U.K. National ID Card Proposal Delayed

The Nazis had one, and so did the Soviets and apartheid South Africa.  Communist China has one.  And an increasing number of "free" countries have them as well.  Residents of Hong Kong, Singapore and even the Netherlands now have to carry their cards at all times.

What I'm referring to, of course, is a national ID card.  When the authorities ask for it, you MUST present it.  If you don't, you can be fined and in some countries, even imprisoned.

Without your national ID card, you can't leave your home.  In some countries, you can't shop without it.  In others, you need to present your national ID to obtain medical treatment.  Naturally, it's used to track all your financial transactions, your electronic communications, your travel history, etc. 

Governments that promote national ID cards say they're needed as an "anti-crime" measure.  Only, it turns out that the security surrounding any centralized database is often so poor that crime—especially identity theft—rises exponentially.

The United Kingdom is a case in point.  In just the last six months, the U.K. government:

• Lost two CDs containing bank details and addresses of 9.5 million parents and the names, dates of birth and National Insurance numbers of all 15.5 million children in the country;
• Sent 7.25 million parents an apology letter for this breach, with the letter containing much of the same sensitive personal data! 
• Had a Royal Navy officer's laptop stolen which contained personal identifying details of more than 600,000 people.

Not surprisingly, these losses, and similar ones, are causing an explosion in identity theft.  Even the chairman of banking giant Barclays isn't immune.  Earlier this month, the bank announced that a con man had stolen the equivalent of US$20,000 from his personal account in a credit card scam.

Who's taking responsibility for these losses?  Naturally, it's not the government.  Indeed, the U.K. Revenue & Customs agency actually blamed parents for letting their children's details fall into the wrong hands!

Despite its shameful efforts to blame parents for government data losses, the U.K. government has apparently come to realize that forcing a national ID card into existence isn't politically expedient.  A national identity "White Paper" recently proposed delaying the mandatory identification cards until at least 2012.  A voluntary scheme will begin in 2009 for U.K. citizens renewing their passports.

When that happens, you can count on an explosion in crimes, especially identity theft and forgery.  As security expert Bruce Schneier, author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World, observes:

"ID cards will not reduce crime, fraud or illegal immigration.  Instead, ID cards encourage criminals to attempt forgeries, potentially exacerbating crime rather than reducing it.  Every credential has been forged.  As you make a credential more valuable, there is more impetus to forge it.  And even if we could guarantee that everyone who issued national ID cards couldn't be bribed, initial cardholder identity would be determined by other identity documents ... all of which would be easier to forge.

"But the main problem with any ID system is that it requires the existence of a database.  In this case it would have to be an immense database of private and sensitive information on every citizen -- one widely and instantaneously accessible from airline check-in stations, police cars, schools, and so on.  And when the inevitable worms, viruses, or random failures happen and the database goes down, what then?  Is the whole country supposed to shut down until it's restored?"

National ID cards are also a bad idea not only because the potential for abuse, but because of "surveillance creep:" a technology or law intended for one purpose, winds up being used for many others.

A classic example is the U.S. Social Security card.  Once stamped "not for identification," the number on your Social Security card is now required to file a tax return, open a bank account and to obtain a driver's license.  Does anyone really think national ID cards--including the U.S. "Real ID" initiative--will be any different?

Copyright © 2008 by Mark Nestmann