ID cards can help fight social exclusion

Home Office minister Meg Hillier argues ID cards can provide the foundation for fairer access to services and opportunities

Whenever identity cards are mentioned it's always been with the word "controversial".

But we need to move on. The fact is that identity cards are now a reality, delivered on time and on budget. Next week the 10,000th person will enrol for a £30 card, a valid European travel document, and 62,000 people have requested application packs. We've had to expand capacity to meet demand.

As well as a token which includes fingerprints we have a modern database to back it up. On costs, we know, and even the opposition increasingly accept, that the vast majority of the investment is for delivering passports which will include fingerprints: essential if British citizens are not to become second class in the world. And in any case passports are paid for out of fees.

On civil liberties the prime minister has confirmed, yet again, most recently in his party conference speech, that ID cards are entirely voluntary. If you don't want one, don't get one.

I believe there is more social good that the national identity service can deliver.

By getting them out there, we have removed the fear factor. Public support has grown consistently over the last year, now close to 60 per cent, whilst opposition has declined.

In some circumstances we want to know that people are who they say they are for the public good. This might be to meet security requirements, prove eligibility to work, or prevent crime. But it is equally, if not more important, to make it easy for individuals to verify their identity once, rather than time and time again.

There are many people who find themselves without a reliable identity ‘footprint' which creates unnecessary barriers. And there is a role for government to ensure that no one is so excluded. Only government can create a universal trusted solution to identity verification - it has not emerged from the free market alone.

Currently 80 per cent of the population have passports. That means 20 per cent are without access to the highest standard of identity verification. The social consequences of this exclusion can be significant, and those most excluded are the poorest in society.

No one wants to miss out on that job because they couldn't prove who they are, or their entitlement to work ahead of others.

No one wants to be turned down by a service provider because they cannot prove their age or credit worthiness, or lose out on a house or flat because they were unable to provide documentation in time to a bank or landlord.

As I know only too well in Hackney it is usually those least able to afford it who are most often excluded by difficulties in establishing their identity and accessing services.
It is right for the Labour government to tackle this serious problem.

Young people may not have the usual forms of identity (household bills, payslips or driving licences) to build up an identity footprint.

Older people may have incomplete records, or be concerned about using bank statements (or anything with their address) in face-to-face interactions.

There is so much potential for a service which has citizens' rights at its heart. It can help reach the very people who find it hard to assert their rights now. And the technological possibilities are exciting.

My vision is of an identity service where government's role is limited to ensuring safety and security in providing the infrastructure. It will be for others to build the broader range of services which will add value to individuals.

I want to see a simple and convenient tool which helps secure that vital first job, or eases the way to a student loan or a first bank account.

I want to see a government-backed identity verification service that enables all, including the socially excluded, to access a wide range of services on their own terms.

I want to see a tool that is flexible enough to make life easier in an increasingly online and complex world.

We have achieved so much. I remain convinced of the public good that the service can provide, and of the empowerment that we can deliver for the citizens of this country.

Photo: JACKPASCO 2009

Meg Hillier is MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch and the Home Office minister responsible for identity cards

15 Mar 2010 15:05

Comments

• Posted by IDExpert on 15 March 2010, 4:07:00 PM This is filled with so many half-truths and misleading facts that various ministers have been repeating so many times in the past 6 years that we've lost track. I've sat through Parliamentary debates on this issue, met with every expert on ID from across the country and most of the world's experts on ID systems, and so I can say this with authority: Meg Hillier, shame on you. Tell me how I can refuse to get fingerprinted without lying about fake international requirements then I'll believe you on everything else. Otherwise, please move on.
• Posted by Toque on 15 March 2010, 4:20:01 PM I'm sorry, run it past me again. Why would I be refused a job becase I don't have an ID card? There was a time when a national insurance number and address was sufficient. Do you envisage a future in which ID cards are required to secure services from a 'service provider', bank or landlord?
• Posted by JohnnyDee on 15 March 2010, 4:30:40 PM I have genuinely never seen so many lies strung together on a single page before. How astoundingly, bare-facedly corrupt ARE you? Worst of all, the government knows full well that the security of these new cards has been cracked and ALL of the expense has been wasted, developing something that can be read and duplicated with kit costing a few hundred pounds. It will be truly gratifying to see your party lose the next election. Morally bankrupt corporate shills, every last one of you.
• Posted by Andrew Watson on 15 March 2010, 5:38:47 PM Meg Hillier writes: "I want to see a tool that is flexible enough to make life easier in an increasingly online and complex world." Ms Hillier's huge, expensive, dangerous ID cards Scheme provides no support for online authentication. It ignores the modern world of online banking and online tax returns. Her department is squandering £230,000 of public money every single day on building a white elephant this is doomed to fail, precisely because it completely ignores the "increasingly online and complex world" she refers to. Her scheme has been designed by bureaucrats who only understand Victorian models of face-to-face interaction with government, and have completely ignored the requirements of a 21st century economy. She claims she wants a scheme where "government's role is limited to ensuring safety and security in providing the infrastructure", yet her department conducted vicious ad hominem attacks on the team from the London School of Economics that proposed just such a minimalist system in 2005. Instead, the Home Office is proposing a scheme that explicitly inserts its database into many face-to-face interactions between the citizen and government, and between the citizen and the private sector, giving it the power to monitor and control the face-to-face transactions in their daily lives. For more details on the complete disconnect between the Home Office's authoritarian, dangerous ID cards scheme and the online world the rest of us inhabit, see: http://www.silicon.com/management/public-sector/2010/02/24/id-cards-holding-back-21st-century-economy-39745512/
• Posted by David Moss on 15 March 2010, 6:01:23 PM The fourth aniiversary of the passing of the Identity Cards Act is approaching and, quite rightly, Meg Hillier is reviewing progress to date. Quite simply, there is none. The Identity & Passport Service have beaten all known records for ineffectual time-wasting and non-delivery. They are to be congratulated and, to the extent that it has anything to do with her, so is Ms Hillier. Congratulated, and commemorated, as they are here, http://dematerialisedid.com/CiF/Review.html
• Posted by Henrietta W on 15 March 2010, 6:33:46 PM (please excuse the dots - line breaks seem to not work) Maybe I'm just being silly, but if you don't have enough paperwork to satisfy the needs of e.g. the bank, you aren't going to have enough to prove who you are to get your ID card, are you? .......... I have found that by actually speaking to someone at the bank an arrangement can be reached, for example a non-overdraft account. ......... Not every bank or branch manager will do this so don't give up after the first one. ......... Ask, not demand. ........ They have no obligation to give you an account and politeness is cheap. ......... You may have to go into the branch to take money out but it is still better than no account at all and is not forever. .......... Back on topic, if you have no money you can't afford to buy a card anyway. ........... P.S. public support has not increased it has DEcreased as more and more people understand how mad the ID scheme really is and that 60 percent is a long way out of date, no?. ........
• Posted by Well Actually on 15 March 2010, 6:44:24 PM Quote: "Next week the 10,000th person will enrol for a £30 card...". Could someone explain therefore why, in a Parliamentary Answer on 03/03/10, there had only been 4307 APPLICATIONS in the North West. London applications have only been open a month. The only thing I can come up with is that ALL 4307 applications have been processed, people interviewed/ fingerprinted etc. in record time, with the same number being done in London in inhumanly fast time. Hardly gives you confidence about the security does it? Or perhaps someone is telling porkies!!!
• Posted by William on 15 March 2010, 8:33:34 PM > I want to see a tool that is flexible enough to make life easier in an increasingly online and complex world. Bit late for that. Your predecessors should have listened earlier. You should have started in a different place and headed in a different direction. [I'm really angry about this and have had to make a real effort not to use an abundance of intemperate language]
• Posted by John on 15 March 2010, 11:10:42 PM Public support has not been rising! The Joesph Rowntree State of the Nation poll showed that public opposition is at 53% up from 33% when the same question was asked in 2006. Why does Meg Hillier trick us with her own departments dodgy stats.
• Posted by James on 15 March 2010, 11:15:56 PM So lets get this straight, New-Labour brought in draconian laws where you have to prove your ID to do anything and becuase of that some people are socially excluded so getting an ID card helps them. Disgraceful! Does Meg even know that you need a passport to apply for one so how will that help? A life of fines and on another massive Database. No thanks
• Posted by Frank on 16 March 2010, 1:06:56 PM oh well only another 2 months to go.
• Posted by frankit on 16 March 2010, 1:40:59 PM Even if 10,000 is true, it's less than 0.1% of the eligible population. Hardly a tidal wave of public demand. I have no need of an entry on the National Identity register thanks. Don't want you to track my every interaction with any tentacle of government for my whole. Don't want to have to tell you every time I move house on pain of massive fines. Don't want my fingerprints taken - I'm not a criminal. There's no international requirement to have fingerprints on a passport. Image of a face on a chip meets the international requirements. Funny, I thought the ID card was going to free us from terrorists? Now it frees the poor from bureaucracy, apparently. When they brand cattle, it's for the farmer's benefit, not the cow's.
• Posted by SH on 16 March 2010, 3:25:09 PM There are so many holes in the argument presented by MP Hillier I hardly know where to begin. 1) ID cards can't fight social inclusion /and/ be secure for the very reasons given above. People who are having trouble proving who they are aren't going to be helped much by a scheme which requires the kinds of proofs a passport requires, but then an ID card scheme that doesn't require such proofs isn't that secure. 2) The fact that 20% of the population don't have a passport is neither here nor there. Unless there have been rigorous studies conducted of why these particular people don't have passports her conclusion - that these people are without access because they are socially excluded - is unwarranted. 3) I was a younger person once and didn't have the usual forms of identity. How did I ever manage to be an older person who has incomplete records and is concerned about using bank statements in face-to-face interactions (or 'meetings' as they're commonly known)? According to MP Hillier this is an inexplicable state of affairs. Perhaps other people just aren't as fired up about identity as she is? 4) The technological possibilities of ID cards are not exciting. They utilise card technology which has been around for at least the last 10 years, and information technology ('databases') which has been around since the early '70s. None of this is cutting edge and all of it is very well understood and so boring you can buy 300-page books explaining the most boring bits of it in exacting detail from many good booksellers. Space technology is alive with technical possibilities: By comparison ID cards barely have a pulse. 5) MP Hillier wants to see a "simple and convenient tool which helps secure that vital first job". What she is searching for is a 'good education' - something from which the socially excluded are socially excluded. She also seems to be labouring (no pun intended) under the delusion that one's first job in some sense prepares you for what comes after. I suppose if you've only ever wanted to do one thing in your life and were lucky enough to have parents who supported you emotionally and financially through school and university so you could do that one thing your heart desires then that first job probably would be vital. For the rest of us though, we haven't got a clue what we want to do with our lives (other than stop sodding-well working) and our first job isn't vital because it's not leading up to anything - it's just another job in a parade of jobs, not a stepping-stone to a glittering career. 6) One wonders if MP Hillier has ever applied for a job outside parliament via the standard route available to everyone in this country. Specifically one wonders if she's has any idea of the kind of monumental cock-up you'd have to make of the application form you yourself filled in to be refused a job because you couldn't prove you are who you say you are. She's certainly never rented a student house whose landlord prays to God for the healing of the leaking tap in the kitchen rather than going to B&Q, obtaining a wrench and fixing the bloody thing (yes, that really did happen to me) - landlords of this calibre aren't interested in who you are so much as when your money will leave your hand and enter theirs. One wonders if she's ever applied in person for a mortgage or bank account. What she also fails to mention is that social exclusion of this kind has much to do with poverty than it does to do with proving who you are. If she really wants to tackle this issue then she should shoot the white elephant she's in charge of, and use its ivory to pay for something which might decrease poverty.
• Posted by Henry on 16 March 2010, 5:27:23 PM Nu Labour = New Nazi.
• Posted by ian on 16 March 2010, 7:51:51 PM Well,she is right in say that we need to move on.We need to move on to ditching this card and the related database.We need to get our privacy back.
• Posted by Alex Hayes on 17 March 2010, 12:10:42 PM

  it is depressing but sadly utterly unsurprising to see Ms Hillier trotting out the standard piece of misdirection that “ID cards are entirely voluntary. If you don't want one, don't get one”. She says nothing about the database, which is the most dangerous and invasive aspect of the scheme. Registration on the database will remain *compulsory* when you apply for a passport or designated document. It is an explicit aim of the scheme that it will become (and I quote from a government paper, ‘Safeguarding Identity’) “an essential part of everyday life, underpinning interactions and transactions between individuals, public services and businesses”. Assuming Ms Hillier is in agreement with these stated plans to make it impossible to exist in civil society without an ID card, perhaps she can explain how ‘choice’ comes into it? She should have rewritten her sentence so that it read ‘If you don’t want one, don’t have one. But we’ll track you through the database anyway, whether or not you take the piece of plastic. And you won’t be able to travel, or get a job, or claim benefits, or access services you’re entitled to, and once someone maliciously accesses the database or leaves your details in a skip somewhere you’ll be stuffed seeing as you can’t grow a new set of fingerprints. But hey, the card’s voluntary, so that’s OK.” But that would have required some honesty on her part, and an abandonment of her evident commitment to indulging in Orwellian doublespeak of the worst kind. Ms Hillier, on the evidence of this article, the opponents of the scheme have a far greater knowledge of the contents of the Identity Cards Act and its implications than you do. Please have the decency to stop insulting our intelligence with this sort of mendacious and patronising rubbish.

• Posted by Christine McCabe on 17 March 2010, 1:11:58 PM

  'Voluntary' - if you don't apply for a passport, that is. 'Secure' - as all our other data that the Gov't have safeguarded. 'Conducive to social inclusion' - costing £200- per person, which could be better spent on education, training, hospitals, green job creation......

• Posted by FishNChipPapers on 17 March 2010, 1:33:02 PM

  "On costs, we know, and even the opposition increasingly accept, that the vast majority of the investment is for delivering passports which will include fingerprints: essential if British citizens are not to become second class in the world. And in any case passports are paid for out of fees." But what about the costs of those parts of the private and sector that are to make use of the ID cards? "On civil liberties the prime minister has confirmed, yet again, most recently in his party conference speech, that ID cards are entirely voluntary. If you don't want one, don't get one." Unless you want a passport once those become designated documents - and what about potential desginated documents in the future. "Currently 80 per cent of the population have passports. " Which means that ultimately ID cards will be compulsory for 80 per cent of the population "It will be for others to build the broader range of services which will add value to individuals." And who are the others that are building such services. Ms Hiller was seeking support from third parties to build solutions that make use of ID cards. That smacks of a solution looking for a problem. If there was a real need she wouldn't have to ask

• Posted by FishNChipPapers on 17 March 2010, 1:33:03 PM

  "On costs, we know, and even the opposition increasingly accept, that the vast majority of the investment is for delivering passports which will include fingerprints: essential if British citizens are not to become second class in the world. And in any case passports are paid for out of fees." But what about the costs of those parts of the private and sector that are to make use of the ID cards? "On civil liberties the prime minister has confirmed, yet again, most recently in his party conference speech, that ID cards are entirely voluntary. If you don't want one, don't get one." Unless you want a passport once those become designated documents - and what about potential desginated documents in the future. "Currently 80 per cent of the population have passports. " Which means that ultimately ID cards will be compulsory for 80 per cent of the population "It will be for others to build the broader range of services which will add value to individuals." And who are the others that are building such services. Ms Hiller was seeking support from third parties to build solutions that make use of ID cards. That smacks of a solution looking for a problem. If there was a real need she wouldn't have to ask

• Posted by Graeme Kemp on 17 March 2010, 2:50:01 PM

  This smacks of desperation. So, the 'poor' need ID cards because it's often difficult to work out who they are? Nice try, but I'm very sceptical about this as an argument for the costly ID card system. And do students really have problems getting bank accounts? Perhaps we could scrap ID cards, save millions, and give the money to the 'poor' and students in the form of grants?

• Posted by Sarah on 17 March 2010, 3:04:48 PM

  You can just see the outpouring of public support in the comments on this article... I think not. It is ID that will decide my vote at the next elections - NOT ANY OTHER ISSUE. Those who elect to have them, will not have my vote (I'm being serious). It's only fair to warn the government that this is how strongly I feel about the point, to give them an opportunity to address it.

• Posted by ian on 17 March 2010, 6:43:57 PM

  This article is one of the most badly written and incoherent on ID cards that I have had the misfortune to read. The core problem is that ID cards were not meant to fight Social exclusion-one hears the sounds of barrels being scraped as the Government desperately scrabbles around for some form-any form-of justification. The article also raises some questions for instance:- How will a passport containg fingerprints prevent British citizens becoming second class in the world.(What does "second class in the world" even mean?) The author mentions credit worthiness which has nothing to do with ID cards in any shape or form. The usual falsehood that the ID cards is entirely voluntary got a mention, the fact that they are compulsory for foreign nationals did not.The fact that passport applications after 2011 will be placed on the ID database also did not get a mention. To be honest all you need to do to help the social exclusion is to give free passports to those in need: no database needed.I have no problem with that.

• Posted by ian on 17 March 2010, 6:49:55 PM

  This article is one of the most badly written and incoherent on ID cards that I have had the misfortune to read. The core problem is that ID cards were not meant to fight Social exclusion-one hears the sounds of barrels being scraped as the Government desperately scrabbles around for some form-any form-of justification. The article also raises some questions for instance:- How will a passport containg fingerprints prevent British citizens becoming second class in the world.(What does "second class in the world" even mean?) The author mentions credit worthiness which has nothing to do with ID cards in any shape or form. The usual falsehood that the ID cards is entirely voluntary got a mention, the fact that they are compulsory for foreign nationals did not.The fact that passport applications after 2011 will be placed on the ID database also did not get a mention. To be honest all you need to do to help the social exclusion is to give free passports to those in need: no database needed.I have no problem with that.

• Posted by Jonathan on 17 March 2010, 8:10:09 PM

  Yes, move on. State issued identity documents were a 19th century solution to a 19th century problem, so why are you, Alan Johnson, and Gordon Brown clinging to the comfort blanket of the past? How about you stop campaigning for the Tories, and just giving it to them on a plate, and find better ways to help people in real need than squandering money on technocratic and managerialist schemes like this mess? ..... BTW, from what I can make out, the card you received probably cost somewhere between one and two hundred quid. You would have paid only �30, so you've taken a free ride at others' expense (not necessarily taxpayers, maybe ordinary people renewing their passports). Are all you junior ministers really so poor that you need handouts like this? How about you and Alan Johnson volunteering to pay the true cost?

• Posted by ERM on 18 March 2010, 2:46:15 AM

  As an EU national having dual nationalty, I will merely switch to my alternate nationality when/if I need a passport after 2011 - that will accomplish the purpose of me 'not to become second class in the world' more cheaply & without any involvement in the Govt's NIR survellance database - 'Labour building a nation Erich Honecker & his Stasi could only dream of'

• Posted by Blastproof on 18 March 2010, 6:36:58 PM

  Get a grip, Meg. What are these ID cards and NIR really for: anti-terrorism, NHS 'entitlement', bus passes, booze-buying? What, really? Please.

• Posted by AJW on 18 March 2010, 6:55:05 PM

  Meg Hillier writes: "... the vast majority of the investment is for delivering passports which will include fingerprints: essential if British citizens are not to become second class in the world." Australia and the USA are just two of the many countries that have no plans to fingerprint their citizens for passports. Good luck telling the Aussies and Yanks they're "second class citizens". In fact the UK has no obligation to add fingerprints to its passports, so this part of your argument evaporates.

• Posted by blastproof@rocketmail.com on 18 March 2010, 7:32:57 PM

  Fingerprinting should only be for criminals. That is how Meg and her ilk see the citizen these days: criminals.

• Posted by stuart colley on 20 March 2010, 1:52:52 PM Ms Hiller This whole article shows neither you nor the government have any integrity left whatsoever. As a life-long labour voter I will be voting for which ever candidate in my local constituency has the better chance of unseating the Labour candidate, based purely on your continued assault on civil liberties. S Colley
• Posted by SN on 22 March 2010, 12:59:57 PM So here we have it. The thing is "voluntary", but only if you don't want to travel abroad, get a job, use the NHS, have a bus-pass, buy alcoholic beverages..... The whole of MH's piece has an air of desperation about it.
• Posted by AJW on 24 March 2010, 5:03:39 AM According to the Montreal Gazette, we can add all Canadians to Meg's list of "second-class citizens" who won't have fingerprint passports: "As early as next year, Canadians who apply for passports will receive documents with chips that contain their digital images and personal information such as name, gender, and date and place of birth. ... To address concerns raised by Canada's privacy commissioner, Passport Canada backed away last year from the idea of including fingerprints and iris scans in the e-passport. ... As it stands, the only biometric element on the "proximity contactless chip" embedded in the passport's back cover will be the holder's photo. ... (See: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada/Canadians+passports+early+next+year/2717953/story.html )
• Posted by wgb on 25 May 2010, 6:31:06 PM What an uttler load of drivel this article is. The original intention of the ID card system was an 'entitlement card', yes, friendly, not, so it was changed. The people who do not have passports are not necessarily the poorest people. But the cost of passports have become prohibitive as a result of the former Labour Government because those who do not want an ID card is expected to pay for the system. Now, the only way for the 'poor' to feel empowered is to buy a £30 ID-card and be tracked for life, it's cheaper, it's convienent, it's the only Nazi way. And, Tesco will start asking for your ID card, and the govt knows where you've been, eat your heart out CCTV, to help to you to feel *safe*. If you don't update your card details, we'll charge you into submission.