Report - Guardian

140 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005Proposals to charge people directly for a card appear to be the key trigger for publicconcern. A recent poll (from Reform/ICM) 362 indicated that 81% of UK adults supportgovernment ID plans. However, this headline support was reduced to 67% once thecosts of the scheme were mentioned (with 31% of those surveyed not wanting to payanything towards a card, and another 30% only willing to pay up to £10 – much lessthan the government is planning to charge).Public support appears more complex when other polling figures are examined closely.The April 2004 Detica/MORI poll found that two-thirds of those surveyed knew “littleor nothing” about the ID scheme. There is some evidence that other countries that haveintroduced proposals for ID cards have found that public opinion has turned sharplyagainst card schemes once their full details and implications become clear. In Australia,initial support of 90% for an “Australia card” turned within months to opposition of70% as details of the legislation were analysed by media commentators.As the UK proposals move through Parliament and towards actual implementation, theyare likely to receive far more specific attention from the media and the public. Even atthis stage, the Reform/ICM poll found that a smaller majority (58%) was happy with thescheme’s key feature of a centralised database of fingerprints and iris scans. This isroughly consistent with an earlier Privacy International/YouGov poll 363 that found asupport of 61% for the database. The ICM survey found opposition of 54% to £1,000fines for failing to notify the government of a change of address, and an even split overwhether increasing the number of police officers would be a better use of public funds.A similar level of opposition to address requirements was also found by the PrivacyInternational/YouGov poll in May, with 47% opposed (24% strongly) to notificationrequirements.Public trust in the ability of government may also be a contentious issue. The MORIpoll found almost 60% of those surveyed had little or no confidence in theGovernment’s ability to introduce a national ID system smoothly.The most recent ICM poll, commissioned by the campaign group NO2ID, found thatoverall support for the government’s proposals had dropped to 55%, with 43% believingthe scheme was a “bad or very bad idea”.Public expectations and perceptionsThe LSE’s research indicates that three components of the identity proposals are likelyto become prominent in public attitudes. These are (a) the biometrics element of thescheme, (b) the privacy and security of personal information, and (c) the balancebetween the financial cost of the system as its value to the individual.The expectations and presumptions that drive public opinion are clearly moresignificant than the headline support figures themselves. These underlying attitudes362 Reform/ICM poll, http://www.reform.co.uk/filestore/pdf/041203%20id%20cards%20tables.pdf.363 Privacy International/YouGov poll,http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/idcard/uk/idpollanalysis.pdf