Overlooked - Liberty

Overlooked: Surveillance and personal privacy in modern Britain 49
Bichard’s recommendations was that an Independent Barring Board be set up to vet anyone who
would not be suitable to work with the young and the vulnerable 109 . However, had an identity card
been in place at the time it is likely that there would have been suggestion for ‘soft’ non-conviction
information to be held on the NIR. There is a logic that once a scheme is in place and a further use
is found, it makes both practical and financial sense to make as much use of it as possible.
The consequences of this were demonstrated by the wartime scheme. In 1950 a Parliamentary
Committee looked at the use of the existing identity card and discovered that the original three
purposes (conscription, rationing and national security) had mushroomed to 39 different functions.
We can assume that whatever the initial proposal, this system would experience similar expansion
of function and that the information held on the database will increase. It is worth noting that one
of the first acts of the Conservative government in 1952 was to abolish the scheme. It was
described by Winston Churchill as ‘no longer necessary’. He went on to say that abolition would
‘free the people’.
The privacy implications of the ID card scheme are profound. The proposed system will result in
what the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, when giving evidence to the Home Affairs
Select Committee, described as a ‘very significant sea change in the relationship between the state
and every individual in this country’ 110 . Of course the IDCA does not by itself does not signal the
death knell for individual privacy in the UK. However, it does symbolise a shift in the approach of
the state towards the collection of information. It is arguable that we are moving away from a
society where information is not shared unless necessary, towards one where it will be shared
unless there is a reason not to. The Serious Crime Bill published in January 2007 gave evidence of
this societal shift. It creates powers allowing information sharing and data mining by government
departments with no need for suspicion or evidence. Although this will be limited to fraud
purposes, the Bill tellingly contains powers to extend data mining powers by statutory instrument.
This would provide a vehicle by which the practice could be extended to areas beyond fraud, or
even for non-criminal purposes.
Public awareness of data sharing is poor. A MORI survey carried out for the Department of
Constitutional Affairs in 2003 showed that 64% of people do not feel well informed about levels of
information held about them, 74% don’t know how to find out what personal information public
services hold about them, while 53% don’t know what their rights are regarding their personal
information 111 .
The post 11 September 2001 world was one where it became easier for governments to sell the
idea of information collation as a necessary trade off for public safely. However, this could only partly
explain why awareness of privacy issues seem, initially at least, to be confined to a minority. The
manner in which the ID card debate was framed was an extremely telling insight into public attitudes
to privacy.
109
It is worth making the point here that Liberty believes that this proposal which became law in the
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 is sensible and desirable. At its heart is the recognition of the
need to balance individual privacy against public safety.
110
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmhaff/130/4060805.htm
111
Privacy and Data-Sharing: Survey of Public Awareness and Perceptions
http://www.dca.gov.uk/majrep/rights/mori-survey.pdf