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Overlooked: Surveillance and personal privacy in modern Britain 59 Privacy Safeguards Despite the very real privacy concerns surrounding the creation of the NIR it is not an information free-for-all. As well as the limitations on information that will be held and who can have access to it, there are other safeguards. Some of these were introduced by amendments laid down by concerned parliamentarians as the Bill(s) passed through the Houses. Others were introduced by the Government in order to ease progress. None of these changes have had any substantive impact upon the IDCA, their cumulative total effect being described by Liberty as ‘rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic’. They do however, provide some protection against improper use, abuse and also provide some oversight of the scheme. Examples of safeguards include the restriction mentioned earlier that identifying numbers recorded on the register could not allow for the recording of sensitive personal data defined by S. 2 of the DPA. The penalties for improper disclosure of information from the register were also made more robust during progress through Parliament. The IDCA does place obligations upon those entered on the register to pass on any information about changes. This does provide some degree of quality control. However what is lacking is much scope for individual self verification of entries on the NIR. Greater scope for individuals to check, and if necessary correct, their entry would have provided a much more effective way of maintaining the accuracy of the register. Any database is only as effective as the quality of the data it contains. The scope for problems caused by dissemination of incorrect information has always undermined the effectiveness of databases. The lack of information vetting was a concern throughout the progress of the IDCA and remains a real anxiety. Another concern was the potential for abuse of the NIR. There will be many people who will have potential access to the register. Consequently there will also be the opportunity to pass on information to those who are not entitled to it or to tamper with the register. These concerns are directly addressed by the Act, which creates specific criminal offences of ‘unauthorised disclosure of information’ and ‘tampering with the register’. These offences should go some way to ensuring that at least the potential for abuse is lessened. Oversight of the scheme is the responsibility of the new office of National Identity Scheme Commissioner. The role, although impressive sounding, is not quite the powerful independent regulator many were hoping to see. The role was strengthened considerably subsequent to publication of the first Bill, but is still somewhat limited 127 . The Commissioner will review arrangements being made under the powers created by the Act, the arrangements made for obtaining information and the uses to which ID cards are put. What s/he will not do is review any other part of the Act or report directly to parliament. The commissioner will provide an annual report to the Secretary of State, who will then be able to remove any parts which s/he feels might be prejudicial to national security or to crime detection or prevention before parliament sees it. There are a number of functions the Commissioner is specifically barred from. S/he cannot comment on a range of listed topics such as any of the extensive civil and criminal penalty regime created by the Act, about the way regulations are exercised, or about the provision of information to the security services. All in all, the statutory powers of the Commissioner fare poorly when compared with that of other regulatory Commissioners such as the Information Commissioner. 127 The Commissioner’s role is set out in Sections 22 & 23 of the Act
60 Overlooked: Surveillance and personal privacy in modern Britain The future What will happen Much of what has been said in this chapter is supposition. It has been necessary to focus on the legislation as there is no ID card scheme in operation and the NIR is (presumably) still on the drawing board. The mass informational database which will have privacy implications for each of us, going beyond anything else that has occurred since the last scheme was abolished in the 1950s, does not yet exist. So will it ever At the time of writing it is difficult to say. The UK Borders Bill was published early in 2007. It sets out the legislative framework for a Biometric Identification Document. This will be issued to all non EEA residents in the UK and is intended to be the first part of the roll out towards the full ID card programme. However, this too is still merely at the legislative stage. The new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has publicly stated his continuing support for the scheme, making particular reference to its relevance to national security. The extent of his support is still difficult to gauge. When the Bill was before Parliament there were rumours that he had private reservations about the Scheme and he has certainly never been as vocal a supporter of ID cards as his predecessor. The two main opposition parties have said they will make manifesto commitments to scrapping ID cards if they gain power. There remains the possibility that, the whole scheme may still be unceremoniously scrapped. The national media publishes stories with what must be galling regularity for the Home Office about the latest technical glitch to the ID scheme 128 . Rising costs are increasingly an issue and the government was accused in May 2007 of attempting to bury bad news about increasing expenses behind the news of Tony Blair’s resignation 129 . With so many uncertainties it is difficult to make confident predictions. The tendering process itself looks to be problematic. The size and generalised nature of the database has made it difficult for the Home Office to be specific about requirements. In December 2006 the Government announced that it had abandoned plans for a single database to run the scheme. Instead of a single multi-billion pound system, information will be held on three existing, separate databases. The information is now to be spread across three existing IT systems, including the Department of Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Customer Information Service, which holds national insurance records 130 . Originally the proposal was to rely on identification through biometric information. It appears that there has been a growing awareness that this is simply unrealistic, making it possible that the NIR is going to downgrade from biometrics and associated data centres to a chip-and-pin system. This has created further problems as there are significant concerns about the security issues associated with chip-and-pin. There is also the possibility that deviation from the original scheme might require amendment to the IDCA. Furthermore, removal of the biometric data from the ID card programme would remove one of the central justifications for the scheme to be introduced. The Government has long maintained that Europe-wide moves towards biometric passports have legitimised both the principle and the cost of a biometric identifier. 128 See for example http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5173706.stm and other sources too numerous to list. 129 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.htmlin_article_id=453866&in_page_id=1770 130 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6192419.stm
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