Identity Documentation

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

That this House takes note of the potential use of identity documentation in dealing with the challenges of assuring the identity of individuals.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, it being a Thursday afternoon, I have received many apologies from Members unable to attend this debate, for which we are all grateful. The issue of identity cards is the issue in British politics that refuses to go away; it haunts political debate. It is not that it is the unique preserve of any political party. Identity cards have wide support in both Houses of Parliament, across the political divide and in the electorate.

The Labour Government did at least try to develop a scheme. They started in 2002 with a national consultation under the heading Entitlement Cards and Identity Fraud: A Consultation Document but, following legislation, the whole programme was plagued with arguments over whether it should be a national identity card or an entitlement card. This finally led to a climbdown as it was moved from a compulsory to a voluntary scheme. The 2010 election then killed the whole programme. The national identity register, a crucial component in the scheme, was then destroyed on 10 February 2011. The personal details of everyone issued with a card under the pilots were also destroyed. We are now left with biometric residence permits for non-EEA foreign nationals, but only because Europe requires them and the system of national insurance cards is completely out of control. The coalition effectively destroyed the whole programme, leaving us exposed to an explosion in identity fraud and crime that permeates every aspect of our national life.

Nevertheless, to be fair to the Government, they have recognised the need to tackle the issue, in particular on the internet. With that in mind, the Government’s identity assurance programme, IDAP, was launched. Under the IDAP model, people assert their identities to government via a series of private sector identity providers. I understand that PayPal, Cassidian, Experian, Verizon and a number of others have at some stage been in the frame. However, although they build relationships with HMRC, PAYE, the DVLA and other departments or agencies, they lack access to the necessary biometric data such as fingerprints, digital iris recognition and facial digital photographs. Their programmes are undermined, despite the “hub”, by the lack of a national identity register to underpin the process of identity assurance. I sense that this approach is born of the mistaken assumption that it will save money. What it fails to heed is that public confidence in identity assurance cannot rely on private provider systems preoccupied with profit and shareholder value. Such identity assurance programmes will fall down as disastrously as did Vodafone, PA Consulting, EDS and others, all of which have lost data over recent years.

Card opponents tell you that the state equally stands accused of sloppy data handling. They quote HMRC’s loss of two CDs in 2007, leaving millions at risk, along with other examples. They did happen. But Germany has built a secure system with a reputation for impenetrability based on a range of biometrics. The system leads the way in Europe, and if they can do it, we can do it. Germany is leading a whole group of European nations, including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Gibraltar, France, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Spain, Slovenia, Portugal, Poland and Holland. Most of those regimes require a passport or a card holding data which we refuse to hold. They are all building systems of identity assurance in which their publics can have confidence. Why can we not do the same? That is the background to the debate.

What do we want? Charles Clarke, former Home Secretary, summed it up perfectly in 2006 when he said that we want,

“a universal scheme for everyone legally resident in the UK”.

His scheme required a fingerprint, a photograph and a signature. I would go further, with iris recognition or even DNA added. If whatever data are finally approved were not to be stored on the card itself, the card could secure, through a protocol and a strong process of authentication and tiered authorisation, access to data, perhaps under three headings: “generally available”, “sensitive” and “highly sensitive”. The accessible information on the chip would relate to information held on the national identity register. The chip would have different layers of defence against physical attack, fault attack and side-channel attack. To compromise a properly designed system, you would have to manipulate the national identity register, which I would say is an impossible task. Again, the German system shows the way. I understand that EU passports are already common criteria evaluated, which means they already achieve best practice for attack resistance.

At this point, I thank Professor Keith Mayes of the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway University for helping me to understand the complexity of such systems. The issue for many of us is whether you hold the data on the card or whether the card authorises access to the national identity register. I believe that the cards should be an access tool to a server, enabling the card to establish basic ID as simply as possible.

What is the purpose of the card? We know that the CBI believes that a single source authenticating personal data would be the best protection against fraud. It foresees reduced costs in maintaining back-up systems. A recent government report entitled Future Identities highlighted that people often have several identities, on and offline. We are told that this, among other factors, is now costing us nearly £30 billion a year in fraud. National identity cards with sophisticated biometrics would help combat that fraud. You might compromise a photograph or a signature, but digitised information is hard to replicate. You certainly cannot have two iris patterns on one eye, two different fingerprints on one finger, or even two different types of DNA.

The purposes of a national identity card fall under four headings: to reduce fraud; to establish entitlement to services; to provide security assurance; and to check identity more generally. In defining the benefits, I have consolidated all three tiers and levels of access I previously referred to—generally available, sensitive and highly sensitive. I see the benefits coming as follows: when using banking or financial services, including credit or debit cards; when buying or selling property and vehicles; when making mortgage applications; when making credit transfers; when entering credit, rental, hire or leasing agreements; when boarding aircraft and other forms of public transport; when accessing public buildings and the workplace; when sitting exams and driving tests; when seeking to reduce HMRC’s tax collection costs; when voting; when establishing identity during police inquiries; when tracing the identity of someone who is deceased; when verifying “fit and proper” in the professions; when carrying out checks on workers at airports and in the caring professions, in particular when early decisions are required; when establishing proof of identity; when tackling impersonation, whether in examinations or, as I have said, driving tests; when tracking the background of false accusers; when tracing bail abscondees; when tracing persons engaged in road traffic offences; when dealing with illegal subletting; when accessing public services, public benefits and pensions; when challenging disability fraud; when dealing with council tax and housing benefit fraud; when establishing on-street identity—if I had longer, I would go into that in much greater detail; when establishing entitlements to concessionary travel and relief from congestion charges; and when investigating organised crime, including money-laundering and trafficking.

The card would be of particular benefit to the Government in checking entitlement to European Union health cards and access to national health services, including hospital treatment. It would give the Government the opportunity to sort out the disaster over the allocation of national insurance cards, and the problem of multiple passport irregularities. It would also bring us into line with other states whose cards already substitute for a passport.

Following the Government’s decision to legislate on illegal working, we should also not underestimate the benefit of the card for the private sector—for landlords checking on illegal tenancies, and for insurance companies in dealing with insurance fraud. The scheme should be tailored to allow them sufficient access at the lowest tiers to establish basic identity in carrying out both statutory and non-statutory duties. The scheme would be particularly helpful to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement proposed in the Immigration Bill. It would underpin his work. Most interestingly, the card would be useful in the enforcement of human rights, particularly for that group of women—invariably in the ethnic minorities—who, with tightly controlled family conditions, are denied basic human rights and even their identity.

I now come to the final benefit, which is crucial. Income tax collection in the UK is not without its problems. It is not helped by the system of self-assessment and reductions in revenue and personnel. Many people in the UK live outside or on the margins of the tax system. They pay no or little tax, yet they often earn substantial incomes while drawing extensively on public services. We who pay our taxes resent the freeloaders, be they foreign or UK nationals. We believe that the state should act to stop this abuse. It is costing the country billions. A national identity card with relevant biometric data would be a powerful tool in ensuring that people pay the state for the services they receive.

I recognise that at first glance, the list of benefits I have identified may appear onerous or perhaps even intrusive, but it is a pick-and-choose agenda which can be tailored to conditions nationally at any particular time. It is an agenda whereby identity today is verified with bank cards, passports, driving licences, utility bills, bank statements, council tax demands, national insurance cards and even marriage certificates—all sources of identity information today. We have all been asked for them at some stage in our private lives. All of them have their weaknesses, causing public concern.

The consultation originally carried out by the Labour Government not only recorded a majority in favour of national identity cards but, astonishingly, found that 75% were in favour of providing all three types of biometric data—fingerprints, a facial digital photograph and an iris digital photograph—such was the level of concern at the time. Today, the cry for reform is greater than ever, and I want this whole debate reopened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for initiating this debate. However, I am going to break the cosy coalition of those who believe that the state is the sole, and safe, guardian of my identity. I say that because I have listened to the debate and am still not clear what the problem is. It is not for me, as somebody who does not believe in ID cards, to defend the status quo; it is for those who want a change to prove that there is a problem and that ID cards are the effective solution.

Let us look at the real world outside this cosy Chamber and see what is happening in the countries that have ID cards. Many noble Lords have mentioned different countries, such as Germany, Spain, Italy and France, in talking about crime. Can any of those noble Lords or those yet to speak who wish to have ID cards point to a direct correlation between a reduction in crime levels and the citizens having ID cards? We need proof, not general statements. Those who suggest that ID cards will reduce the incidence of crime should give the statistics that show a correlation between ID cards and a reduction in crime in Germany, Spain and France.

It is also said that ID cards will somehow be effective in reducing terrorism. I remind noble Lords of the horrific attack and terrorist atrocities in Jakarta this morning and the appalling attacks that we have seen just across the water in France. Indonesian citizens carry ID cards, as do the citizens of France. Have those cards made them any safer? If noble Lords can show me a correlation between identity cards and a reduction in terrorism in those countries, I will support them.

We also hear about identity fraud. Again, I would like to see statistical evidence that there is more identity fraud in this country than in countries that have ID cards. I ask noble Lords to show me the facts. Most identity fraud now occurs online, and in the countries that I have just talked about national ID cards are not used to prove your identity in commercial transactions.

Benefit fraud and taxation fraud, which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, talked about, have been given as reasons for bringing in ID cards. Most people do not lie about their identity in such cases; they lie about their financial circumstances. So, again, I ask noble Lords who support the introduction of ID cards to give me the facts which show that in countries with ID cards there is less taxation fraud and less benefit fraud.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Perhaps I may put it to the noble Lord that, if the nature of the population of a particular country changes for whatever reason, his argument falls apart because one is not comparing like with like.

[Lord Scriven]

My Lords, I am comparing like with like, because those who argue that ID cards work are suggesting that somehow the problems that they have suggested will be reduced. The noble Lord next to me made it very clear that he did not believe that they would wipe out these problems, but I am asking for the evidence that shows that they will reduce them: that is all I am asking for. I accept that they will not wipe them out or get rid of them, but I wish to know whether there is scientific evidence in those countries that shows that these problems have been reduced—because if there is not, we do not have a problem and our system works in a comparable way to that of other nations.

The last thing I will say on this issue, because I do not have time to go into the civil liberties argument, is that it is really important for British civil liberties and freedom. Part of what makes us British—the British values that some go on about—is freedom, and the state not having overall control of our identity. In dealing with this issue—and particularly crime and terrorism, where recently this debate has come up most—we would be undermining the very British values of freedom and civil liberty, and the criminals and terrorists would have won, if we were forced to have compulsory ID cards.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for securing this debate and continuing an exchange which we had when he raised his Question in your Lordships’ House recently.

At the outset, let me say that I may well disappoint the noble Lord by the nature of my response, because the Government’s position is that identity cards as described—and certainly as introduced by the previous Labour Government—failed essential tests in that they were expensive. I realise that the sums talked about— £85 million—may not in the current scheme of things seem large, but back in times of austerity in 2010 they were very significant. Where something was not delivering the expected benefits, the decision was made to use that funding elsewhere.

I totally agree with the noble Lord’s analysis of a growing problem. We need to look at it very carefully. A number of noble Lords spoke about the changing nature of commerce and the way the state interacts with citizens, which raise a number of serious questions about how we establish our identity and keep services and information safe. That is why the Government issue a number of identity documents at present. Some 54 million people—84% of the population—have a passport. Increasingly, those passports carry biometric data, which can be used at special e-border gates that are being introduced. Sixty per cent of the population carry a photo driving licence. I understand that that does not apply to the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Harris, but a large proportion of the population does.

Several noble Lords rightly pointed to the fact that, outside of identity cards, there is an EU agreement that all people coming from outside the EEA into that area for a period in excess of six months should be required to have a biometric residence permit. So far, 2 million of those documents have been issued. Moreover, there is a similar European requirement for an application registration card for those claiming asylum in any EEA member country. That applies in this country as well.

I should say at this point that I fully support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about collaboration with our European colleagues on security grounds being critical to the safety and security of people in this country. I shall come to some of the measures to which he referred later.

The first point is that there are already a large number of established and robust identity documents. The British passport is recognised as a gold standard in the international community, in terms of its ability to frustrate the fraudsters and those who would seek to copy these documents. Then there is the legislation we introduced just last year on specialist printing presses, which ought to be clamped down on—and the penalties should be increased.

So we have, first, already a large number of identity documents that could be called upon in certain circumstances to establish and verify people’s identity.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Would the Minister confirm that there are no biometric data in the form to which I referred in my contribution for those 600 UK citizens who have gone to join ISIS and who may well return to the United Kingdom in the near future to carry out terrorist offences? Would he confirm that we do not hold biometric data on those persons, unless they committed a crime in the United Kingdom in the period before they left to go to Syria or Iraq?

[Lord Bates]

In the strict way in which the noble Lord poses the question, of course, the answer would be—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

Well, in one way, of course, that would be the answer. But let me unfold this, if I can. First, as a result of the counterterrorism legislation that we introduced last year, the Government are now able to intervene and seize someone’s passport before they actually leave the country. Secondly, as a result of that legislation there is the ability to have a controlled or managed return for the individual to this country. Additional passenger name recognition registration information needs to be supplied in advance, and since April, we have introduced exit checks for people leaving this country. Therefore, those people would have needed genuine passports, which would have been checked at the border.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

But would they have biometric data?

[Lord Bates]

We do not know the specific type of passports they were travelling with in that instance. But additional elements have been introduced to improve our security, and I may just go through a few of them. Certainly, the passenger name records directive was agreed at the Justice and Home Affairs Council following the Paris attacks last year. We have the biometric residence permit, the application registration card, and the Prüm requirements for the exchange of databases. We are part of the Schengen information-sharing system with our European colleagues, and we are going to be part of the second-generation Schengen system. We are part of the European criminal records information system for sharing data across borders. Of course, I appreciate that people will feel that additional information is required, which is one reason why we are introducing the Investigatory Powers Bill. We are also investing heavily in our border security: £380 million of investment is going into the borders and immigration citizenship system, and the digital services for the border security programme, to which we have committed. We have committed an additional £64.5 million to the Channel ports to improve security there, and we have announced a further £1.9 billion to be spent on intelligence and security matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I am indebted to all noble Lords who have spoken. To the Liberal Democrats who spoke during the debate I say that I fully recognise the traditional commitment to civil liberties of the Liberal Party and its successor, the Liberal Democrats, but I ask them to ponder my case. If my liberty is compromised due to the unfettered and unaccountable actions of another, I have been subject to an injustice. In those circumstances the card helps protect my liberty. That is at the heart of the case that many of us have put. I therefore say to the Liberal Democrats that it may be that in these times they have the whole argument the wrong way round and that they should be thinking more in terms of protecting those whose liberty is accosted or compromised.

The comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, on the inaccuracy of biometrics were very interesting. Would he refer me after the debate or at some later stage to the sources of that information? I promise him that I shall read them in some detail. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for his comments on DNA and, in particular, for his reference to the National DNA Database being secure. Of course, he acted as a Minister here for a department that was responsible for that area of government policy.

I thank my noble friend Lord Berkeley for reinforcing my comment that survival without ID in the United Kingdom is possible; indeed, you can operate outside the system without paying taxes while enjoying all the services. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, for pointing out that the ID card could be a powerful tool in investigating criminal activity.

I fully support my noble friend Lord Simon’s comments on the need to expedite criminal background checks. That is a problem at the moment and the card would certainly help in doing that.

I am very interested in the advanced thinking and perceptive thoughts of my noble friend Lord Maxton, who talked about smartcards for all and, ultimately, the chip in the hand. Can we imagine a society in which we will have a chip in the arm or hand which holds all these data and which itself replaces the card?

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has given me another subject to put on my list of benefits—that is, the benefits within the prison system of greater access to prisoner identity and how that helps the prisoner, not only the prison system. I am very grateful for the debate and I thank noble Lords.

Motion agreed.