Identity Crisis

It always amazes me how happy people are to give up their rights. Latest surveys show that an amazing 61% of us support the new ID card. I know I can't wait for lasers to regularly be shone in my eyes so I can have a card that will provide government with an unprecedented ability to track my life while providing no known benefit. So why is the move so popular? Two reasons - people do not understand the cost, and people are being driven by fear.

ID cards, we are told, will solve the two great threats to Daily Mail readers - asylum seekers and benefit fraudsters. How isn't terribly clear, but the average person is sufficiently disengaged from politics that these claims will not be closely examined. Which is a shame, as even the briefest of examinations will show the lie behind the claims. Every Briton is already assigned a National Insurance number, which needs to be provided to both employers and benefit agencies. Yet people still (apparently) manage to commit benefit fraud. The success of the new ID cards in preventing benefit fraud rely on employers and benefit agencies enforcing rules that already exist. How likely does this sound to anyone?

Preventing the (alleged) flood of asylum seekers is equally unlikely. Anyone seeking asylum is already registered. Cross-referencing biometrics is unlikely to make much difference - these people wish to be here legally. Instead, the real target is the illegal immigrants. You know, the ones who don't show anyone their papers. The ones who are largely employed by people who don't follow the rules. If removing such people is actually a priority, it could be achieved quite easily by targeting the employers. But that would be prosecuting the very people that both the government and the official opposition are trying so hard to suck up to.

The other major benefit claimed - that this card will prevent identity theft - is nonsense. The government's own consultation paper admits that no such system can be one hundred percent accurate. Does anyone believe that there won't be a black market in faked cards exploiting the loop holes?

So what benefits will the new ID card bring? None that are obvious. So what are the costs? At the moment, admittedly, not many. The medical dangers of taking retinal scans are largely unknown, but there are risks. The amount of information that will be available in one place is unprecedented in this country. The inconvenience, and even danger, to an individual whose details are wrong or whose card is lost would also be unprecedented. The ability of the police to harass individuals or groups will be increased. Now, for no benefit, that seems a large cost, but it is nothing compared to the potential.

At present, we live in a relatively benign democracy. Equality is taken seriously, and the police are reasonably constrained. But we have no guarantees for the long term. America, our beloved model democracy, collapsed swiftly into paranoia and witch-hunts. Imagine a British McCarthy armed with the ability to track the movements of all citizens. In the last few weeks we've seen film of police recruits displaying worryingly racist behaviour, backed up by another debate over the far more worrying fact that policing is still largely based on bigotry. Stop the black guy in the wrong area, stop the scruffy guy in the wrong car. Ignore the middle class white guy. The general public is still often worryingly bigoted. Support for homophobic, racist, and even class-biased policies is often high. As politicians chase the populist, racist vote, it is hard to see an increase in authority as anything other than a threat.

The threats to minority groups are easy to see. Those protesting against ecological or economic damage caused by our economies are already often treated as little more than terrorists. Homosexuals are treated worse, and racism is far too prevalent. The security operation being planned for next week's visit by President Bush would love to make use of the tracking powers these new id cards would provide. Political dissent and minority groups are all under threat by these new, unnecessary powers. Doubt it? Let me digress momentarily.

David Blunkett is seeking to introduce a new crime of travelling without proper identification, under which a person would face up to two years in jail for entering the country without a passport. The justification for this is that some people are believed to be destroying their travel papers en route because, says Blunkett, they would need a passport to board the plane. Lets leave aside for the moment the issue of whether two years in jail is a reasonable punishment for incorrect paperwork. Does the justification make sense? Maybe if you live in Daily Mail Land, and are happy not to probe too far. But for the rest of us, there are gaping holes. Firstly, genuine asylum seekers are fleeing political or religious persecution. They are fleeing torture, rape, murder. Expecting their government to assign them a passport seems a little much to ask. It doesn't seem unreasonable that asylum seekers would not have travel papers. Confiscating passports isn't exactly uncommon where a government seeks to silence dissidents. Not only would we expect asylum seekers to attempt to board a plane with no papers, we would expect them to succeed. While you or I would expect to be refused access to a plane without a passport, that is because we are used to flying from Edinburgh not Islamabad. Much of the world does not adhere to our respect for rules, and bribery is often an easy option. Getting onto a plane without travel papers is easier than Mr Blunkett would leave us to believe.

So what lessons can we learn from this little slice of modern political history? Firstly, it illustrates the dangers of adhering to a rigid identification regime. Those without the proper passport become non-persons, unable to travel, and denied services and work. Secondly, it illustrates that our leaders are already lying to justify the persecution of vulnerable groups. If asylum seekers can be punished for being in a situation that would be expected of them, which group will be next?

The problem with convincing the majority of the population is that they cannot imagine themselves in this position. They are not refuges, nor do they perceive themselves as being part of any minority group. Yet circumstances change quickly. McCarthy showed that even an advanced, educated democracy can swiftly give itself over to paranoia. That's the real problem. People can become part of a suspect group because of a malicious whisper, or by innocently associating with someone already under suspicion. The problem with this scenario is that anyone could be a victim. Could it happen in Britain? Much as the Daily Mail may not like it, of course it could. And we may even have seen the first signs of this happening. While the effects of the current paranoia over terrorism are likely to be restricted to Muslims, in the future that will not necessarily be the case. It is a dangerous precedence we're setting.

Surrendering liberties should never be done lightly. The government's ID card plans reduce our liberties and have potential medical dangers, yet give no demonstrable benefits. The scheme must be abandoned.

Graham Robinson. 12th November 2003.

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