This statement was sent out this week by the No2ID Campaign ...
Once more government spin has triumphed and much of the media has got it wrong. The new Home Secretary Alan Johnson has not made any significant changes to the scheme. Compulsion by stealth is still the order of the day, just as it always was. Someone joining the ID scheme 'voluntarily' will still be placing control of their identity in the hands of the IPS for life.
The Home Office line remains the same. No compulsion (as the Home Office defines it) was going to be applied until almost everyone had 'volunteered' and then it was only a matter of rounding up a minority of resisters and marginalised people.
The Home Office's idea of "voluntary" is not the same as yours and mine. Since 2004 the scheme was (and it still is) to proceed by "designating" one-by-one under the Identity Cards Act 2006 other documents issued by official bodies - in the first place passports.
Once a document has been designated, you won't be able to apply for one without also applying to be entered, for life, on the national identity register. If you don't agree to be registered it won't be that you are refused (say) a passport; you'd have voluntarily decided not to apply. There's no compulsion to have a passport. It is useful for travelling. But you aren't compelled to travel.
Or (say) to drive. Or to work as a security guard. Or with children. Or in healthcare. To get parole from prison. To practice as a lawyer. Any official licence, registration certificate or permit can be designated, and - in the home office's skewed logic - handing control of your identity to the Home Office's Identity and Passport Service will still be entirely voluntary.
That they were due for a confrontation with the airside workers' unions over designating new passes at Manchester and City Airports is an illustration of just how voluntary "voluntary" really is. But the fact they have now ducked that fight for political convenience suggests saying no does work - if you say it loudly enough.
It is still not too late for MPs to derail the scheme by repudiating the regulations due to be debated next week and detailed in the last newsletter. Only one of those statutory instruments has been dropped. If you have not done so already, please write to your MP.
(NO2ID's lobbying guide, written for us by the former assistant of a very distinguished retired minister, is brusque but absolutely to the point: see it here).
Peers will also have a vote on this; so if you happen to know one (or be one), then it would be a good idea to alert friends in the Lords that the matter is soon to come up.
The GOS says: I'm just going to say it again so it's crystal clear. ID Cards haven't gone away, they've just slipped under the covers a bit. It was never the little bit of plastic that anyone objected to - let's face it, we all carry bits of plastic around with "Visa", "Mastercard" and "Blockbuster Video" on, and very useful they are too.
No, the dangerous and sinister thing is the database, the massive computer record that will hold every detail of our private lives, to be lost, stolen or sold to anyone who wants them. And that hasn't gone anywhere - it's just that the government has reluctantly decided not to "make" us all provide our details, but to cheat us into doing so instead.
Just how thick do these people think we are?
Don't answer that. I think we all know ...
Can I remind you of this page which carries the actual text and details of the ID Card legislation ...
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
Copyright © 2008 The GOS
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