An Opportunity to Halt the ID scheme

There have been rumours that the new Home Secretary Alan Johnson is "reviewing the ID card" programme. They have been denied, but there is undoubtedly a change of heart among many back bench Labour MPs. In the last three months several new ones have said openly - against party policy - that the project should be cancelled.

Now they have a chance to show they are serious. There is a chance to halt it, at least temporarily. A delay at this stage should go a long way to killing the scheme.

The Identity Cards Act 2006 was never a complete system. It left vast amounts about the card, and the database, enrolment and enforcement, to be determined in regulations. The first batch of those regulations has appeared and MPs will be able to vote against them at a debate scheduled for July. Together they are far longer than the act itself, and there are numerous points of revealing detail and sheer bad drafting which give scope for legal and political attack. If the regulations are not approved by parliament the whole scheme will be stalled.

Please write to your MP now, *particularly if you have a Labour MP* and ask them to vote against the new statutory instruments that would allow the ID scheme to begin.

It is easy to contact your MP via http://www.writetothem.com/

Those key regulations are:

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Application and Issue of ID Card and Notification of Changes) Regulations 2009

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111480427_en_1 [The detail that you will have to give to the Home Office about yourself, much much more than the "basic identifying information" ministers keep referring to.]

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Prescribed Information) Regulations 2009 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111480434_en_1 [What will be kept on the cards - but not yet anything about the national identity register database and how it might work.]

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Designation) Order 2009 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111479056_en_1

[The first of potentially many such. Provides for some people to be forced onto the system because joining will be a condition of *applying* for another official document that they need.]

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Fees) Regulations 2009 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111479070_en_1

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Information and Code of Practice on Penalties) Order 2009 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111479087_en_1 [The unfair rules that will be used to punish non-compliance.]

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Provision of Information without Consent) Regulations 2009 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111479063_en_1 [Sets out who the information may be passed to once the IPS has it.

Audit trail information will go to: police, intelligence services, and SOCA, *and to anyone else they authorise* - so we are immediately beyond government promise - plus HMRC, who can't however authorise it to be given to third parties. Further, non-audit trail information - such as document numbers, names and addresses, signatures and fingerprints,

quite enough to be keys for other searches or massive identity fraud - may be provided to the Home Office and MoJ, DWP, DoT and FCO. Records of what information has been given to whom and why may be destroyed after 12 months or less.]

The Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2009 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/uksi_20090819_en_1 [Expands the 'ID cards for foreigners' system vastly by extending it to more categories of people (for example, spouses of British citizens, visiting artists and academics) who are only being treated as a threat in order to justify ID cards for all.]