Report - Guardian

132 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005In response to the disquiet amongst transport staff, the RMT transport union carried outits repeated threats to take action if its members were not withdrawn from suchoperations. On the 15 th February 2005, The Evening Standard reported that: “randomimmigration checks on Tube passengers have been banned by Underground chiefs”. 351A protocol was being drawn up between the British Transport Police and Transport forLondon that would eliminate all random checks, but potentially allows for intelligenceledpremeditated operations.Stop and Search and Identity CardsIn light of the above, it is easy to recognise why there is increasing opposition tonational ID cards; it appears to be inevitable that they will be employed as furthergrounds upon which to base racial prejudice. As a result, reports and inquiries into theintroduction of ID cards have been punctuated by recurrent mention of thediscriminatory effect of ID cards.The Home Office produced a Race Equality Impact Assessment alongside theintroduction of the Identity Cards Bill to the House of Commons on 25 th May 2005,which summarised the views of individuals and organisations. Below is an outline ofsome of the observations made by the report.- The report acknowledged that there were fears “that the police will interpret thelegislation around identity cards in a way that will discriminate against minorityethnic groups, with a strongly held view that the police will stop adisproportionately high number of black and Asian people and demand sight ofthe identity card even though the draft Bill provides no such powers,”particularly where there was a reliance on discretion.- The report states that concerns expressed by members of the black and ethnicminority communities largely mirrored those of the white population and“concerns over the potential discriminatory effects of the Bill were secondary.”With regard to fears of discrimination, black respondents retained the highestlevels of concern, with 77% predicting that they would be requested to producean ID card more frequently and 72% predicting that they would be singled outon ethnic minority grounds.- The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) commented that the introduction ofa national compulsory identity card would not be racially discriminatory as itwould be issued to all residents, but acknowledged the widespread perceptionthat they could provide a source of discrimination particularly in the operation ofthe system.- The CRE further expressed concern for people who had been working illegallyin the UK for many years and feared the creation of an underclass.- The CRE mentioned four areas where ID cards could have potential for indirectdiscrimination, notably (1) police stop and searches, (2) service provision andemployment, (3) provision of information without consent and (4) gypsies andtravellers.351 ‘Immigration Checks on Tube Passengers banned’, Ben Leapman, Evening Standard, February 15, 2005.