The government issued alittle-reported documentthis month on
ID cards. It was quietly published when the home secretary Jacqui
Smith announced that some volunteer members of the public in
Greater Manchester would be the first to receive ID cards in
November.
These are 10 things from the document, "Identity Cards Act
Secondary Legislation - An Impact Assessment", which might not be
generally known:
- The ID Cards Act 2006 imposes on citizens a duty to update
information held on them on the National Identity Register (NIR).
Cardholders can receive civil penalty fines if they fail to update
information held about them on the NIR or notify the Identity and
Passport Service if their card is lost or stolen. Citizens may also
be in breach of legislation if they fail to notify a change of
address within three months. It is open to the government to charge
a fee for updating the register.
- An individual's entry on the NIR can be given to "government
departments or other public sector organisations without the
consent of the individual provided they [departments and agencies]
have been approved to do so by parliament under secondary
legislation". Secondary legislation does not need any specific
parliament approval. The power to enact it has already been given
under primary legislation.
- The Home Office will allow ID cardholders to check the
information held on them on the NIR. "Right from the beginning,
individuals will be able to obtain a copy of what is held on their
record in line with subject access rights under the Data Protection
Act." Much information about individuals will not be on the
register itself but brought together from various databases when
needed.
- The NIR will keep a record of which organisations have checked
an individual's record and when, though not the reason or the
outcome. The NIR audit trail will show the "specific branch" of a
bank which had made a check, for example. The Home Office says this
is necessary to "help ensure that inappropriate checks are not made
against the NIR". The NIR audit may be given to HM Revenue &
Customs and other government departments "only where it is
necessary for the prevention or detection of serious crime".
- The NIR will not hold a vast amount of "new kinds of data", but
the document does not explain what this phrase means.
- Private sector organisations may be given information from the
NIR with the individual's consent. Insurance companies may make a
condition of taking out a policy that you give your consent.
- The ID cards scheme has not been subjected to a formal privacy
impact assessment (PIA), as set out by the information
commissioner. The PIA would have set out the scheme's potential
privacy issues and risks, as perceived by all stakeholders. The
Home Office says that there has been no full PIA because the
decision to roll out ID cards "was taken before these developments"
- that is the introduction of the PIA. However, the information
commissioner says that a PIA can be undertaken after a project has
started.
- 8) The initial £30 fee for an ID card will be reviewed "before
the high volume roll-out of identity cards begins in 2012". The
review will take into account the fact that the Identity and
Passport Service must cover its costs. The costs of ID cards and
passports have been combined so it is possible that fee rises for
new and replacement passports will
subsidise the cost of ID cards.
- The document says recent research "shows that 71% of those
interviewed trust the Identity and Passport Service to look after
their personal information". This suggests that nearly a third do
not trust the government with their ID data or do not know whether
to trust it - a sizeable minority.
- The cost to the public sector and businesses of equipment to
read ID cards, integrate systems with the NIR, or obtain
information from the register is put at £7bn. The figure is not
broken down and, as it is over 30 years, it is unlikely those in
the current administration will be in government in 2039 to be
accountable for the figure.
More on ID cards: