Report - Guardian

80 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005“The relationship between the individual and the state in Canada, theUS, the UK and Australia was also discussed as a commonality thatdistinguishes our countries from those with a long-standing traditionof national identity card systems. This cultural difference becamereadily apparent to Committee members during our travel incontinental Europe.” 196It is difficult to explain exactly why there is a cultural difference between Europeancountries and those countries identified by the Canadians.It is possible to say that it is because of the common law system: with the exception ofMalaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Cyprus, no common law country in the world hasever accepted the idea of a peacetime ID card.It could simply be an aspect of ‘our culture’ to reject ID cards. The Australian 197 andNew Zealand 198 public have rejected similar proposals outright. Following widespreadcriticism, 199 Canada abandoned its proposed biometric ID card system in early 2004,opting to focus its efforts on enhanced border security. National ID card proposals haveconsistently been rejected by the United States Congress. However, culturalexplanations are unconvincing: in all of these countries, polls have at some pointappeared to demonstrate a firm support for ID cards, similar to the oft-quoted 80% insupport of the UK card.Another possible explanation is socio-legal: the citizens of these countries enjoy rightsto be left alone, and these are embedded within their histories. It may be that rejection ofID Cards is symptomatic of the restraint expressed in both the unwritten and writtenconstitutions of these countries.Other explanations abound. The controversies that have arisen in each country duringconsideration of ID cards may be the product of a clearer and more open parliamentaryprocess. Often practical issues of costs and technologies have been powerfulcounterbalances to claims regarding the ability of cards to provide efficient government,effective law enforcement, and even the prevention of terrorism.These Governments frequently contend that since other countries have ID cards, thenso, too, must they. The Canadian Government argued that, as 100 countries have IDcards, Canada was clearly being left behind. The Home Office argues that the UK is oneof only three EU Member States that still does not have an ID card. Although manypeople find this argument persuasive, the fact remains that more often than not, evenafter all these arguments are presented, the proposals tend to fail prolonged public196 ‘A National Identity Card for Canada?’, Report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration,October 2003, available athttp://www.parl.gc.ca/InfocomDoc/Documents/37/2/parlbus/commbus/house/reports/cimmrp06/cimmrp06-e.pdf.197 Roger Clarke, Just Another Piece of Plastic for your Wallet: The 'Australia Card' Scheme, 1987,http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/OzCard.html.198 Smart Cards as National Identification Cards, School of Computing & IT, University of Wolverhampton, 1998,http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~c9479633/cp3349/smrtid.html.199 ‘ID card plan to top $7 billion’, Louise Elliott, Canadian Press, October 6, 2003,http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2003/10/06/218966-cp.html.