The controversy in the UK around the introduction of an 'entitlement card' was stirred up again last week by the Home Office (the Ministry of Internal Affairs for England and Wales). The Sunday Telegraph reported that Home Secretary David Blunkett (the minister) intends to charge people 35 - 43 euros for the cards. Thus he hopes to win over the Treasury department who balked at the estimated cost of 2.3 billion euros. Blunkett seems convinced that people's concerns over terrorism and immigration would mean that they would not object to the cost of the card.

Another issue raised in the consultation was the type of identity verification that would be used on the card. The Home office proposed the use of iris scans while opponents believed that such a technology was not sufficiently developed for large scale implementation and that people would resist the idea of having their eyes scanned. Despite these concerns iris recognition is still being considered.

Identity cards are seen as a highly contentious issue within the UK where no scheme has existed since 1957. A conservative Government evaluated a modern scheme in the mid 1990s but was unable to garner sufficient public support as people's privacy concerns outweighed the perceived advantages of an identity card. Following the events of 11 September Blunkett revived the initiative to combat terrorism, illegal immigration, benefit fraud and identity theft.

In July 2002 the Home Office initiated a public consultation about introducing an 'entitlement card'. Up to the beginning of January 2003 the Government had received 2000 responses to the consultation. It claimed that these were broadly in favour of the scheme though critics argued that many of these submissions were from companies hoping to benefit from the implementation of a card system. During January 2003 civil rights groups including STAND.org and EDRI-member Privacy International raised the profile of the debate within the mainstream press. This activity meant that a further 5000 comments were submitted before the end of the consultation exercise on 31 January. Many of these submissions are expected to be critical of the Governments proposals. Concerns include 'function creep' with the card being required for more purposes over time, the vulnerability of a central database, the likelihood of a card addressing the issues given for its introduction and the cost of implementing such a large project.

Article in the Sunday Telegraph (20.04.2003)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F2...

UK Government consultation pages
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/comrace/entitlements/index.html

Privacy International's UK entitlement card pages
http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/idcard/uk/

(Contribution by Matthew Postgate, FIPR)