NO2ID

From the PM:

The e-petition to "scrap the proposed introduction of ID cards" has now closed. The petition stated that "The introduction of ID cards will not prevent terrorism or crime, as is claimed. It will be yet another indirect tax on all law-abiding citizens of the UK". This is a response from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

The petition calling for the Government to abandon plans for a National ID Scheme attracted almost 28,000 signatures - one of the largest responses since this e-petition service was set up. So I thought I would reply personally to those who signed up, to explain why the Government believes National ID cards, and the National Identity Register needed to make them effective, will help make Britain a safer place.

The petition disputes the idea that ID cards will help reduce crime or terrorism. While I certainly accept that ID cards will not prevent all terrorist outrages or crime, I believe they will make an important contribution to making our borders more secure, countering fraud, and tackling international crime and terrorism. More importantly, this is also what our security services - who have the task of protecting this country - believe.

So I would like to explain why I think it would be foolish to ignore the opportunity to use biometrics such as fingerprints to secure our identities. I would also like to discuss some of the claims about costs - particularly the way the cost of an ID card is often inflated by including in estimates the cost of a biometric passport which, it seems certain, all those who want to travel abroad will soon need.

In contrast to these exaggerated figures, the real benefits for our country and its citizens from ID cards and the National Identity Register, which will contain less information on individuals than the data collected by the average store card, should be delivered for a cost of around £3 a year over its ten-year life.

But first, it's important to set out why we need to do more to secure our identities and how I believe ID cards will help. We live in a world in which people, money and information are more mobile than ever before. Terrorists and international criminal gangs increasingly exploit this to move undetected across borders and to disappear within countries. Terrorists routinely use multiple identities - up to 50 at a time. Indeed this is an essential part of the way they operate and is specifically taught at Al-Qaeda training camps. One in four criminals also uses a false identity. ID cards which contain biometric recognition details and which are linked to a National Identity Register will make this much more difficult.

Secure identities will also help us counter the fast-growing problem of identity fraud. This already costs £1.7 billion annually. There is no doubt that building yourself a new and false identity is all too easy at the moment. Forging an ID card and matching biometric record will be much harder.

I also believe that the National Identity Register will help police bring those guilty of serious crimes to justice. They will be able, for example, to compare the fingerprints found at the scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes against the information held on the register. Another benefit from biometric technology will be to improve the flow of information between countries on the identity of offenders.

The National Identity Register will also help improve protection for the vulnerable, enabling more effective and quicker checks on those seeking to work, for example, with children. It should make it much more difficult, as has happened tragically in the past, for people to slip through the net.

Proper identity management and ID cards also have an important role to play in preventing illegal immigration and illegal working. The effectiveness on the new biometric technology is, in fact, already being seen. In trials using this technology on visa applications at just nine overseas posts, our officials have already uncovered 1,400 people trying illegally to get back into the UK.

Nor is Britain alone in believing that biometrics offer a massive opportunity to secure our identities. Firms across the world are already using fingerprint or iris recognition for their staff. France, Italy and Spain are among other European countries already planning to add biometrics to their ID cards. Over 50 countries across the world are developing biometric passports, and all EU countries are proposing to include fingerprint biometrics on their passports. The introduction in 2006 of British e-passports incorporating facial image biometrics has meant that British passport holders can continue to visit the United States without a visa. What the National Identity Scheme does is take this opportunity to ensure we maximise the benefits to the UK.

These then are the ways I believe ID cards can help cut crime and terrorism. I recognise that these arguments will not convince those who oppose a National Identity Scheme on civil liberty grounds. They will, I hope, be reassured by the strict safeguards now in place on the data held on the register and the right for each individual to check it. But I hope it might make those who believe ID cards will be ineffective reconsider their opposition.

If national ID cards do help us counter crime and terrorism, it is, of course, the law-abiding majority who will benefit and whose own liberties will be protected. This helps explain why, according to the recent authoritative Social Attitudes survey, the majority of people favour compulsory ID cards.

I am also convinced that there will also be other positive benefits. A national ID card system, for example, will prevent the need, as now, to take a whole range of documents to establish our identity. Over time, they will also help improve access to services.

The petition also talks about cost. It is true that individuals will have to pay a fee to meet the cost of their ID card in the same way, for example, as they now do for their passports. But I simply don't recognise most claims of the cost of ID cards. In many cases, these estimates deliberately exaggerate the cost of ID cards by adding in the cost of biometric passports. This is both unfair and inaccurate.

As I have said, it is clear that if we want to travel abroad, we will soon have no choice but to have a biometric passport. We estimate that the cost of biometric passports will account for 70% of the cost of the combined passports/id cards. The additional cost of the ID cards is expected to be less than £30 or £3 a year for their 10-year lifespan. Our aim is to ensure we also make the most of the benefits these biometric advances bring within our borders and in our everyday lives.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Blair

Where's the bit about 'SILENCE you disgusting plebian pig-dogs! Tis I, the Blair, and III HAAAVE COMMANDEDDDDDD!'
Blair-Man!

I hope that those of us using a webmail service such as gmail remembered to click the "report as spam" button.


Or perhaps we now need a campaign to encourage every one of the recipeients to reply with more detailed objections

Strangely enough, I got that message from the prime minister too. Now it is time for everyone to reply ...

Our press release, in response:

Tony Blair didn't bother to reply to me when I wrote to him to explain I was leaving the Labour Party because of his ID card scheme, but he now writes to me with the usual cocktail of spin and half-truths - what a cheek.

Why is the petition closed, by the way?

Is that 'unfair' as in using the honours system to secure party funding?

And is that 'inaccurate' as in the claim that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction?

It's about time this unprecedentedly vile government was shovelled back into the cess-pit from which they climbed, I will personally volunteer to stand on the lid forever when that has been done. Anyone care to join me? We could all amuse ourselves by singing 'Things can only get better' in the hope our muffled voices will reach them as they drown in their own sewage.

He is about as sincere as that computer voice that "apologises" when your train's late/cancelled.

That should be his next job after No 10. It would better fit his skills profile of insincerity coupled with false charm.

Fascinating that dear Tony has decided to respond to us all 'personally' just when dear Dave's party has let it be known that they'll scrap the scheme if they come to power. Up until then we were completely ignored.

Almost enough to make you vote Tory *shudders*

Why don't polititians have proper first names anymore?

We're still being ignored. But now we are being ignored by email!

Can't help feeling that sending these emails carries a thinly veiled threat that translates to 'we know who you are and this is on your file'. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but you know what they say...

I think the email when decoded meant..
I don't care what you think, i already knew people would object.
I know better and im going to try bring you round & go ahead whether you like it or not m8y!

Saddening to me that that mass email is more fact less and unconvincing than an email attempting to sell me potency pills.

I have replied but am not holding my breath.

Either that or Blair is off with the fairies...

There's no point writing to someone who already opposes ID cards. We've heard all the lies before and none of it is going to justify the loss of our private lives or making us subject to the whims of officials.

I like the way he's changed his tune on this one:


So it's more than a passport now eh, Dear Leader?

Because the person who put it up gave it an unreasonably short expiry time - rather counterproductive!

Is there anything to stop someone putting up a new anti-ID Card petition? Or, maybe, specifically an anti-NIR petition?

Can't see any harm in having one permanently running.

This is what I love about these 'debates' as they call them. You say you don't want ID cards. They tell you why they believe you should have them. And then they make you have them. And that's it!

Yes, then they come up with something more elaborate when its proved it adds no benefit at all.

I just love the PM's dramatic use of irony at the end...

"Yours sincerely"

This is the third 'personal reply' i've got from Bliar and they all have this tone...


Andy

Yeah, well Tony we're embroiled in an almighty mess in Iraq because of what you believed about WMDs. Forgive me if I'm not falling over myself to back a scheme because you believe it's a good idea.

Yeah, well they don't have a great track record vis-a-vis believing things that turn out to be a load of old cobblers either.

If you're reading this, Tony, which I'm sure you are, I have a brilliant idea which will save millions and deliver all the benefits you list with none of the costs. Don't introduce ID cards, use supermarket store cards instead! After all:

All that you have to do is introduce legislation that allows the powers-that-be to access that subset of information on our store cards that would have been on the putative ID cards and you're sorted!

I shall expect my peerage in the post.

There is one currently running here

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/IDreferendum/

But it asks for a referendum. The problem with this is if you get one and it goes against you I suppose you will have to abide by it.

He didn't reply to me either, when I wrote to him promising that when he appears in the Hague on charges of committing war-crimes, I'd roast a pig in his honour.

Why has this petition been shut down? According to the site:



Can anyone confirm that either of these conditions were met, or are we being shut down to save face?