Thursday, 6 March 2008
Foreign nationals will be required to give their biometric details from this year, and from next year the ID cards scheme will extend to British people working in high-risk areas such as airports, said the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
From 2010, students and young people will be encouraged to provide their details voluntarily, and from 2011 onwards, anyone applying for a passport will be added to the national identity register.
She said: "Increasingly, we need to be able to prove our identity in a whole range of ways: when we're travelling, when we're opening a bank account or accessing government services.
"We're all better protected if we can be confident that other people are who they say they are."
The controversial ID scheme will see everyone's personal details stored on a plastic card with a microchip and will cost £5.6 billion over 10 years, according to Government estimates.
Ms Smith will publish further details on the next steps of the ID card roll-out at leading think-tank Demos in central London today.
It will include how the Home Office will begin the roll-out for foreigners who come from countries where there is the most widespread abuse of the immigration system.
The ID project has already been damaged by a series of scandals over the way Government departments have lost personal information, including the list of 25 million child benefit claimants mislaid by HM Revenue and Customs at the end of last year.
Asked this morning about the risk of losing the information, Ms Smith said: "One of the reasons why we worry about our details being lost, whoever it's by, is because at the moment if somebody has what we call your biographical details - your name, your address, your date of birth - actually they can quite easily go and open a bank account in your name, or commit a crime using your identity.
"The fact that the national identity scheme links not just your details, but links it - incidentally on a separate database - to biometric information about you, to your fingerprints, means that it is much more difficult, even if someone does get hold of details about you, for them to use it to commit fraud or commit a crime."
Yesterday, the Tories claimed the Government would announce that up to 100,000 British airport staff will be required to apply for compulsory national ID cards.
The Conservatives said any such move would breach former Home Secretary Charles Clarke's promise not to make ID cards compulsory without a vote by MPs.
Home Office documents leaked in February showed national roll-out of the ID cards had been postponed to 2012, but said workers in sensitive locations such as airports would be required to apply for the documents sooner.
This week the Tories claimed this would involve "airside" workers, such as airline staff, baggage handlers and workers in duty-free shops, bars and cafes.
Amid suggestions that people could have ID cards without having to hold the actual card, shadow home secretary David Davis said: "The Government may have removed the highly visible element but they have still left the dangerous core of this project.
"The National Identity Register, which will contain dozens of personal details of every adult in this country in one place, will be a severe threat to our security and a real target for criminals, hackers and terrorists.
"This is before you take the Government's legendary inability to handle people's data securely into account.
"Serial scandals of loss of data have destroyed people's belief in this white elephant, while major commercial companies clearly have no confidence in the project.
"Jacqui Smith should ditch the bluster and own up to the reality that this project is as far away from fruition as it has ever been."
Neil Pakey, chairman of the Airport Operators Association, said: "Airport operators' first duty is the safety of passengers. We welcome the opportunity to work with the Government in exploring the possibility of issuing ID cards to airside staff. They have the potential to strengthen what is already a robust aviation security scheme.
"However, in rolling the national ID card out at airports the Government will need to ensure that the process of background checks is made more speedy and efficient; and that new arrangements do not duplicate existing processes.
"Airport operators would incur extra costs in implementing this scheme, which would need to be balanced by the benefits delivered. Since August 2006, we have invested heavily in security staff, with a 50-per-cent increase in staffing levels."
Ms Smith told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that ID cards would make life easier for young people amid critics' claims they were being forced to accept one "by stealth".
"We already need to be able to prove who we are; now, if I want to open a bank account, I have to go down there with a wadge of documents including my passport, my utility bills, my bank statement," she said.
"The idea that that is not giving away more information about myself than a simple ID card I think is wrong.
"We are offering this to young people who are starting out on life and needing to prove their identity when they get their first job, when they get a loan, open a bank account.
"We believe that will help people who perhaps don't have some of the other forms of ID that's now necessary to prove who they are. It is more secure but, more importantly, it's more convenient for people as well."
The Home Secretary said only "relatively thin" amounts of personal data would be kept on the database which would not include medical and tax records or details of access to public services.
And the information would be kept separately from biometric information which would be accessible only to "highly-security cleared individuals with a whole range of other security arrangements".
The database would not be online so was safe from hackers, she insisted.
She confirmed that Parliament would not be asked to consider making ID cards compulsory before the next general election - which must be held by May 2010.
Foreign nationals will be required to give their biometric details from this year, and from next year the ID cards scheme will extend to British people working in high-risk areas such as airports, said the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
From 2010, students and young people will be encouraged to provide their details voluntarily, and from 2011 onwards, anyone applying for a passport will be added to the national identity register.
She said: "Increasingly, we need to be able to prove our identity in a whole range of ways: when we're travelling, when we're opening a bank account or accessing government services.
"We're all better protected if we can be confident that other people are who they say they are."
The controversial ID scheme will see everyone's personal details stored on a plastic card with a microchip and will cost £5.6 billion over 10 years, according to Government estimates.
Ms Smith will publish further details on the next steps of the ID card roll-out at leading think-tank Demos in central London today.
It will include how the Home Office will begin the roll-out for foreigners who come from countries where there is the most widespread abuse of the immigration system.
The ID project has already been damaged by a series of scandals over the way Government departments have lost personal information, including the list of 25 million child benefit claimants mislaid by HM Revenue and Customs at the end of last year.
Asked this morning about the risk of losing the information, Ms Smith said: "One of the reasons why we worry about our details being lost, whoever it's by, is because at the moment if somebody has what we call your biographical details - your name, your address, your date of birth - actually they can quite easily go and open a bank account in your name, or commit a crime using your identity.
"The fact that the national identity scheme links not just your details, but links it - incidentally on a separate database - to biometric information about you, to your fingerprints, means that it is much more difficult, even if someone does get hold of details about you, for them to use it to commit fraud or commit a crime."
Yesterday, the Tories claimed the Government would announce that up to 100,000 British airport staff will be required to apply for compulsory national ID cards.
The Conservatives said any such move would breach former Home Secretary Charles Clarke's promise not to make ID cards compulsory without a vote by MPs.
Home Office documents leaked in February showed national roll-out of the ID cards had been postponed to 2012, but said workers in sensitive locations such as airports would be required to apply for the documents sooner.
This week the Tories claimed this would involve "airside" workers, such as airline staff, baggage handlers and workers in duty-free shops, bars and cafes.
Amid suggestions that people could have ID cards without having to hold the actual card, shadow home secretary David Davis said: "The Government may have removed the highly visible element but they have still left the dangerous core of this project.
"The National Identity Register, which will contain dozens of personal details of every adult in this country in one place, will be a severe threat to our security and a real target for criminals, hackers and terrorists.
"This is before you take the Government's legendary inability to handle people's data securely into account.
"Serial scandals of loss of data have destroyed people's belief in this white elephant, while major commercial companies clearly have no confidence in the project.
"Jacqui Smith should ditch the bluster and own up to the reality that this project is as far away from fruition as it has ever been."
Neil Pakey, chairman of the Airport Operators Association, said: "Airport operators' first duty is the safety of passengers. We welcome the opportunity to work with the Government in exploring the possibility of issuing ID cards to airside staff. They have the potential to strengthen what is already a robust aviation security scheme.
"However, in rolling the national ID card out at airports the Government will need to ensure that the process of background checks is made more speedy and efficient; and that new arrangements do not duplicate existing processes.
"Airport operators would incur extra costs in implementing this scheme, which would need to be balanced by the benefits delivered. Since August 2006, we have invested heavily in security staff, with a 50-per-cent increase in staffing levels."
Ms Smith told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that ID cards would make life easier for young people amid critics' claims they were being forced to accept one "by stealth".
"We already need to be able to prove who we are; now, if I want to open a bank account, I have to go down there with a wadge of documents including my passport, my utility bills, my bank statement," she said.
"The idea that that is not giving away more information about myself than a simple ID card I think is wrong.
"We are offering this to young people who are starting out on life and needing to prove their identity when they get their first job, when they get a loan, open a bank account.
"We believe that will help people who perhaps don't have some of the other forms of ID that's now necessary to prove who they are. It is more secure but, more importantly, it's more convenient for people as well."
The Home Secretary said only "relatively thin" amounts of personal data would be kept on the database which would not include medical and tax records or details of access to public services.
And the information would be kept separately from biometric information which would be accessible only to "highly-security cleared individuals with a whole range of other security arrangements".
The database would not be online so was safe from hackers, she insisted.
She confirmed that Parliament would not be asked to consider making ID cards compulsory before the next general election - which must be held by May 2010.
