Speech by the Prime Minister on 6 November 2006 about identity cards
I want today to explain why a secure identity system is so important. This is a vital part of the changes happening in how we manage issues of security in the modern world. Rightly it is now centre stage of the political debate.
The world is more mobile than ever before. Capital moves freely across national boundaries. Information is transmitted digitally, in an instant. Trade growth. We now have large-scale movement of people around the world, with 30 million non-EU foreign nationals passing through the UK every year.
But the open world brings with it new problems too. Identity theft for financial gain, illegal immigration and illegal working have all increased. 1 in 4 criminals use false identities. Some terrorist suspects have as many as 50 assumed identities. Indeed this has been part of the training at Al Qaeda camps.
The advent of new biometric technology has completely changed the argument in how we combat these challenges. It means a national identity system has benefits that it has never before had. It explains why we need to do this now. There are four benefits to citizens that I want to set out today.
First, there is a direct benefit in making the nation’s borders more secure. We can be clear who is here; improve the integrity of our asylum system; reduce illegal immigration; and disrupt terrorist activity.
The e-borders programme will, in time, let us count people in and out. We will be able to screen individuals before they’ve left home. In trials using biometrics on visa applications at just 9 overseas posts, we have identified over 1400 people who previously claimed asylum or flouted UK immigration laws, trying to return.
Illegal working would be very hard. An employer would simply need to check a person’s unique reference number against the identity register to demonstrate that the employee was permitted to work in the UK. We plan to make biometric ID compulsory for non-EEA foreign nationals coming here to work and for those applying for a national insurance number, from 2008.
Terrorists and criminals currently use false and multiple identities to avoid detection and launder money. One of the September 11th hijackers used 30 different identities to obtain credit cards and a quarter of a million dollars of debt.
The second benefit is the improved protection we can offer to the most vulnerable. At the moment, checking the identity of potential employees is complex and bureaucratic.
The National Identity Register will allow people to know that their prospective nanny, child minder or carer is indeed the person they claim to be. Their criminal record can be searched rapidly, easily.
Criminal detection is the third potential benefit. Over the past 50 years, the detection rate halved. We have reversed that trend over the last two years, but with secure ID we can speed up those improvements. We will be able to compare 900,000 outstanding crime scene marks with fingerprints held centrally.
The fourth benefit is the prevention of fraud. There were 135,000 cases of identity fraud in 2005 with over 55,000 reported cases in the private sector. Identity fraud already costs the country £1.7bn a year. And the value of major fraud cases in the crown courts is also at record levels.
Less than 50 per cent of consumers feel their identity is safe. On in ten say they have been a victim of ID fraud.
The enterprising criminal has it fairly easy at the moment. Searching through the rubbish can provide him with all he needs to steal an identity. But forging an ID card and a matching biometric record will be quite another matter.
So the benefits of a good identity system are very clear: secure borders; a protective shield for the vulnerable; better detection of crime; fraud prevention. The harder you look the more benefits you see. Let’s weigh them against the criticisms.
People say that government just can’t do large-scale IT projects. I don’t suppose many of you have heard of the DWP’s Payment Programme. 22.5 million accounts now paid directly. Delivered on time, under budget. Or the Identity Passport Service database of British Passport records. 70 million records. They have issued 2.5 million biometric passports since March.
There are those who will criticise ID cards into the last ditch. They say the cost is irrelevant. We are, they say, simply trading too much of our liberty.
What was interesting about last week’s debate about ASBOs, DNA and surveillance, is that buried in the body of the reports was the voice of real people. And unsurprisingly the public don’t have a problem with being protected from thugs, or having CCTV cameras that catch murderers or DNA that solves horrendous crimes that left victims and families without justice for 20 years.
But there must always be safeguards. Individuals will have the right to see what information is held on them; the register will not contain medical records, tax or benefits information and full accreditation will be required for any organisation to access the data with the individual’s consent.
Then there is the cost.
But the key point here is that biometric passports are going to be required anyway. The introduction of biometric passports this year has meant that British passport holders have retained their right to visa free travel to the US. The EU has recently agreed to introduce both fingerprint and facial biometrics for member states’ passports within the Schengen area.
This is a reality, whatever we decide to do. We are not acting alone here. This debate is going on in every country. 52 of the 55 largest passport-issuing countries are developing biometric passports or have firm plans to do so. And Italy, Spain, Portugal and France are planning to introduce biometrics in their ID cards.
What this means is that, even if the whole ID card scheme stopped today, 70% of the cost of the combined passport and ID card will be incurred in any case.
The relevant cost of the ID card, for the purposes of this debate, is the premium over the cost of a new, biometric, passport. On current estimates biometric passports will have an average unit cost of £66. An ID card will add less than £30 cost on top of that. This is less than £3 per year over a ten-year card life.
Then, finally, we need to lift our sights a little. I don’t think, in the debate so far, that we have even begun to explore the benefits that we will see in, say, ten years time. The Home Office will produce an action plan in December with follow up agreements about working across Government.
I think of what we are doing as building a new part of our national infrastructure here. And like other such projects the gains to citizens will be much larger and more extensive than anyone could say at the time.
Just think of some of the possible applications. Think of the transactions that could be made a lot easier with secure identity and the reliable database that sits behind it.
Opening a bank account; applying for a mortgage; buying a car; travelling through Europe; shopping on-line; getting a driving licence; notifying all and sundry of a change of address. And there are big gains of tackling benefit fraud and NHS tourism.
It will also make the public service more customised to the individual. Over a lifetime we have hundreds of contacts with different Government agencies. Most of these records do not update each other for basic changes of name or address. Personalising services for individuals is vital but can only be achieved through an effective identity management system.
The real issue here is not privacy or cost, it is modernity. We face some new problems. Biometric technology offers new solutions. But, in addition, we can already glimpse what else might be possible.
