Blair gives full backing to ID cards
The Prime Minister has thrown his personal weight behind plans to introduce identity cards in England and Wales.
An ID cards Bill is expected to be published later this afternoon, and speaking at his monthly press conference Tony Blair acknowledged that they would not be a ‘silver bullet’ but maintained that they would be “an important weapon” against modern day threats.
He also sought to allay some of the fears relating to the security of personal information held on the new database by highlighting that two new offences would be created under the Identity Cards Bill for those found tampering with the data.
Pointing to terrorists’ use of false identities, Mr Blair said that ID cards would enable people to prove who they were ‘quickly’ and ‘simply’.
It was important to help the police and other organisations in tackling crime, given that a quarter of people registered on the police national computer had an alias. The cards would also help tackle illegal working, illegal immigration, and would “bear down on fraud” to ensure that public services were not being exploited, he said.
Mr Blair highlighted that identity related benefit fraud cost millions of pounds every year. A system that countered this problem would also yield savings on current methods of identity checks.
The Prime Minister stressed that the Government took people’s privacy ‘seriously’, and said that the computer system would only hold basic personal data. Biometric technology would ensure a person was who they said they were.
Further, the Identity Cards Bill would introduce two new offences – a maximum of ten years imprisonment for anyone found to have tampered with the database, and a maximum of two years for anyone involved in the administration of the system that gave out information from the database.
“I believe this is responsible Government,” he said.
Mr Blair argued that ID cards would “help protect civil liberties not erode them.” He added: “Without proper security there can be no opportunity.”
He rejected claims that ID cards were an excessive amount of money, saying that biometric data will have to be included on passports to meet other countries’ visa requirements and the cost of ID cards on top of that is “not great” and the UK “might as well” have them.
The Bill though is likely to face significant opposition in the House of Commons, with the Liberal Democrats determined to vote against the measures and the Conservatives, whilst stopping short of opposition, querying details of the Bill. There is also likely to be opposition from Labour backbenchers on civil liberties grounds.
