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Common sense from Chakrabati
Shami Chakrabarti
Director of Liberty |
Tony Blair recently gave a monthly briefing during which he attempted to justify ID cards. Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty made a series of valid statements criticising Blair's and, by implication, the government's position on this by stating on 6th November 2006, "The Prime Minister today presented a false choice between civil liberties and “modernity”. At this stage in his career, he might reflect more and patronize less. Does the public that he claims to speak for really want a future devoid of all the rights and freedoms which previous generations of Britons fought to defend?”
Liberty considers the ID Cards Bill will fundamentally change the relationship between individual and state and have a detrimental impact on race relations, adversely affecting vulnerable groups in society. In addition, they will intrude on privacy as the amount of information held on the database and the uses made of that information will increase dramatically.
Liberty points out a fundamental issue concerning the inability of the government to predict costs because the track record of the Government on IT projects has been poor thereby making this project a huge financial risk.
According to Emancipation, the poor Government track record on delvery of IT systems is not only an issue of costs but has direct implications on the ability of Government to to keep records adequately protected. Delayed projects imply poor planning and implementation and reflect deficient professional standards. Large IT projects are normally easily hacked into meaning that data security and personal data is difficult to protect. On the other hand there has been a serious penetration of personal data within the public sector IT projects on the part of people, such as managers, who have absolutely no professional justification to access such information. The public health field is a good example of this sort of abuse. In this general context Liberty point out that there is no auditing process to ensure information is accurate, information sharing powers are too broad and a proposed Identity Card Commissioner has insufficient power.
Liberty does not accept that ID cards will have any particular benefit and arguments that they will protect the UK from terrorist attack are unconvincing because the men responsible for the 9/11 and Madrid terrorist attacks had valid identification.
Liberty web site
Emancipation web site
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