come up on the agendaduring the next month or two, so I am grateful to theNew Statesman for bringing us together this morning.

Despite the absence of much conversation in themedia about identity and ID cards over the past six

months, I think it remains outstandingly popularthroughout the country. I recently took a poll of myconstituents and an incredible 80 per cent were insupport of ID cards. I think the reason is quite simple they address fundamental concerns about Britainand the world today.

Migration is changing the nature of our country. Upand down the country, the pattern, shape and natureof communities are different. If you look at CanningTown in London, the population born abroad literallydoubled between 1991 and 2001. When you havecommunities in such flux, very often those peoplewho were here already will ask questions about

fairness whether newcomers have greater rightsthan they have the concern is whether that fairnessis real, and it is an error for government or politiciansto deny that concern exists.

The second great concern is around security. I wastold last night by our polling company thatimmigration is no longer the number one issue ofconcern to people in Britain it is the number twoissue but that is only because defence and terrorismare at number one. This issue of defence, terrorismand counter-terrorism is, quite rightly, of enormousconcern to people. The advent of asymmetric warfarein the past 15 years, particularly suicide attacks, is a big

issue and people are worried about it.The third point is that the nature of the way in

which we live our lives is different now. The onlineworld has changed us in all sorts of ways. People livemore of their lives, and define more of their identity,online and with that growth of the online world comenew opportunities to undermine identity.

Now, for the first time, we have the chance toacquire a new critical national infrastructure to helpus manage many of those risks. What we have done

over the past two or three months is to set out somof the ways in which we think identity services wbe able to help.

I will start with identity fraud. Since 2000, ove250,000 people have been victims of identity frau50 per cent of consumers do not feel their identitysafe and 65 per cent of people are concerned that twill become a victim of identity fraud. People arelooking for things, particularly in the online worl

help protect their identity. One in four criminals a false identity; the al-Qaeda training manual advits people to acquire and solicit multiple identitieOne of the September 11 hijackers used around 30different identities and had incurred about 250,0of debt. So, false identity is an important part of hterrorists and criminals operate, but we also knowthat identity technology has great potential to helto protect our borders in a far more secure way.

We have already found 1,400 people who we hdeported trying to sneak back into the country usdifferent identity. We are introducing a couple ofinteresting trials at the moment; one is biometric

visas. We have the fastest growth in iris scanningbarrier gates anywhere in the world. More than40,000 people have now joined the scheme becauit is harder to get through borders now. Identitytechnology helps us to do that faster and helps usmanage risks that people are worried about.

We are having wide debates and discussions toabout the nature of identity in Britain in the 21stcentury. If we want to build stronger communitiewhere there is more diversity, we have to persuadpeople that the foundation is a set of common rulUnless people believe that those rules are beingobserved, you do not get the kind of harmony tha

needed in order to live life to the full in the 21stcentury. Identity systems will help us project theconfidence of enforcement in those rules. Out of the biggest passport issuing nations, 53 are issuingbiometric passports. We need to upgrade ourinfrastructure. We cannot have our passportsbecoming second class. There will be concerns abmoney but you have to remember that much of thcost of ID cards is going to be incurred, anyway,whether James and I stop the project today or not

Who owns

your identity?

This issue ofdefence,

terrorism andcounter-terrorism is,quite rightly,of enormousconcern topeopleLiam Byrne


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Only 15 per cent of the money will be spent ondatabase technology a fraction.

People will be concerned about how identitysecurity is policed and I think parliament was right toput in place the protections it did and it is why we areso glad Richard Thomas is in his particular job.

Our next step is to produce an ID action plan beforeChristmas [2006]. We will publish a report on howwe plan to use identity cards and identity systems to

tackle illegal immigration. Over the next year, we willbe working with a number of partners acrossgovernment and the private sector to show howidentity systems are going to become part and parcelof everyday life in Britain.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) James, how will it work? Whatsort of information will be held on our passports infuture and how effective can they be?

James Hall In 2006, we started to roll out biometricpassports. These are the first passports to have a chipin them, on which is recorded a photograph of the

holder, together with the other details that arerecorded on the back page of the passport. Thebiometric readers will be rolled out in the UK in 2007and will be installed at our major ports and locations.It is another anti-fraud device to confirm that thepresented image has not been tampered with and thatthere is a match between what is printed on the backpage and what is included in the chip. Some otherchanges have been made to the physical constructionof the passport to make it a harder document totamper with or forge.

There is a general agreement among the SchengenAgreement nations, and more broadly, that this is a

first step towards what is called a second biometricpassport, which will be issued in 2009/2010. Thiswill add on to the chip at the back information onyour fingerprints; we are still working out exactly

how many of your fingerprints will be required.will provide us with an extra means of authenticyour identity as you go through border control.

So, when Liam commented that we are going incur a significant proportion of the costs anywathe National Identity Scheme, you will understathat we have a very big set of changes to go throuprovide the infrastructure to capture fingerprinbiometric information from individuals as part

process of obtaining a passport. We have notpreviously had to do this but it is exactly the saminformation that we will be capturing for the NaIdentity Scheme. A single process will allow peohave a passport, an identity card, or both, depenon their particular requirements. The passports identity cards will be travel documents within tEuropean Union other countries in Europe alrtravel on identity cards; passports will be morefocused on people who are travelling beyond thborders of the EU.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) Clive Reedman, how saf

In the future, wont people learn how to duplicathese cards?

Clive Reedman The criminal fraternity will nowspend much more time, effort and money in trycrack those systems. The problem with the biomis that it can become the most trusted element owhole process and, if it does become possible tocompromise the biometric in some way, the procan fall over; the biometric then becomes the welink and not the strongest.

Richard Thomas I am not yet fully persuaded th

what is going to be rolled out over the next few ywill solve or reduce identity fraud and theft. Therisks that the problem could get worse rather thabetter because there is such a huge incentive for criminal and terrorist fraternity to crack the sysas it were.

Parliament has decided that the system shoulput in place, and I respect the parliamentary wilreally important aim should be to allow reliableidentification of individuals and not to enablegovernment to identify and record what citizenwith their lives. If there is no trust and confidencthis and in other schemes, I think there will be v

severe difficulties.My office has never been against identity card

what has been proposed, but we continue to havsome concerns about the nature of the NationalIdentity Register. First is to ensure purposelimitation, so that the scheme is not used in wabeyond those originally intended. This does raisquestions as to the rationale of the scheme in theplace. We are very pleased that the governmenteventually agreed to include purposes as section


There arerisks that theproblem couldget worse ...because ofthe hugeincentive forthe criminaland terroristfraternity tocrack thesystemRichardThomas


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Philip Chalmers It is in the governments interest aswell as the citizens to have a national identity basethat identifies the population. There is no point inhaving a census once every ten years if it is out of datea nanosecond after it is published. Rich informationcan give you the best policy developments and thebest efficiencies from government services. Can youdo that without creating a massive risk? I think theanswer is yes.

Richard Thomas I agree with you. The more that onecan do these things in a privacy-friendly way, lookingfor anonymisation wherever possible...

Philip Chalmers Anonymisation is the key.

Richard Thomas There are many ways technologycan help put in place a system that is not going to bethreatening.

Clive Reedman I am a great believer in what I callgenetic memory. Why is it that people are so

concerned about the government holdinginformation about their economics, social lives,whatever, when, historically, the roots of identitycome from putting individuals into groups; it reallytakes its roots back in the late 18th and 19th centuries,with the eugenics movement. Identity actually givesyou access to a privilege. Usually, the bestower of theprivileges would not really care who the personactually is and they do not want to know about theirlifestyle histories.

I think the publics concern is that we have goneaway from that. That is what a driving licence givesyou and what a passport gave you in the past. The

public sees that as a key to a whole pool of social andeconomic data about themselves and the groups thatthey move in. I strongly believe that we still have that,if you like, in our memory, but we do not want to be

grouped in such a way that the government canclassify us in a non-individualistic way.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) Gareth Crossman fromLiberty, why are people concerned about governknowing about us?

Gareth Crossman We have spent the last couplyears in parliament trying to examine the

justifications for a National Identity Scheme. It dnot stand up to examination, but a certainjustification has been made out for it. I believe itincreasingly, be used as a means of identifyingindividuals on a day-to-day basis. Section 13 of tlegislation states that no regulations can be passrequiring compulsion, but that is a different thinfrom compulsion taking place as a matter of couThere are also protections that no one can be reqto produce an identity card. That protection fallonce you have been compelled to have an identicard. I believe it is still the governments intentiothat, at some point, everyone will be compelled

carry an identity card.Once that has happened, it is easy to see how

could reach the point where people might beexpected or feel that they have to produce identcards. Look at the powers of the police under thePolice and Criminal Evidence Act, especially thothat enable the police to arrest people without awarrant in order to establish their identities standard policing power. We have exceptionalpolicing powers under the Terrorism Act, whichbeen used in a way that the Metropolitan PoliceAuthority has said is excessive, that allow for idto be established without suspicion of committi

any offence.A few years ago, officials could legitimately

question people to determine their immigrationstatus if there was a reasonable suspicion that thperson was an immigration offender. Of coursecurrent residential status is one of the registrableon the scheme. Go forward a few years and imagthe situation once the system is bedded down. Twhat we are particularly concerned about.

When foreign nationals, either from within owithout the European Community, apply for idcards, what verification processes will be put in to ensure that false documents are not used to o

a legitimate identity card? An international terroor criminal would, I imagine, have access to veryconvincing false documents.

Liam Byrne I will let James talk about the procethere are two relevant points. What identity sysdo is lock you down to a single identity. They arsilver bullet that will help us tackle terrorism in that you all might like. However, identity systemhave become a major element in our ability to cr


What identitysystems do islock youdown to asingle identityLiam Byrne


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more hostile environment for terrorists, to disrupttheir patterns of behaviour.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) People say that you havechanged the reasons for ID cards over the years andthat this is possibly the reason why they lackconfidence in your motivation.

Liam Byrne As part of the fundamental review ofidentity systems I did for the Home Secretary overthe summer, we decided that the approachanticipated in the past was perhaps not the rightapproach. That is why I said we need to produce anaction plan to set out a slightly lower risk, lower costapproach. The second part of that review was aboutgetting in place a process detailing how identity cards

will be used. I very much agree with Richard that wehave to be much clearer about the purposes for whichidentity systems are going to be used. When you arespending this much taxpayers money, you have anabsolute obligation to be crystal clear about the wayyou are going to exploit the system and in what order.

The harder you look at identity systems, the morebenefits you see, but we do have an obligation toexplain how we think the best sequencing of thatexploitation should look like over the next few years.So, during the next three or four months we will bepinning down how identity systems will help thepeople they serve better. For example, if we are going

to personalise public services in the future, we cannotpersonalise public services without the effective useof identity. We are extending Criminal RecordsBureau (CRB) checks to a wider group of people.Identity systems will help that. Because of the currentsecurity environment we need tough controls at ourborders. Identity systems would help us move acrossborders more securely and much faster.

I want to be able to come back to the country duringthe next few months and say, These are best and

most important benefits and this is the order in wwe should be exploiting them. Once we havedefined those purposes, we can say, Do we havesufficient assurances about access to thatinformation? If not, how do we make sure they arput in place? Only if we can define those benefitand those assurances will we try to take up the levthat we, as politicians, want.

James Hall On the question about reliability offoreign documents, the Identity Cards Act onlyrelates to UK citizens in the first instance, so the iof foreign documents relates not so much to ID cabut to residents permits and biometric visas.

It is our long-term intent that those types ofdocuments should be in a common form, but theprocess by which documents are verified is manathrough the Immigration and Nationality Directo(IND). Fraudulent documents are a significant issthat environment. My colleagues in IND have somreasonably developed approaches to minimise risbut are they 100 per cent successful? No, I am sure

they cannot be. Issuing a secure identity token anconnecting that to a biometric does not guaranteethe person who presents himself as Mr A canabsolutely be guaranteed to be Mr A, but it does mit harder for Mr A to be presented as Mr B or Mr Cmultiple subsequent occasions.

Gareth Crossman Does that not require that everentry is matched against every other entry on theregister? I have been under the impression that wcapable of identifying a biometric through a partiindividual but not of identifying a biometric to evother biometric identifier on the system.

Philip Chalmers The question is can you do one-many matchings on biometrics?

Clive Reedman We are really talking aboutfingerprints here as the only key identifier. In crimsystems, which are traditionally the ones where yhave one-to-many-type searches, the amount of and the quality of the data is likely to be very diffefrom what you will catch for an ID card, which cobe two fingers, rather than the ten fully rolledimpressions the police would want, complete witpalms. Once you start going down that road, then

are starting to move the debate even further forwand away from collecting two fingerprints to checthe authenticity of the document and the carriertowards something that can be done with very bigdatabases. It is about the use of fingerprint technoor any biometric technology for that one-to-mantype scenario.

Janet Williams Gareths concern is quite importaPeople are making false entries on very legitimate


I believe it isstill thegovernmentsintention that,at some point,everyone willbe compelled

to carry anidentity cardGarethCrossman


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cataloguing, so they are creating a footprint that ischecked against. If you could put in a false entry thatsubsequently delivers you a birth certificate or awedding certificate, the whole history is false. So thetechnology may be very viable but, upstream, it maybe less secure.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) Angela, can you offer anyconfidence or sense that it can work?

Angela Sasse I am afraid not. Most of the trials haveproduced shocking results. I am sure that people inthe Home Office had to sit down after they receivedthe results the UK Passport Service carried out forthem. There are two things that have never beenbrought up in the debate. The first is whether thetechnology is fit for purpose, and the second is whatimpact it will have on the individual citizen.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) Liam Byrne said that 80 percent of people in his constituency were in favour.

Angela Sasse I can put against that evidence studieswhere people have been presented in detail withwhat is involved. One was carried out by the OpenUniversity (OU) and a second was recently done byBT. When it comes to the government holding abiometric database of citizens, people are, in themajority, against it, they do not trust thegovernments motivation on how the informationwill be used and they do not trust the governmentsability to keep that data safe.

This brings me back to my original point of fit forpurpose. I think the reality is that without 9/11 wewould not have seen this rush to roll out biometrics

on such a large scale. A technology that is relativelyimmature and which has not been tested in depth isbeing rolled out and this involves disadvantages forcitizens. At the point where citizens who have no

criminal record have to give their fingerprints, twill probably say, Well, hang on!

People have not had the experience of what it be like once these systems are in place. Thereforsaying that people are for it is not a correct statem

Ian Angell Everyone has been talking about secThe real driver that I can hear as a secondary issuefficiency; the trouble is that efficiency and secu

are not compatible. Secure systems introduceinefficiency as a means of safety, to stop the easethe bad guy getting through. Efficiency is extremdangerous, yet that aspect of it does not appear idiscussion at all.

Clive Reedman What you have to realise is thatidentification technology, which we group asbiometric, is still a disparate group of technolosome of which are very much in an emerging stayou allow the technology to start driving the prothen you have a real issue because unliketelecommunications, which are now reasonably

aligned and mature, we will have technologies tare immature that are starting to drive procedur

Ian Angell But you do not need to go down to thlevel. We have been talking about ID cards and tregister as if it is the same thing. They are actualltotally different. They have different semanticunderpinnings. If we start talking about them asthey are the same, then you have ambiguity in thdebate and the whole thing just disintegrates intsomething meaningless.

Government should be acting on the informeopinion of the population, not driving the debat

from a preconceived-notion utility, which is whgoing on.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) What evidence do you hthat people do not want ID cards when Liam Bysaid that 80 per cent of people in his constituencthat they are a good idea?

Angela Sasse I have cited two studies, one by thand one by BT, producing in-depth analysis andqualitative data. Germany has decided not to estabiometric database of its citizens. Biometrics aregoing to be stored on the document itself and th

holder has the document. Germany has decidedwith the risks that are involved with the databasalso in terms of preserving trust in the process, iessential that the government does not hold a fudatabase. Ian is absolutely right when he says thdebate is around the register and not so much abID cards. What the government is proposing forNational Identity Register is unprecedented inwestern Europe. If you proposed this system in United States, people would be rather aghast.


At the pointwhere citizenswho have nocriminalrecord have togive theirfingerprints,they willprobably say,Well, hangon!Angela Sasse


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Philip Chalmers Germany is still includingbiometrics as part of its national identity scheme.They are including fingerprints.

Angela Sasse But they are not setting up a database.

Philip Chalmers Fingerprints are a hundred years old.I think you can say that fingerprints are probablyapproaching maturity.

Angela Sasse But digital fingerprints used inbiometrics is a completely different form oftechnology from the rolled fingerprints. Again, it isan issue of semantics. Basically it is being made tolook like the same thing, but it is not.

Philip Chalmers Absolutely. James was clearly sayingthat this was about duplication. This was aboutmaking sure that you do not get a secondary and thirdidentity. If we were talking about a register that startswith the very first enrolment and Carolyn goes in andenters in her biometric information attached to herbiographic information, she will not be able to comeback and register as somebody else. You only get oneidentity. You choose to be somebody different, butyou will be that different person.

James Hall Richard started a very appropriate debateabout the risks, but are those risks worth taking when

measured against the benefits that you believe thatyou can derive from such a scheme? We arereasonably clear on the classes of benefit, but there ismore work to do to break each class down toindividual examples. There is a set of activities thatprobably relates to business, there is a set of benefitsthat, potentially, accrues to the government and a setof benefits that relates to security. It is wrong to put allthe weight of the scheme on to any one of thoseclasses of benefits. You have to look across the piece.

The Public Private Forum on IdentityManagement, which the Chancellor set up, chaireJames Crosby, is looking at the benefits to businesand what benefits might accrue to business arounthis scheme.

Ian Angell The more business uses this card, themore insecure it becomes because, if you want tohave a safety critical system, you have to minimis

the number of accesses, otherwise you introduce increasing complexity which then creates evengreater insecurity.

Anthony Grayling If you look at the documentscontaining the evidence that was given to the HomAffairs Committee on this subject two or three yeago, almost everything that has been said here wasaid in that document. Overwhelmingly, thedocument was very negative in its reaction to theproposal that there should be an ID card scheme. Tvoices that were in favour of it were part of thesecurity constituency and, of course, the biometr

data companies, which have a vested commercialinterest in this subject and who may be the mainactors in driving this interest forward. There weremany reservations and criticisms of it that itastonished me the government went ahead.

We are at risk of muddling two separate debateone of which is very important in our contemporsociety, and that is the genuine identity debate abwho people think they are what groups in societhey most closely associate themselves with and hthey want to present themselves to other people isociety. Ethnicity, the status of immigrants andreligion in our society are the real identity questio

and they have nothing to do with technologicaldevices that can track and identify somebody whogiven a set of identifiers at an earlier stage. An ID cscheme is a proposal about identification ofindividuals over time. It has nothing to do with thethnicity and religion and so it should not.

I feel worried because of the mixed messages frgovernment. Ever since the idea was first mootednumber of purposes for which the ID card schemsaid to be needed has changed dramatically.

If there are benefits to be gained from having anidentification tracking system, those alleged benehave to be looked at in the light of an important tr

off against civil liberties. Having liberties and beinindependent individual carries certain risks thatinformed and mature-minded people should beprepared to accept. They should be prepared to taresponsibility for safeguarding their own money banks and the credit cards they use. We are talkinabout protecting identity when what we really mis protecting who is using your credit card or hasaccess to your bank account, which are quite diffematters. A proper relationship with an individual


Havingliberties andbeing anindependentindividualcarries certainrisks that

informed andmature-minded peopleshould beprepared toacceptAnthonyGrayling


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a bank should secure that. That we are confusing anumber of separate issues here is very important and,as Richard said, the big elephant at the feast is thequestion of civil liberties. Are we going to manage ourown identities and affairs in the ways that have beensuggested in Germany or are we going to beconscripts in a scheme in which there is a centralregister, with less reliable people in-charge of it, to beused for purposes that we do not see as right.

Nick Johnson I agree with Anthony that they are twocompletely separate debates, but I want to pick up onthe polling issue. From a race and ethnicity point ofview, the real concern is disproportionality, thepotential for discrimination and how it is delivered.Are different things going to be required fromdifferent people? Yes. Is there likely to be racialdisproportionality in that? Yes.

Stop and search statistics tell us that, if you are ablack man, you are six times more likely to be stoppedand searched, compared with a white man. Thesituation is increasingly disproportionate now for

young Asian men in the wake of the terrorist threat.So, who is more likely to be asked to prove theiridentity? People from ethnic minority groups. Thewhole argument around cohesion of society will beput in jeopardy because we are in the process ofseparating people out by some virtue of theiridentity and their ethnic background. The real issue isin the application.

Gareth Crossman It will concern NHS services, andsuch like, where the same thing will happen.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) Janet, let me bring you in on

the issue of policing and the question of institutionalracism within the force. Do you think that this couldmake the problem even more intense if people thinkthat their identity is being sought simply because of

what they look like or because of what they mig

Janet Williams I do not think it is exclusively apolicing issue, but there will be disproportional

Ian Angell It is too simple to write it away as racWhat we have got is a drive to profiling. The attamong the majority of the population is that terare Asians. The profile is already in place and wi

reassert itself in the way the ID cards are going tused. This is not racism. This is profiling. This isnon-linear feedback of the process being in placehave politicians pretending that they are in contthe consequences and they are not.

Gareth Crossman On the point of profiling, asRichard said earlier, the previous experience of Icards shows a huge amount of purposes to whicthey are put. One of the Catch-22s in relation tosecurity and terrorism is that the information toheld on a national identity register will not be ofsufficient level to go beyond what security servi

presumably already have on those people that thview as being a risk to national security. The onlpossible way that a register can be of use in relatiterrorism will be to increase the amount ofinformation that is held on the register to identiprofile people who might prove more of a risk.

Richard Thomas As the state, whether throughregister or through other means, gathers more amore information about all of us, it makes the trtowards greater profiling easier. It is dangerous tthats a separate issue. Our surveillance report loin depth at techniques such as automatic classifi

and risk-based profiling. This social sorting cato social exclusion in relation to childrens databMinisters argue that collecting more informatioabout every child in the country is going to redurisk of social exclusion. We fear that it could incrsome of the risks of social exclusion by stigmatischildren and families in ways that do not bear arelationship to the individual circumstances of tchild and that family.

Ian Angell There is a nave causality here indescribing the thinking as if there are noconsequences to actions.

Angela Sasse There are a couple of other pointswe have not looked at. First, technology is rolledby various organisations for various purposes. Tgovernment now asks you to provide a fingerprNext, as we have seen on the news, comes roadsfingerprint screening for people to prove who thare. In some clubs and pubs you have to give youfingerprint and every pint you drink is logged agit. In peoples minds these things start to link up


So, who ismore likely tobe asked toprove theiridentity?People fromethnicminoritygroupsNick Johnson


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think they are wrong in thinking these things are beinglinked up, but you cannot dismiss the perception.

Second, it is a huge system. It would require an

unprecedented level of competence to roll out such alarge-scale IT scheme and, frankly, the governmenthas no form on it. I have not heard a single squeakfrom the Home Office or government about whatthey are going to do different, so that the problems wehave had with tax credits, the CSA and the NationalProgramme for IT, are not going to bedevil a systemthat will have a serious impact on peoples lives.

Clive Reedman I do a lot of work with the demandside of identification technology, the retail sectors andthe banking sectors. Believe me, there is no way theywish to re-use government credentials in their own

environments. They will issue their own becausethey understand this debate and do not want to getinto the quagmire about public perception about whatthe data is about. In terms of the technology, if youask government, you will be told that the industry isdriving the technologies forward, but it is not. It isstumbling forward and doing what it thinks it shouldbe doing because the government does not engagewith the industry.

Janet Williams My background is in terrorism. IDcards are not the solution to terrorism or serious andorganised crime. Look at the bombers in Madrid.

Spain has ID cards but it still has bombers. Identity isa power-broking issue for us. When somebody isunder reasonable suspicion by the state, I think wewould want to know who they are. When peoplewant services from the state, we ought to be able todetermine if they are entitled to those services. It isnot about ID cards, it is about identity and trying toestablish who people are.

In terms of how ID cards might be seen on thestreet, it depends where you go and who you ask.

People whose grandparents were in Auschwitz orpeople in new communities who feel vulnerable wgive you a very different response to the whitemiddle-class people represented around this tabl

Carolyn Quinn (chair) Who sitting around this tawould carry an ID card?

Clive Reedman At the moment, I would be retice

do so because I do not know what the real purposwould be. If there was some demonstrable benefime that I did not feel threatened by, then, yes, I wcarry one.

Ian Angell I disagree totally with the idea thatcompanies would not use the government. If I wabank, I would do it immediately. An ID card is arevenue stream for a company.

Clive Reedman Yes, but the greatest commercialbenefit is in issuing their own credentials in their environment and making twice the amount of m

from doing that. They will mirror the scheme in away that it is not threatening to the Tesco Clubcar

Anthony Grayling Clive made a point much earliabout the high value of identity once it becomes aimportant commodity to the criminal fraternity.They will be able to produce identity cards whicheven if they do not link into the national register, fool most people most of the time. We will just crhuge opportunities for a criminal industry.

Janet Williams I think we are saying that, if someis presenting and we are concerned about that, wh

databases is it linked into? There would be anautomatic demand to link into databases to havegreater information to act upon.

Anthony Grayling That is Gareths point. If thesystem is going to work, it has got be totalised. It hto be much more than we are thinking it is going t

Richard Thomas That is my point. Its aboutextensive surveillance. As the various schemes lintogether, are there going to be links with theimmigration records, social security records,electronic health records? We have to be absolute

adamant that these links are not established.Function creep is one of the anxieties.

Philip Chalmers At some point you have to makedecision and say: We want to go forward to somdegree. You cannot bind future governments.

Richard Thomas What about the point that wasmade earlier, that one-to-one recognition, wherebiometric is held on the card without a huge amou

15 JANUARY 2007 | NEW STATESMA

ID cards arenot thesolution toterrorism orserious andorganisedcrime...Spain

has ID cardsbut it still hasbombersJanetWilliams


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of information held on a database, may be a moreincremental and sensible way forward?

Philip Chalmers You can limit the number of thingsthat genuinely identify you by taking away thosethings that identify your lifestyle.

Richard Thomas We have had no assurance at all thatthese will not involve a collection and retention of

information about peoples activities. If it is purelyname, address and date of birth basic coredemographic information a lot of the debate may beless dramatic. But we have had no reassurance yet thatthere will not be retention of information about theuse of the card.

Philip Chalmers Unless based on individual consent.

Richard Thomas Consent is dangerous and slippery.Consent has to be fully informed and genuine.

James Hall The data to be held about each individual

on the register is laid out in the act. It is the corebiographic information about who you are, whereyou live, when you were born and what gender youare, together with the core biometrics which, in thefirst instance, will be a photograph and somefingerprints to connect it to your biographic data.

The tricky part is around this audit trail becausehere you are damned if you do and damned if youdont. The point of the audit trail is to create for eachindividual a record of the occasions on which theirrecord has been accessed for the purpose of verifyingtheir identity, in the same way you can find out thenumber of people who have done credit checks on

you over a period. That is a reasonable expectation forthe public. On the other hand, you can deducesomething from that same audit trail about anindividuals pattern of activities.

Ian Angell There is an example where an individwould want to know not how many, but exactlychecked their identity.

Clive Reedman And the reality is that the more you are checked, the lower your credit rating getbecause you become a risk.

Richard Thomas When you say could deduce

something, I think that is slightly under-sellingpoint, James, because, as the record of all theseactivities is being built up, it is more than justdeducing something. There has been no real pubdebate about this. The act says that this informamay be collected and retained, so it is notmandatory. You could give people choices: Dowant to have a record kept for audit purposes orwould you rather not have a record kept of youractivities? Why not have a sampling techniqueto make sure the system is not being abused?

James Hall I think the debate is inevitable and

appropriate. No doubt we will have it with you.When the scheme commissioner is appointed, ndoubt we will have it with him or her as well andis not a one-off debate to be had and put to bed.

Nick Johnson To pick up on a couple of points thJanet made, first of all, if you look at some reallyvulnerable communities, then this is likely to imdisproportionately on them refugees and the gand traveller population. There might be realtechnical problems in tracking data with a mobipopulation, and the stigmatising of groups that already vulnerable in society is going to be

exacerbated by this scheme.Janet said it is not a solution to terrorism, but

government attacks you for disagreeing with thpurpose of it rather than the means of achievingWe get into debates about, Oh, you dont wantbe secure or You dont want to protect peopleidentities, but it is not about that. It is about howwill work in practice and by what means.

Gareth Crossman Let me make an observation odebate about identity cards. It is not just theuninformed debate that Ian was talking about.Sometimes, it is the informed debate of how mu

this is about criminality instead of privacy?The way in which privacy and criminality hav

been referred to almost seems to imply that onlycriminals put any premium on their privacy. Thof us, because we have nothing to hide, haveabsolutely nothing to worry about.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) But that is always the queis it not? Why would you be scared if you havenothing to hide?


The point ofthe audit trailis to createfor eachindividual arecord of theoccasions onwhich theirrecord hasbeen accessedfor...verifyingtheir identityJames Hall


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Gareth Crossman Exactly, so, I am not a criminal somy privacy is not of any worth. A lot of people who aretaking this attitude have nothing to hide and nothing to

fear. This is not really, I think, the appropriate attitude totake, whether or not you are a criminal.

Angela Sasse Even if we accept that we want toimprove our security, this has not really been debatedin any detail. Does it really lead to improved security?You have limited resources to spend on improvingsecurity and, at some point, there will come thequestion of whether you spend it on additionalintelligence officers who trail suspects around, orwhether you spend it on the technology? If you haveto drop surveillance on people who you already knowyou should be worried about, such as happened prior

to 7/7, because you do not have the money, then wehave to ask the question: Is it the technology thatgives us better security?

Ian Angell What if it fails? Where are we then?

Clive Reedman A lot of people will put the blame ontechnology, particularly if it fails, but do not blamethe technology providers, blame the people who donot give the information in the first place.

Ian Angell There is an underlying philosophicalfallacy that technology is perfectable. It is a social

construction. It is about the social environment inwhich it is operated.

Clive Reedman The debate at the moment with theNational Identification Register always seems to bethat the biometric will secure all the data. At thispoint in time, that is far too much of an assumption tomake, unless you are going to go down the line oftaking ten rolled fingerprints from everyone whosigns up for an ID card.

Anthony Grayling One often hears the phrasejoined-up government. What one tends not to is joined-up logic in government. The Prime Minannounced this week the idea of a new social contin which individual citizens will play their part, foexample, by not getting overweight and, therefornot overburdening the NHS. It is a matter of ushaving our role to play in society if we are going tousers of the goods society provides. One of those

goods is, of course, security. There has been anunchallenged assumption so far that the first dutygovernment is to protect the security of its citizenOf course, it is not. The first duty of the governmought to be, if we take Lord Atkins seriously, toprotect our liberty. To maximise the liberties of thindividual is to expect the individual to take someresponsibility for their own security and to play tpart in protecting themselves against crime, terroand so on.

We ought to be saying to people that thegovernment could never, even if it tried, lock us uour homes, which is the logical limit of protecting

security. So instead of trying to do it via thisexpensive and doubtful means, they should ask utake some responsibility for it, too, in the interestour civil liberties.

Gareth Crossman The way in which the argumenwas originally started was very much along the linof: This is what we are going to do. If you have goproblem, justify it, whereas, surely, if you are goto introduce a scheme that is something that willfundamentally change the relationship between tindividual and the state, the starting point must bconvincing argument for that to happen in the fir

place. It is not just the size of it. It is also the natureit. We are being compelled to register our identitywith the state. During the Second World War,identity cards were probably justified, but I do nobelieve that this scheme is justified.

Philip Chalmers Are there not compulsory schemin the rest of Europe?

Angela Sasse Yes, but they have a different way ogoing about it. In Europe you have compulsory loregistration laws. In most countries, within threeof moving, you have to register, either with the lo

authority or the police. These are the people who go to to apply for a passport or for an identity cardwhich means that you have got a fairly resilientbureaucratic system. That system does not exist inUK. The quality of the documents that you areverifying identity against is completely different twhat you have in those countries.

Philip Chalmers But those systems are good natiidentity schemes.


But that isalways thequestion, is itnot? Whywould you bescared if youhave nothing

to hide?Carolyn Quinn


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Gareth Crossman There is a big difference betweenthe civil and common law jurisdictions. Civil lawjurisdictions tend to have stronger constitutionalprivacy protections.

Nick Johnson Actually, if some of the elements of thisscheme were more compulsory, there would be lesspotential for racial discrimination within it. Ifeveryone had to have one then it is probably more

equal. Just from a racial equality point of view, Iwould far rather see that than a scheme that would beapplied in different ways to different people indifferent places.

Clive Reedman I think that is a very good point. Theminister was saying that the great advantage was oneidentity, one person. Is that actually true from thecitizens perspective? We have never really beenissued with identities by government before. We arewho we want to be as long as we use that identitylegally. I bet the poll did not ask the question Whatdo you think about us actually giving you an identity

and us telling you who you are? You still are free,even in the countries that have compulsory IDs, tohave multiple identities and use them in given ways.Whether we can emulate that and continue thatsuccessfully is my question.

If I want to be Fred Farquarson at Tesco, why cant Ibe? Tesco give me the right to be Fred Farquarson andnot Clive Reedman.

Ian Angell In Italy, they have ID cards, but they haveto go to a lawyer to prove that it really is their ID. Youget this crazy secondary system. All technology fails,so you have to have secondary systems in place. We

are talking about primary systems here. You cannotdiscuss the primary system without talking about thesecondary systems, and there is no mention ofsecondary systems.

Clive Reedman Asian females are going to be dito enrol into the fingerprint system. So, there is issue straightaway from both a technology and asocial perspective.

Ian Angell You have to conform with the databaThe database does not conform with you. If younot conform with the database, you have got aproblem. So what secondary systems are in plac

that problem?

James Hall Clearly, there are groups of people fowhom collecting accurate biometrics is difficultin the detailed design of the scheme, we are goinhave to take account of that and work out how tDo I have all the answers today? No.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) How can you have acompulsory scheme, though, if there are thoseproblems?

James Hall Because we are collecting a set of dat

both biographic and biometric. Take a simpleexample: there are some people who do not havfingers so we are obviously not going to be able ttheir fingerprints. There are other technologies we could use. Iris has been mentioned. We will ncollecting iris information in the early part of thescheme. We will probably be collecting photogras we do today for a passport, and fingerprints. Wmay develop that in due course.

Ian Angell But there are always errors.

James Hall In terms of the secondary systems, a

the ability to correct data held about you which wrong, you are absolutely right and we will put place sets of systems that allow people both tounderstand what information is held about themthe National Identity Register and to correct thainformation if it is wrong.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) So, will everyone becompelled to carry an ID card?

Gareth Crossman The legislation says that noregulation can be passed that will compel a persproduce an identity card, but that is very differen

from having a de facto situation where people, othe scheme is rolled out and embedded, will caridentity cards.

Richard Thomas Let me tell a story that combinsome of these elements. Four weeks ago I had ahaircut and my hairdresser asked what I did, andI am the Information Commissioner. He saidthat is about surveillance. I have read about it.

Six months previously, on his own admission


I bet the polldid not askthe questionWhat do youthink aboutus actuallygiving you anidentity andus telling youwho you are?CliveReedman


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drove a bit stupidly. He came out of a side turning anda police car followed him for about a mile to his blockof flats. A policeman jumped out and said, Stay

there. We have been checking on you. You are drivingwhile disqualified. We have checked on our computerwhile following you. For two hours, he was heldwith no legal obligation in the back seat of a police car,with all his neighbours passing by. After two hours,they established that there had been a mistake. Itcould have been a manual error or a computer inputerror, but there was a problem.

We must have safeguards to prevent thishappening. We must have data repair and othersystems in place because public trust and confidenceis fundamental. We all recognise that.

We did a survey on peoples most pressing social

concerns. They put education and health at the top ofthe list. Protecting and safeguarding personalinformation has come third in the list of peoplesconcerns for the last two years ahead of concernsabout the environment, discrimination, freedom ofspeech and national security. Every survey can beread in its own way, but people are increasinglyworried about how their personal information isbeing safeguarded.

Anthony Grayling Richards anecdote has remindedme that the riots that took place in Paris last year weresaid to have been initiated by the deaths of two youths

who ran into an electricity sub-station after the policehad asked to see their ID cards, but they couldnt showthem because they had left them at home.

If ever it got to the stage in the future where the lawwas changed and we do have to carry them, thatwould be exactly the kind of situation which wemight find repeated.

Richard Thomas A partner in one of the top threeCity law firms, was transferred to the Brussels office

and was stopped one day; he did not have his idenpapers with him. He was held in a police cell for fohours. In Belgium I think the police are entitled toyour papers.

Nick Johnson I think the trigger point for the riotFrance was that they were ethnic minority youthand therefore were stopped far more often to provtheir identity. The identity card came to symbolis

the way that the French state had treated them asalien citizens.

Richard Thomas It is when the white middle-clacommunity really feels disadvantaged by this thaballoon will go up. Look at what happened in thiscountry in the second half of the 1940s. Everyoneaccepted the case for the paper identification cardduring the war, but the public reaction to it in theperiod between 1946 and 1951 was phenomenal.

Anthony Grayling Looking at historical precedenin the late 1980s, the Australian government

proposed an ID card scheme which had somethinlike an 80 per cent approval until the debate beganand the information got out, and then it was votedown. They have only just begun talking about itagain now.

Richard Thomas But they are only talking about apublic access card. I have one here. This is a mock-of the Australian card. The debate going on inAustralia is light years ahead of the debate going othis country. It is a citizens access card, with veryclearly defined safeguards and limitations in place

Ian Angell But they have also got some very crazyideas of trying to implement it in a two-year perioand it has a seven-year lifespan. So they will haveservants doing nothing for five years while they wfor the next two-year round. There are much morcomplex systemic realities that have to be conside

Gareth Crossman Something we have not talkedabout today, although Richard has touched on it, it is one of the things that has been overlooked, is auditing of the register, because the quality of theinformation will determine how effective it is.

Also, anecdotally, I used to practise as a crimina

lawyer. The number of cases where the police migactually have been helped by the existence of anentry on the National Identity Register or thepossession of a national identity card is less than tfingers on one hand.

Carolyn Quinn (chair) We shall leave it there. Thayou everyone. That was tremendous. More questwere raised than I thought existed. It sounds like debate is definitely going to continue.


You have toconform withthe database.The databasedoes notconformwith you

Ian Angell


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Who Owns Your Identity

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