NO2ID [1] rejects the Home Secretary’s claim the National Identity Scheme is not a waste because the cost will be recovered by charging people for ID cards [2]. In reality the ‘voluntary’ ID cards are deeply unpopular with only a few thousand in issue [3]. The Home Office plan is to force *everyone* applying for a passport from 2012 to be registered on the ID database, and charge them too, whether they want a card or not.

Contracts already issued, amounting to more than £1 billion of spending [4], could be broken — as opposition parties have promised to do — and significantly greater savings would come from dropping the introduction of fingerprinting to passport applications in two years’ time.

Phil Booth, National Coordinator of NO2ID said,

‘Why throw any more into this money-pit? The government has spent like water for six years on planning it – clearly it intends to waste billions more on this bureaucratic equivalent of gold-bath taps. And whatever Gordon Brown or Alan Johnson may claim, the public still pays.’

Meanwhile, Labour candidates in the North East of England have criticised Liberal Democrat plans to drop the introduction of fingerprinting for biometric passports, claiming that it will cost jobs in their constituencies [5].

The current biometric passport, which contains a digitised version of your photo, complies with all international obligations, the common international standard agreed by the 148 countries in the International Civil Aviation Organisation. There is no need for fingerprints or a database of personal details. As researchers at the LSE Identity Project point out, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. have all rejected the inclusion of fingerprints in their passports [6].

James Elsdon-Baker, North of England Coordinator for NO2ID said,

‘They may be trying to defend the indefensible, but Labour candidates are just muddled about ‘ID jobs’. Whether it’s indirectly from the public purse or directly from people’s pockets, the money has to come from somewhere. The question is: what do you want to spend it on?’

‘£400 million over ten years would appear to get you 1000 beat coppers, 1300 teachers or 1600 new nurses… or 80 people working for De La Rue near Durham.’

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1. NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing, and http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how it all fits together.

   NO2ID’s ‘Don’t be a guinea-pig’ campaign is at: http://www.idcardcon.org/

2. Speaking during the crime debate on the BBC’s Daily Politics programme, Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: ‘The money all comes back because we charge for ID cards. If we stop now you’ve wasted all the capital investment and you get no money back because we will charge for the ID card.’ See http://www.kable.co.uk/id-cards-johnson-grayling-huhne-debate-21apr10
3. Despite being pushed to students as a (very expensive and bureaucratic) proof-of-age card, the 11,000 ID cards issued to date equate to less than 5% of the annual PASS-accredited cards issued annually. See http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news.ma/article/86712 . Having spent £1.3 million on advertising — approximately £130 per card issued to date — ‘voluntary’ sign-up rates are still only 0.1-0.2% of all those who qualify to apply.
4. CSC’s contract is for £385 million and IBM’s £265 million http://www.itpro.co.uk/610443/ibm-and-csc-win-big-id-card-contracts and smartcard specialist De La Rue will be paid £400 million http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2244006/government-awards-400m-contract
5. See http://www.sundaysun.co.uk/news/north-east-news/2010/04/18/rivals-call-for-clarity-over-lib-dem-passport-plans-79310-26263887/
6. See http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/election/?p=1244

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:

• Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator at no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
• Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary at no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
• Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer at no2id.net) on 07773 376 166

The Labour manifesto [1] makes several misleading statements on the National Identity Scheme. It says:

• “The new biometric ID scheme which already covers foreign nationals will be offered to an increasing number of British citizens, but will not be compulsory for them.” — From 2012, registration on the ID database (the National Identity Register) will be compulsory for anyone needing a passport, i.e. approximately 80% of the population. The government says this is not compulsory because you can choose to avoid it – by never leaving the country for the rest of your life.
• “In the next Parliament ID cards and the ID scheme will be self-financing.” — Even ignoring the hundreds of millions spent on the scheme so far, contracts in excess of half a billion pounds have been awarded, and the very low sign-up rates for ‘voluntary’ ID cards [2] suggest that the scheme could easily be a billion pounds in the red by the end of 2012.
• “The price of the passport and ID cards together with savings from reduced fraud across the public services will fully cover the costs of the scheme.” — Claims that ID cards will significantly reduce public sector are disproved by even the government’s own published studies. Almost all benefit fraud relates to lying about circumstances, not false identity [3].

Claims that ID cards “will help fight the growing threat of identity theft and fraud, as well as crime, illegal immigration and terrorism” are not convincing. In fact, the cards are being pushed to students as a (very
expensive and bureaucratic) proof of age card.

Phil Booth, National Coordinator of NO2ID [4] said,

“Labour may be trying to downplay the deeply unpopular ID scheme, but all the other parties have promised to scrap it. Gordon Brown seems happy to deceive voters now about how they will be forced to ‘volunteer’. Does he hope they won’t notice until it is too late?”

“The scheme cannot magically pay for itself. ‘Self-financing’ just means charging the public direct — the ID scheme means paying money just to be yourself.”

Notes for editors:

1. http://www2.labour.org.uk/uploads/TheLabourPartyManifesto-2010.pdf
2. e.g. http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=11901 ‘ID cards face struggle in North West’, 20/1/10 or http://www.wigantoday.net/wigannews/Thumbs-down-to-ID-cards.6219669.jpg ‘Thumbs down to ID cards’, 12/4/10. Even having spent £1.3 million on advertising (£130 per card issued to date) sign-up rates of 0.1 – 0.2% will come nowhere near to covering the Home Office’s own projected costs.
3. In past government estimates of the cost of identity fraud, DWP figures for claims under false identity were estimated at £20-50 million of approximately £2 billion per year in fraudulent claims.
4. NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing, and http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how it all fits together.

NO2ID’s ‘Don’t be a guinea-pig’ campaign is at: http://www.no2id.net/idcardcon/

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:

• Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
• Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
• Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166
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