\n<\/p>\n
The proposal for compulsory digital ID cards strikes at the heart of what it means to be British (Starmer to unveil digital ID cards in plan set to ignite civil liberties row, 25 September). Our unwritten constitution rests on the hard-won principle that we are citizens, not subjects of the government. Free people who are not required to carry papers at the demand of authority \u2013 an authority that is our servant, not our master. At present, the state may ask us for identification, but it cannot compel us. That distinction is not a quibble of law but a line in the sand \u2013 it defines the relationship between people and power.<\/p>\n
Britain has long stood apart from continental traditions of state surveillance. The freedom to go about one\u2019s business without having to show papers has always been more than a convenience; it is a quiet assertion of dignity, liberty and trust in the people. To surrender that would not be a mere technical change, but a constitutional rupture. We should resist it with all the clarity and passion such a betrayal deserves. Your report says \u201cTony Blair\u2019s plans for ID cards were abandoned in the 2000s\u201d \u2013 this is not quite right. The Identity Cards Act received royal assent in 2006. Steps were then taken to implement it, including issuing cards (I used mine instead of a passport on various occasions). Jacqui Smith, the then home secretary, announced in 2008 that by 2014-15, 90% of all foreign nationals in the country would have been issued with a card.<\/p>\n However, the first act of Theresa\u00a0May when she became home secretary in 2010 was to repeal the legislation, abandon ID cards and set up a photocall to physically destroy the hard disk containing the data on the national identity register. Her decision severely weakened this country\u2019s capacity to control immigration, with the disastrous consequences we see today. I am delighted that this government is intending to re-establishing a modernised\u00a0digital system. As a retired director of IT, I find myself screaming when I hear politicians misrepresent how a digital ID would work. It is clear that they have only a rudimentary grasp of IT when they talk about \u201ccarrying a digital ID on your smartphone\u201d. This is not how the system would work.<\/p>\n What is proposed is for anyone with the right to live and work in the UK to have their biometric details (typically, photograph and fingerprints) held on a government database. This already happens in many cases (eg when applying for a passport or a work visa).<\/p>\n As well as the risks of holding such data centrally, there is the issue of how the data will be accessed. Yes, you might be able to carry a copy on a smartphone, but how secure is your phone? A lot of people sacrifice security for convenience. Yes, an employer might need to access the database,\u00a0but how will that be controlled? This is a\u00a0can of worms and I wish politicians could\u00a0explain\u00a0it accurately. Why does Keir Starmer not mention the most important advantage of ID cards, that they make it easier and simpler to vote? The framing of the issue in terms of controlling immigration rather than strengthening democracy speaks volumes about how far his government has abandoned the last\u00a0vestiges of socialism. Even when it does the right thing, it is for\u00a0the wrong reasons. Here in France, where I\u2019ve lived since 1997, ID cards are a major convenience. They\u2019re invaluable when registering a car, dealing with banks, applying for loans, entering hospital and many other everyday situations. Over the border in Spain, hotel receptionists ask for them during check-in. Nobody here understands the paranoia in a Britain. But our ID cards are physical. If I was Keir Starmer, I\u2019d introduce paper ones and forget digital. I doubt unscrupulous employers hiring illegal migrants, or the migrants themselves, are going to be deterred by a national identity card that seeks to stop both parties from breaking the law. They already know they\u2019re doing that. It\u2019s called the \u201cshadow economy\u201d for a reason. I assume those whose opposition to a digital ID is based on the threat posed by having their data stored on a central computer system will\u00a0no longer be visiting EU countries once they are forced to provide fingerprints and a photograph to travel to those countries (Will the EU\u2019s new fingerprint entry system cause gridlock? The Guardian tried it out, 27 September). Why the fuss about ID cards? I still have my national registration identity card, issued in 1943 and signed by my father. I treasure it. Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The proposal for compulsory digital ID cards strikes at the heart of what it means to be British (Starmer to unveil digital ID cards in plan set to ignite civil liberties row, 25 September). Our unwritten constitution rests on the hard-won principle that we are citizens, not subjects of the government. Free people who are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[7637,1136,14999,4171,1121,635,6028,1436],"class_list":{"0":"post-24714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-cards","9":"tag-digital","10":"tag-feelings","11":"tag-identity","12":"tag-labours","13":"tag-mandatory","14":"tag-mixed","15":"tag-plan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Dorian Kelly<\/strong>
Colchester, Essex<\/em><\/p>\n
Charles Clarke<\/strong>
Home secretary, 2004-06<\/em><\/p>\n
John Robinson<\/strong>
Deal, Kent<\/em><\/p>\n
Andrew Halliday<\/strong>
Bremen, Germany<\/em><\/p>\n
Martin Castellan<\/strong>
L\u00e9ran, Ari\u00e8ge, France<\/em><\/p>\n
Mike Galvin<\/strong>
Winchcombe, Gloucestershire<\/em><\/p>\n
Mike Lowcock<\/strong>
Sandbach, Cheshire<\/em><\/p>\n
Helen Evans<\/strong>
Ruthin, Denbighshire<\/em><\/p>\n