ID cards: mistaken identity
Less a climbdown, more of a stumble. A glance at some of the papers yesterday [1st July 2009] might have led you to believe that something truly momentous had happened: Alan Johnson, the shiny new home secretary and sometime last-resort leadership hope of desperate Labour MPs, had finally rid the government of its self-imposed policy millstone and binned the ID card scheme.
If only. What Mr Johnson did instead was something much more modest, but which nevertheless erodes yet further the government's case for the identity database. In the face of tremendous trade-union opposition, this former full-time union official called off plans to trial the compulsory ID card among workers at two airports. It is as little and as significant as that. Little, because only 30,000 airport staff were affected by the announcement. Significant, because one of the ragbag of reasons for the introduction of the wretched ID register was that it would enhance airport security. This is not just a pilot scheme that has been scrapped; yet another big hole has been knocked in the justification for the entire project. What was originally dreamed up as a compulsory item to help combat terrorism and benefit fraud is now being sold as an entirely voluntary accessory to be toted by thirsty teens who want to prove to barmen that they can legally buy a pint.
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If you want a passport then you will be added to the ID Card database - whether you 'volunteer' to carry a physical ID Card or not. It has never been about the card itself.
The government's skewed logic is that nobody is required by the state to apply for a passport, therefore forcing people who apply for a voluntary document to go onto the ID database is not compulsion, it's just complying with regulations required to obtain the voluntary document. Such semantic gymnastics can be found in George Orwell's fictional language Newspeak.
Only when this database is dropped will we be free from the spectre of the national identity register.
If only. What Mr Johnson did instead was something much more modest, but which nevertheless erodes yet further the government's case for the identity database. In the face of tremendous trade-union opposition, this former full-time union official called off plans to trial the compulsory ID card among workers at two airports. It is as little and as significant as that. Little, because only 30,000 airport staff were affected by the announcement. Significant, because one of the ragbag of reasons for the introduction of the wretched ID register was that it would enhance airport security. This is not just a pilot scheme that has been scrapped; yet another big hole has been knocked in the justification for the entire project. What was originally dreamed up as a compulsory item to help combat terrorism and benefit fraud is now being sold as an entirely voluntary accessory to be toted by thirsty teens who want to prove to barmen that they can legally buy a pint.
more
If you want a passport then you will be added to the ID Card database - whether you 'volunteer' to carry a physical ID Card or not. It has never been about the card itself.
The government's skewed logic is that nobody is required by the state to apply for a passport, therefore forcing people who apply for a voluntary document to go onto the ID database is not compulsion, it's just complying with regulations required to obtain the voluntary document. Such semantic gymnastics can be found in George Orwell's fictional language Newspeak.
Only when this database is dropped will we be free from the spectre of the national identity register.
posted by Winston Smith at 3:50 PM
2 Comments:
If it was being trialed at a couple of airports, then it was definitely a pilot scheme ... (sorry!)
They're coming at us from several different directions. When the cards arrive we may not even notice them until it's too late.
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