Dutch fine 50,000
The Telegraph reports how since the introduction of compulsory ID cards in Holland this year 50,000 people have been fined €50 for not carrying them. This has raised €2.5 million so far.
With the UK government paving a road to compulsion that logically leads to the requirement to carry papers at all times, can we also look forward to regular stops by the police ending with an on the spot fine?
The Home Office certainly needs some way of paying for the ludicrous scheme since the Treasury has already refused to pay for it, and each of us paying £300 or more per card seems likely to undermine Labours popularity in the run up to an election in 2009.
The Dutch experience also begs the question – aside from the 50,000 guilty of a crime that didn’t exist a year ago, how many terrorists, fraudsters or other baddies has their ID scheme discovered or convicted?
October 8th, 2005 at 19:27
The answer to your begged question is “none at all” – apart from a few thieves. Most of those fined for not showing ID had been stopped for such terrifying crimes as failing to wear a seat belt or “urinating in the wild”. Osama bin Laden was not among the accused. The Utrecht trials finally involved 171 people on 181 counts of failing to produce ID. There were 116 convictions and 19 acquittals. 46 cases were withdrawn, annulled or postponed.
The Dutch newspaper De Limburger has carried a number of stories on this issue recently, including photos of demonstrations: http://www.limburger.nl/Pagina/0,7090,31-1-2039–2821060-1471–,00.html
It interviewed one defendant as he left the Utrecht court after being fined. He had been stopped by the police for cycling on a footpath. When he could not produce ID, “they kept me standing handcuffed in the street for twenty minutes.” He said the judge “had only a few minutes for each case. They’re not catching any terrorists here. They’re catching ordinary people.”
Another story in De Limburger revealed that carers who take handicapped people on outings now have to carry ID for every member of the group at all times. According to the director of one Dutch care home, “It has got to the point where you can’t get a bed-ridden person needing hospital treatment put into an ambulance without handing over their ID first.”
ID cards are by no means a novelty in the Netherlands. But the Dutch were always told that they would never be obliged to carry them. Then came 1 January 2005. There may be a lesson in there somewhere for the Brits.
Meanwhile, the Dutch national ombudsman has launched an official enquiry into the conduct of ID checks since 1 Jan. This is because a private initiative, called MMI, had registered so many complaints from the public. According to MMI, more than 12,000 people have decided to go to court rather than pay the fine. It also notes that the police sometimes use their power to lock ID offenders in a cell for up to six hours. MMI says that fewer witnesses are now coming forward to assist the police, due to fear that they will be required to show ID and fined if they fail to do so. “This does not benefit security.”
The Dutch Justice Minister thinks that 50,000 fines are “not excessive”, given that 10 million people in the Netherlands fall within the scope of the new “duty of identification”. 50,000 out of 10 million within the space of eight months sounds like quite a lot to me. But anyway, quizzed by a worried opposition which includes the Dutch Labour Party, the Minister admitted that orders had gone out for a tough initial approach: “This is intended to get people used to carrying ID at all times.” No doubt.
The “duty of identification” will come up for review in 2008. In the meantime, there is no shortage of groups opposing it. Brave people. One website registers complaints about ID checks. It includes an English-language form: http://www.identificatieplicht.nl/formulierengels.doc
Another site is for those who actively say “geen ID” (“no2id”): http://www.geen-id.nl . Members get a spoof card certifying that, as non-terrorists, they are exempt from showing ID.
Last but not least, there is the inventive “Tit for Tat” campaign, which has put an English version of its site online: http://gelijkoversteken.org/en/index.html . I wonder how many British coppers will support ID cards if everybody starts saying “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”