Whether citizens like it or not, their governments are anxious
to know everything about them.
There are plenty of technologies they can harness to this
purpose. But the trick is to find a politically and culturally
acceptable way to apply them.
The UK's controversial
identity card and, more importantly, its associated National
Identity Register, is a case in point. The government would like to
have a single database that contains 49 items of information about
each citizen.
The register would include biometric data such as fingerprints,
facial images and until recently, iris scans, as well as biographic
data such as name, date and place of birth, address, sex,
nationality, entitlement to remain in the UK, as well as the
particulars of everyone who supplies information to corroborate a
person's identity.
Crucially, each person would have a unique identity number or
token. Different database owners could use it to associate other
data items with that identity. For example, in theory, if Land
Registry and the Driver, Vehicles Licensing Authority both used
your ID number to identify their records with you,
HM Revenue & Customs could use it to see how many cars or
properties you own and see if it was a reasonable reflection of
your declared income.
Government agencies and private firms could then identify a
person uniquely, monitor that person, and intervene when they
wanted. For example, it could allow the Department of Work &
Pensions to identify the 36% of pensioners the National Audit
Office estimates are entitled to but not claiming social benefits
and to ensure that they receive what they are due.
A number of polls, most recently one by Mori, have shown that
eight out of 10 Britons have no objection in principle to ID cards.
Indeed, 80% already have a passport.
Nevertheless, the government is walking through a political
minefield over ID cards. Restricted documents on NIS roll-out plans
have leaked from inside the Identity & Passport Service the
prime minister has made equivocal statements over its future the
opposition has threatened to scrap ID cards if it comes to power
some MPs have said they would go to jail rather than accept it,
polls show public support for the card is slipping, and the press
is increasingly sceptical.
How might the government turn it around, and are there any
examples it might learn from?
Europe, which has a long-standing tradition of identity
documents, offers many examples. Estonia and Finland are both
thought particularly successful, but each has special circumstances
that do not apply to Britain. Instead, Hong Kong may provide some
more pertinent examples.
When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1998, the new
government kept on the colonial identity cards that all Hong Kong
residents carried by law. Crucially, it also kept the island's
status as a free port. This made the right of abode highly
desirable. The Hong Kong residents' card thus became a passport to
privileges rather than a resented burden and intrusion on their
privacy.
In developing a new smart card-based biometric identity card,
the Chinese authorities made it easy for citizens to decide to
enrol. Entering Hong Kong from the mainland remains a bureaucratic
time-consuming nightmare for travellers. However, within 10 seconds
readers at the border can scan a traveller's thumb prints, compare
them with the images stored on the ID card and open the gates to
the promised islands. Moreover, the cards are free and
voluntary.
Small traders who cross the border often were the first to take
it up. This spread to family and business partners. Soon enough
cards were in circulation to make it attractive for the Hong Kong
Post Office to add a free digital certificate application to the
card. Card holders can now use this to authenticate online
transactions such as gambling bets, open bank accounts, hire cars,
rent flats and so on.
With the card even new immigrants can acquire a bank account,
tax number and accommodation inside a day. They soon sign up.
The contrast with the mooted UK card is stark. Hong Kong offered
residents a single obvious personal benefit - time saved at
immigration control. The UK card has no such clarity.
According to a widely leaked document, the fundamental
objectives of the National Identity Scheme are to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of border, immigration and labour
controls, to cut serious crime committed using faked identities,
and reduce the risk of terorist incidents. None represents a direct
benefit to individuals.
In addition, the Hong Kong card simply verifies the unique
identity of the card holder extra functions stem from market
opportunities it creates. The UK card already appears blurred by
bureaucratic function-creep. Its original purpose was to identify
people (citizens) entitled to receive state benefits. This morphed
into a national address register, and then into a crime-fighting
tool.
Above all, the Hong Kong authorities have kept their citizens'
goodwill by making enrolment voluntary. The residents and
immigrants consent to give their details. The UK government has
hinted it might force people to use its card. This has fuelled
suspicion and resentment.
Is it too late for Gordon Brown to pull this rabbit from the
hat? To do so he must make it possible for people to use the card,
and only the card, as a sufficient proof of who they are. If one
needs the card plus other evidence, why does one need the card at
all?