Is the government having an identity crisis?
What is the government really planning when it comes to identity cards? We’ve had a big announcement by Sir Keir Starmer during the Labour Party Conference but is it more to do with getting himself out of a political hole that is about dealing with the real problems facing Britain today.
The response to it has been nearly as rushed as the plans themselves. The polls suggest that the majority of the population are in favour of the so-called Brit card, the compulsory national identity card being introduced by the government but equally most political parties and plenty of interest groups have come out against the proposals. The truth is a knee jerk on all sides. I think we need to understand what’s actually being proposed. Where are the risks of mission creep and are there any real benefits?
We know very little about what is actually planned by the government. All we have is a press release of less than 1000 words long and a handful of interviews with Cabinet members, including notably Lisa Nandy on Sky News, whose contribution highlighted some of the serious concerns that people will have.
One of the big objections is the idea of being required to carry and produce your ID card - whether physical or electronic - on demand by the police or government officials. This is generally considered rather “un-British”. The Conservative Government in 1952 scrapped the last national identity card scheme following significant public resentment after the Second World War.
Of course supporters of the scheme say that this is scare mongering and would never be the case, but Lisa Nandy’s position is exactly why people are concerned. The Culture Secretary told Sky News “For people who come here and want to work, it will be compulsory to show it. For all other UK citizens it will be compulsory to have it, but not to show it.”
Sounds great, but how does a government body, a police officer, or even an employer know whether you are a UK citizen who does not need to show your ID, or a foreign national who does? Easy. I need to see your card please!
The main reason given by the Prime Minister is that employers will be required to check someone’s ID before taking them on, which is supposed to cut down on the black economy of undocumented illegal workers. So why do the current requirements of needing to see a passport (or similar documentation) and needing a National Insurance number not suffice? The only reason that the current regime is not adequate is that some unscrupulous employers are quite happy to take on illegal workers without checking documentation. What they are doing is illegal and under the current rules can lead to a fine of £60,000 per worker and potentially up to five years imprisonment. It is not clear why a different regime of documentation would make any difference when people seek to actively subvert the system.
In terms of security, many people think we would be safer if those entering the country were required to carry and show identification. Yet that brings us back to the Nandy dilemma. Many people like the idea of others having to show their papers, but aside from the divisiveness of this attitude, it only works if we are all required to carry and present ID. How else do we know who the “others” are?
There is certainly a case for more efficient use of data by the government. One of the big problems facing our country is low productivity and within the public sector a lack of joined up information and systems that do not talk to each other is a big contributing factor. There will be dozens of databases holding information about millions of citizens: National Insurance, tax records, NHS records, benefit payments, pensions, school records, Police National Computer, Police National Database, Passport Office, DVLA and the list goes on. No-one is realistically opposing having ID for certain purposes. For years the idea of bringing together your NHS record in one single place has been nothing more than an ambition, let alone work across agencies.
Without explicitly stating it, the government has hinted that the big benefit of a new digital ID would be to bring all of this information together, yet even if this were desirable - which some will question - it is actually realistic. Security concerns are not insurmountable, but Governments are not immune to either hostile attacks on data, or the misuse by individuals within the system, and the greater the amount of data held in one place the greater the target and greater the risk. Given that the NHS has yet to create one system for unified records, and the police cannot legally share some information with the Crown Prosecution Service, the idea of bringing all of our information held by the state together in one place is fanciful!
There is a separate debate to be had as to where the balance lies between civil liberties and efficiency in the realm of sharing data with different parts of government. There are genuine points for and against, but they are frankly a distraction as the reality is that the so-called Brit Card will simply be another database to add to the list of those already costing the taxpayer to maintain.
Depending on which version you believe the scheme would cost somewhere between £5bn and £19bn of your money, and although whilst the plans are so vague we cannot come up with any real estimates I do not think that anyone expects the government to be able to deliver at the lower end of that spectrum.
The Labour Party have toyed with the idea of compulsory ID for decades, indeed it was Labour that had chosen to retain them into peacetime after the Second World War. The timing of this most recent incarnation is no coincidence however. The Government is in trouble, as is Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership. They have failed to grip the issue of immigration which has continued to climb up the political agenda and a bold policy like this is little more than a signal that they will take action. It is nevertheless a very expensive signal that we will all be paying for and, as highlighted above, will have very little impact in the stated aim of reducing illegal working.
It is a political play, which is most likely to add additional bureaucracy rather than reducing it by the creation of yet another database. If used as stated by Ministers then it will almost certainly be required to be shown to government officials and used to access services that we currently take for granted.
Of course these will be those who say that if you have nothing to hide then there is no need to be concerned. Yet you do not have to be living a nefarious double-life to be somewhat reluctant to have to justify your movements or use of services.
If used to access NHS services for example it is not a massive leap to imagine someone being brought into hospital as an emergency, without ID, being able to only access life-saving treatment. Not dissimilar to those who are uninsured in the US. The British Citizen, homeless and living a chaotic lifestyle, perhaps addicted to drugs. Legally entitled to care, but without the means to prove it. Should doctors treat them without seeing ID. Many would say that compassion should win through - and I would agree - but in which case why do we all need compulsory ID if it does not serve to distinguish entitlement?
If introduced it would be a fundamental shift in the relationship between the citizen and the state. One of the many problems of our growing bureaucratic state, reaching into more and more areas of our lives, is that we can sometimes lose sight of the fact that the state exists to serve its citizens - not the other way around.
The principle of a more joined up, efficient government is one I whole-heartedly support. Yet a compulsory ID scheme, intended more to get the government out of a difficult situation than solve any real problems will only cost us all more, whilst making the way we live our lives in this country just that little bit worse.
