COMMENT

We need ID cards to secure our borders and ease modern life

By Tony Blair
 

On any list of public concerns, illegal immigration, crime, terrorism and identity fraud would figure towards the top. In each, identity abuse is a crucial component. It is all part of a changing world: global mass migration; easier travel; new services and new technologies constantly being accessed. The case for ID cards is a case not about liberty but about the modern world. Biometrics give us the chance to have secure identity and the bulk of the ID cards' cost will have to be spent on the new biometric passports in any event.

I am not claiming ID cards, and the national identity database that will make them effective, are a complete solution to these complex problems. That is the tactic of opponents who suggest that, if their introduction is unable to prevent all illegal immigration or every terrorist outrage, they are somehow worthless. What I do believe strongly is that we can't ignore the advances in biometric technology in a world in which protection and proof of identity are more important than ever.

Nor is the Government alone in believing that biometrics offer us a massive opportunity to secure our identities. Firms across the world are already using fingerprint or iris recognition. More than 50 countries are developing biometric passports. France, Italy and Spain plan to make their ID cards biometric. Visitors to the United States now digitally record their fingerprint, and new UK passports from last month must carry a facial biometric. We also know how effective it can be. In trials using this new technology on visa applications at just nine overseas posts, our officials have already uncovered 1,400 people trying to get back into the UK illegally.

A national identity system will have direct benefits in making our borders more secure and countering illegal immigration. Biometric visas and residence cards are central to our plans and will be introduced ahead of ID cards. I also want to see ID cards made compulsory for all non-EU foreign nationals looking for work and when they get a National Insurance number. This will enable us, for the first time, to check accurately those coming into our country, their eligibility to work, for free hospital treatment or to claim benefits.

I am convinced, as are our security services, that a secure identity system will help us counter terrorism and international crime. Terrorists routinely use multiple identities – up to 50 at a time – to hide and confuse. This is something al-Qa'eda train people at their camps to do. It will also help us tackle the problem of identity fraud, which already costs £1.7 billion annually – a figure that has increased by 500 per cent in recent years. 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.

The National Identity Register will 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 between the cracks. Crime detection rates, which fell steadily for decades, should also be boosted. Police, who will have access to the national database, will be able to compare 900,000 outstanding crime-scene marks with fingerprints held centrally.

This is how a national identity system will help tackle some of the major challenges facing our country. However, I believe its benefits go beyond helping us counter problems. Biometric technology will enable us, in a relatively short period of time, to cut delays, improve access and make secure a whole array of services. By giving certainty in asserting our identity and simplicity in verifying it, biometrics will do away with the need for producing birth certificates, driving licences, NI and NHS numbers, utility bills and bank statements for the simple task of proving who we are. A national identity system will quickly become part of the national infrastructure. It should prevent us having to tell every agency individually when we move house. In future, we could be automatically alerted when our passports are running out.

So these are the benefits against which we have to gauge the disadvantages of introducing a secure national identity system. There are three main lines of attack — the civil liberties argument, effectiveness and cost. I know this will outrage some people but, in a world in which we daily provide information to a whole host of companies and organisations and willingly carry a variety of cards to identify us, I don't think the civil liberties argument carries much weight.

More than two million shoppers in the US already use a "Pay by Touch" system that links their fingerprints to their bank accounts, and a similar system is on trial here in the UK. Parliament has attached important safeguards to the scheme, which should meet reasonable concerns. Individuals will have the right to see what information is held on them; the register will not contain medical records or tax and benefits information; full accreditation will be required for any organisation that wishes to use the data – and they will have to get consent from each individual before they access their details.

It was also very clear from last week's arguments about surveillance and the DNA database that the public, when anyone bothers to ask them, are overwhelmingly behind CCTV being used to catch or deter hooligans, or DNA being used to track down those who have committed horrific crimes. And that's what surveys suggest, too, about their position on ID cards.

Then there is the argument that ID cards and the national register simply will not work. This rests largely on the past failures, which I accept exist, of IT projects of all governments. This, however, seems to me an argument not to drop the scheme but to ensure it is done well. There are plenty of examples of how this can be achieved. The Passport Service database, which holds 70 million records, has already issued 2.5 million biometric passports since March.

That leaves the cost to the individual. Here, too, there has been some confusion. I simply don't recognise some of the figures that have been attached to ID cards which, too often, include the costs of biometric passports. This is unfair and inaccurate. We will have no choice but to have a biometric passport, if we want to travel abroad. The United States has started to require them. This will soon be the case throughout the world. On present estimates, biometric passports make up 70 per cent – or around £66 – of the cost of the combined passports/ID cards we want. The additional cost of the ID cards will be less than £30 — or £3 a year for their 10-year lifespan. Not a bad price for the problems I am convinced they will help us tackle and for the benefits they will bring.