Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 39The majority of consultation responses were opposed to ID cards: 48 percent opposed;31 percent in favour; 8 percent supporting in principle but with reservations about someaspects of the bill. 58 The Home Office also refers to general correspondence receivedduring the consultation period, of which 21 percent was opposed and 31 percent were infavour. However, the introduction notes that:“Since July 2002 the Government has been engaged in a wide-rangingpublic debate about its proposals to introduce a national identity cardsscheme. (…) During this first consultation period the Government alsocarried out an extensive programme of research into public attitudestowards identity cards. This showed an overall level of support at 79%(with 13% opposed and 8% unsure).”In a separate survey of four ethnic minority groups, the government found that supportfor ID cards had increased since 2003 and a clear majority was in favour, as high as 84percent among Chinese respondents. The report also claims that the benefits ofbiometrics were largely undisputed by focus groups set up to discuss the ID card. 59However, according to the report over 70 percent of respondents in all categories werelargely unaware of the term ‘biometric information’. 60Although Prime Minister Tony Blair had said in Parliament in April that there were nolonger civil liberties objections “in the vast majority of quarters”, many organisationssubmitting comments in this round of the consultation process expressed opposition toID cards and the national database on one or more civil liberties grounds. Theseorganisations included Privacy International, Rethink, the Civil Service PensionersAssociation, the Freedom Association, Justice, The Gypsy Council, Liberty, Stand,Data Protection and Privacy Practice, and many others, as well as individuals. Theirconcerns were numerous, including the invasiveness of the registration process (egJustice) to concern that the ID card would create an underclass (eg Commission forRacial Equality) to the permanent alteration of the relationship between citizen and state(eg The Law Society).Many more organisations expressed concerns about the marginalisation of specificgroups. Many, including the Information Commissioner, wanted more detail regardingthe scheme itself. This detail is so far not forthcoming.By the time of the Prime Minister’s statement, an entirely new organisation, No2ID, hadbeen formed to campaign actively against the ID card proposals. Nonetheless, thegovernment has characterised the opposition to the ID card as “a highly organisedminority”. 61 This is even though some of the opposition came from organisations such‘Blunkett 'arrogant' over ID cards’, BBC News, October 13, 2004,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3738760.stm.58 ‘A Summary of Findings from the Consultation on Legislation on Identity Cards’, page 12.59 Ibid, page 79.60 Ibid, page 87.61 ‘ID cards for all to cost £40’, David Cracknell, Sunday Times, July 6, 2003, available athttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-736390,00.html. See also ‘net.wars: A highly organised minority (thatcan be safely ignored)’, Wendy M. Grossman, The Inquirer, July 11, 2003 available athttp://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10441. And ‘Now Blunkett wants to charge £39 for ID cards’, by Drew Cullen,The Register, July 6 2003: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/07/06/now_blunkett_wants_to_charge/.