THUS Magazine

A Ms Sample has stolen Jacqui Smith's identity

I’ve been sleeping much better these days now that I can look forward to a lovely identity card coming along sometime soon with my new passport. It’s great to know that I shall have my very own unique identity secured in digital format, no expense spared. I’ll no doubt be getting a full life history to go along with it. It will probably know more about me than I do myself. By Jim Hare. 

It’s certainly going to be great fun for the Executive, thinking of all the uses that the card can be put to, all the data that can be collected, all held safely at the heart of government. Where I go for my holidays, where I work, what trains I use, where I shop, the football team I support. The list seems endless. And it will be. It’s not difficult to install card readers – we’ve had them for years – and you can put them more or less anywhere you like. All you need to do is develop the airport approach to life: a swipe of the card adds another few bytes to your digital databank. Great for posterity – you’ll be able to look back and see how many times I went to Asia – or to Asda. 

Don't panic! Identity thieves will be caught on camera

Idyllic as this may sound, I’ve suddenly remembered a book I once read where people were under constant surveillance, their every move watched and recorded. The idea was to keep everyone safe but it achieved the opposite. There was no individual privacy. There was state induced fear, orchestrated by the eponymous Ministry. The foundations of fear were laid by means of a manufactured, constant war. Thank goodness it was fiction. 

The identity card itself seems fairly innocuous. The problem is what it can be made to do, and the accompanying methods and processes for ordinary daily life (the wraparound). The state clearly already knows a good deal about me – tax, health, school, and so on. These all seem relatively sensible, understandable and tolerable. There are valid reasons for the information to be collected, and reasonable ways for me to ensure that it is correct.  

The identity card and what it can bring is a completely different proposition. It is the information and controlling device par excellence – it hits the information jackpot for the state. In effect, the introduction of the identity card is an exercise in massively adding to the power and control of the state. Never mind the argument: if you’ve done nothing, you have nothing to fear. The fundamental issue is that however well- meaning the intention, no-one can be sure that it will not be misused to the detriment of individuals, and of course society as a whole. It’s about more power in the hands of government, quasi-government, and potentially downright non-government organisations, including organised crime. 

The latest technology will ensure complete data privacy

I don’t think that there are sufficient levels of trust or confidence in the state to allow it to acquire such a massive extension to its already large powers and controls. If anything, given the incompetence displayed in more or less every department of state – economic, transport, energy, etc – at best it is clear that the state is a hazard (health and safety speak) to its citizens. What price the introduction of more powers to the state – and very importantly, the insidious introduction that they will have? There is a grave danger that the state will be able to use its new found powers to threaten, exploit, and subjugate.  

The democratic levers that we currently have are a blunt instrument when it comes to dealing with the powers that will be wittingly or unwittingly unleashed on behalf of the state. Even the briefest historical perspective should give pause for quiet reflection of similar sinister episodes in both recent and distant times. Our system of justice and legal processes are not instrumented or sufficiently tuned to arbitrate these matters effectively. 

Consider how the Land of the Free was unable to able to deal with the Guantanamo phenomenon, and that our own House of Commons voted for 42 days detention without charge. We already have the CCTV cameras. Now we’re getting tasers. Where is all this leading? 

By the way, there is absolutely no ideology behind any of these thoughts. Simply the precautionary principle.