Blair’s betrayals of liberty
Separate articles byHenry Porter and AC Grayling, published today, cite government ID cards legislation as evidence of Tony Blair’s disregard for civil liberties and individual rights. AC Grayling writes on the Guardian Comment is Free web site:
Watch out: Mr Blair is setting out his stall on yet further reductions still in British civil liberties. Despite four dozen items of legislation putatively “reforming” the criminal justice system, together with the introduction of an ID card scheme and limitations on freedom of speech, Mr Blair is still not satisfied, and is currently revisiting the issues with intent to go further.
Meanwhile the print edition of The Independent carries a long article by Henry Porter, reprinted from Vanity Fair:
[Opposition to the national ID card scheme] … brings together such disparate figures as the Earl of Onslow, a Conservative peer of the realm; Commander George Churchill-Coleman, the famous head of New Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist unit during the worst years of IRA bombings; and Neil Tennant, one half of the hugely successful pop group Pet Shop Boys.
The idea of the ID card seems sensible in the age of terrorism, identity theft, and illegal immigration until you realise that the centralised database – the National Identity Register – will log and store details of every important action in a person’s life. When the ID card is swiped as someone identifies himself at, say, a bank, hospital, pharmacy, or insurance company, those details are retained and may be inspected by, among others, the police, tax authorities, customs, and MI5, the domestic intelligence service. The system will locate and track the entire adult population. If you put it together with the national system of licence-plate-recognition cameras, which is about to go live on British highways and in town centres, and understand that the ID card, under a new regulation, will also carry details of a person’s medical records, you realise that the state will be able to keep tabs on anyone it chooses and find out about the most private parts of a person’s life.
June 30th, 2006 at 20:37
It’s a prelude to a chip in your hand.
July 8th, 2006 at 00:20
It’s worth noting that the IPS is “working with experts” to decide how to do all the same things over phone and Internet as well.
It seems to me that an event, therefore, need not be so import to get logged. Orders for flowers, clothes, or registrations for web sites could all end up in the NIR if such a system went forward.
Quote is from John Ryan to Kate Hoey (written answer).