Maxine Carr wins identity secrecy
The BBC report that Maxine Carr has been granted an indefinite order protecting her new identity by the High Court.
This highlights numerous weaknesses in the case for biometric identity documents of any kind.
Under identity card plans that include supposedly infallible biometrics those who require a new identity will no longer be able to maintain it and leave the country. Travel abroad will be impossible if the person has been to the same country under the previous identity (presuming the other country retains a biometric record.) (See SpyBlog’s extensive writing on this).
Whatever you feel about the specific case of Maxine Carr, there are numerous people who will require a change of identity in their lives – witnesses to serious crimes, undercover agents, people fleeing persecution – the list is probably longer than you initially think.
Another issue raised is that for a new indentity to be maintained within the UK there must be an official mechanism to erase past identities. Where there is an official mechanism there is a greater liklihood that unnofficial erasures will also take place. The greatest threats that identity cards are supposedly going to protect us from will be the same ones that take advantage of these mechanisms. This being the case we are left with an identity register we can’t really trust, as well as people running it we can’t trust.
