Examination of Witnesses (Questions 640
- 659)
TUESDAY 4 MAY 2004
RT HON
DAVID BLUNKETT
MP, MR DESMOND
BROWNE MP, KATHERINE
COURTNEY AND
STEPHEN HARRISON
Q640 Mr Prosser: Home Secretary,
I want to just follow up on some of those questions about the
practicalities of coming to the identity card system. The Home
Office has already described to the Committee a potential scheme
of card checking which ranges from a basic check, which checks
that a person looks like their picture on the card, to phone checks
which checks identity against the card, the identity of the individual
and the fact that he exists on the National Identity Register.
At this stage, have you got any estimate of what proportion of
the total checks will fall into those various categories?
Mr Blunkett: I think the general
checks would be the majority because people will be moving from
one use to another. For instance, just to use the employment analogy
that we were using earlier, if you are moving from one job to
another within the Civil Service or you are moving from one teaching
job to another, there are all sorts of other verifications that
would not require you to have to go through the full personalised
biometric check not least because in some of those jobs it would
have been checked anyway through the CRB. There will be horses
for courses on this. The most intensive checking process, in terms
of everyone living their day-to-day lives, would have to be sensibly
confined to those areas where you are challenging and you are
at a point of challenge in terms of needing to ensure absolutely
crucial identification. That would bring us back to issues around
criminality or terrorism, it would bring us back to people starting
out on a road for the first time in a particular service or job.
Q641 Mr Prosser: Are you in a position
to estimate which way those proportions will work out? For instance,
if I said perhaps 90% of all checks will just be a check against
the photograph on the card, would you argue with that or have
you got your own figures?
Mr Blunkett: Certainly I would
not argue at this stage about any of the proportions. I am very
happy for Katherine or Stephen to say if they have done an estimate,
but it would be very rough. Have we done that?
Katherine Courtney: In the underlying
assumptions that went into the business case for the scheme obviously
we made some assessment of how the system would be used based
on the best available evidence at the time. What it is important
to be clear about is that over the course of this period, and
I believe we said the same in our evidence last December, this
year we are working through feasibility testing, model offices,
prototyping those systems and working very closely with key user
groups to not only analyse their requirements out of the system,
ie what sort of functionality they need in order to fit their
business requirements, but also the demand profile against those
requirements so they will be able to feed into us more data on
the level of checking and the volume of different types of checks.
We are not expecting to be in a position to be more definitive
about what proportion is likely to be direct on-line checks against
records and the database versus a one-to-one check against the
person presenting themselves with the card until we have done
that further work with key user groups.
Q642 Mr Prosser: In the latest consultation
document it makes it clear that when we move to a compulsory form
of identity card it will not automatically follow that there will
be compulsion to prove ID to access various services, be it employment,
health or education or the rest, and the decision on each of those
areas will lie with those ministries. Bearing in mind that will
have some impact on the amount of investment those ministries
will have to make, are they going to have biometric readers at
every counter or are they just going to have one per unit? Critics
say that could be a major disincentive against those agencies
and ministries falling in line with this and implementing it in
the way that you want. What is your view on that?
Mr Blunkett: My view is that departments
will have to make up their minds over the coming period as to
whether they believe that this would be a major advantage to them.
The Department of Health, for instance, both the Secretary of
State and the Minister of State, are committed to doing this and
believe, quite rightly in my view, that we could save very large
sums of money by ensuring that because we have the only free health
service in the world we do not provide a free health service to
the rest of the world and, therefore, we ensure that people are
accessing the service for initial registration, primary care,
and for acute treatment in a way that either entitles them to
it or that they have a means of reimbursing if they are from overseas.
That seems to me to be perfectly sensible. The same is true of
the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions who is committed
to looking at how we can usefully, both in terms of the job market
and in terms of benefits, use a card effectively. There will be
other departments where they will believe that the ID card may
be taken up at local level, libraries may choose to use it, but
it is not central to the crucial nature of correct identity and
verification.
Q643 Mr Prosser: During the time
that the card is still voluntary, we know that it will be illegal
to make the provisions of a service solely dependent on showing
or using the identity card. How will you ensure that this does
not result in those services, those agencies, requiring a very
complicated and cumbersome alternative method of showing identity
which will effectively press or force people into getting the
identity card rather than sticking with the old, traditional methods?
Mr Blunkett: We have indicated
that there would need to be a civil remedy in this case. The reason
we have put that in is because people have said to us, and I understand
this very well, that there is no point in having a situation where
banks or particular services require you to have a card when you
have not renewed your passport and we have not got to a point
of mandatory card issue and, therefore, you could not be expected
to have one or at that point be made to have one. It has to be
said that at the moment there are commercial institutions that
require people to produce their passport as a means of identity.
I had a constituent who wrote to me when he thought that we were
not going to go ahead saying, "Please do so because my daughter
has had a terrible time opening a bank account" because she
did not have a passport at that point and she has actually taken
out a passport to ensure that she does not have even more hassle
than she was already getting. We have got to presume that people
will behave sensibly but we have got to put in the Bill, as we
have, a civil remedy if they do not.
Q644 Mr Prosser: We know that the
devolved administrations in Wales and in Scotland have already
said that they do not intend to make access to services dependent
on the production of the identity card. Is there a danger that
we will have a two tier system or two different regimes for the
provision of health services, education services?
Mr Blunkett: The Minister of State
will no doubt want to add something from his experience as a Member
of Parliament from a Scottish constituency. As far as I am aware,
they have said that they will not necessarily wish to take it
up, which is slightly different. Let me pose this to you, and
given that I am in Scotland on Thursday and Friday I will be very
careful what I say: it seems to me that in a world where correct
identification, and therefore entitlement to draw on services,
becomes more and more important, any part of the United Kingdom
that did not require that robust verification would find itself,
its politicians, its administration, under considerable pressure
from its population if they believed that the services to which
they are contributing and their benefits were being fraudulently
drawn down on. Democracy is about pressure being brought to bear
by the population for things they want.
Q645 David Winnick: They may be satisfied,
Home Secretary, that the measures that they now take are sufficient
without identity cards.
Mr Blunkett: If they believe that
very strongly then they would be able to prove it.
Chairman: We will follow the reports
of your visit to Scotland with great interest, Home Secretary.
Q646 Mr Singh: Home Secretary, I
understand that you intend to set up an accreditation system to
allow the private sector to access the Identity Register. Have
you had any thoughts on what this will entail and whether the
private sector will be charged for accessing the system?
Mr Blunkett: We are indicating
that there will be parliamentary scrutiny and consideration of
regulation of entry, and entry would only be allowed for the purpose
specified. This is not entry into people's details. We are talking
here about being able to verify that the card is owned by and
being used by the person who is on the database. That is what
is meant by "entry". This is not selling off for commercial
purposes people's details so that you get junk mail. This is about
the fact that if you are using the card and being required to
use the card in circumstances of a commercial enterprise by handing
over the card there has to be an agreed compliance with the card
being used to access the database. I do not know whether Des,
Katherine or Stephen want to add to that. I think that is as far
as we are going.
Mr Browne: It seems to me that
routinely we all go through a process that is similar to the process
that will be required. Every time we hand over a credit card and
an authorisation for its use for a transaction it is checked on-line
with the bank or the credit card company. We do exactly the sort
of thing that we would allow people to do if they were accredited
to do it. The banks have accreditation systems that allow restaurants,
shops and other people to use these for their purposes. I am not
suggesting that those are the sorts of places where people would
produce ID cards but already there is a template in existence
and we just need to discuss with the people who need to have that
sort of access those sorts of protocols and arrangements.
Mr Blunkett: Data sharing gateways,
Chairman, is a different matter entirely and is strictly limited
now and would be in exactly the same way in relation to ID cards.
Q647 Mr Singh: I understand that.
How can you guarantee or safeguard the fact that I have given
my consent for my details to be checked? How will the system safeguard
that?
Mr Blunkett: The only details
that will be held are those that are required for verifying the
identity and, therefore, the handing over of the card will automatically
be taken as an agreement that that identity could be checked,
unless that is expressly allowed for in the Bill and the Bill
does not. That is now explicit. I am struggling, not to understand
what you are saying but to understand what the thoughts behind
it are.
Q648 Mr Singh: If a private sector
organisation gets access to the Identity Register, how do you
know they have got my consent to do that?
Mr Blunkett: They cannot have
just by ringing. This is the point as to why a card actually is
the most sensible form of upfront verification, because the person
would have to be swiping the card or taking the direct biometric
specifier, ie my iris or facial recognition, to be able to access
the database in the first place. You cannot ring up and say "I
want some details". In any case, the only details that are
held are the details that are already held in relation to passport
and DVLA. It is nowhere near the kind of database held by the
big retail outlets which know where you shop, what you shop for,
how much you spend and in which particular locations.[4]
Q649 Chairman: The FLA when they
gave evidence to us, Home Secretary, stressed that for many financial
transactions they need to be able to do them over the phone and,
therefore, it would not be possible to present physical evidence
of the card, let alone somebody's biometrics.
Mr Blunkett: The Finance and Leasing
Association, I think, in that case would want the most low level
confirmation that there is a person on the database called whatever,
Des Browne, because that is the lowest level of check that they
require. I have got a card here and it says "this person
is who he says he is, can you confirm he is on the database?"
If they wanted to do anything more sophisticated than that they
would not necessarily have to have a reader themselves but they
would have to require that somebody used a reader in the local
library, the JobCentre or whatever. Am I getting there? Is this
what you are fearful of?
Q650 Mr Singh: Let me move on to
illegal working, Home Secretary, which we have already talked
about. Is it envisaged that every employer will have to have a
reader?
Mr Blunkett: No, it is not. Every
employer would be able to gain access to a reader in the circumstances
we talked about earlier. They would not have to do it on the day
that the person was interviewed, they would have to do it in the
subsequent week or two weeks. This is for the verification purpose
of the fact that you want to know that the person is who they
say they are and that would be very easy to do. In discussions
with business and commerce we have had no problems in being able
to persuade them that in years to come that will be a very easy
process.
Q651 Mr Singh: Will employers have
to be part of this accreditation system for the private sector?
Mr Blunkett: Yes.
Mr Browne: Anybody who has the
right to gain access would have to be accredited, of course they
would.
Q652 Mr Singh: So a corner shopkeeper,
for example, would have to get accreditation?
Mr Browne: They would have to
get accreditation if they had a reader. If they had a reader then
they would be accredited to have a reader, but if they went to
use a reader the accreditation for the reader would be with the
operator. That is to stop people being able to simply be free-booters
where we do not know who is reading what and where. There is no
great shakes about this, the operators of the Lottery know where
their machines are in the various retail outlets across the country
already and credit card firms know where something has been used.
This is just a common part of life now.
Q653 Mr Singh: The Home Office memorandum
says that libraries and video shops might require people to produce
their cards to access those services but the Information Commissioner
has said that would be entirely unacceptable. Where do you stand
on this, Home Secretary?
Mr Blunkett: Wherever someone
is required to prove their identity and those operating that particular
service have registered so they can use a reader then that would
be fine. Do you want to add anything to that?
Mr Browne: I heard of the memorandum,
I did not read it. I think there is a basic misunderstanding.
I think what the Home Office was saying was that these cards will
be very useful to people and they will be very useful to people
in their ordinary everyday lives. I am a member of a video club
and I had to produce certain forms of identification to join in
order to hire videos. I think what the Home Office was saying
was that a secure form of identity could be produced and would
be helpful in that situation, so instead of having to go into
the shop and produce photographic identity in the form of my driving
licence and a services bill then I could just produce this card
because it would be a secure form of identity. In order to reassure
you about how this information would be gathered, you will see
in the Bill that there is a process of collecting the information
as to who has checked the information, so people will be able
to see through the data protection process who has been accessing
the information and in the unlikely event of somebody who is accredited
abusing access to a card to gain information then that would be
recorded and the person's card who was being abused would be able
to tell and the Commissioner[5]
process would be able to police that. That information is going
to be collected and an audit trail will be used of information
on-line.
Q654 Mr Cameron: On the nature of
the compulsion when you move to a compulsory system as you envisage,
do you rule out completely making it an offence to not carry the
card or have the card? I just want to understand the process.
I am walking along the street, a policeman stops me and says "Can
I see your ID card?", I say, "Sorry, I have left it
at home", what happens next?
Mr Blunkett: They could not because
this is a means of identification for a particular purpose and
the police, therefore, have to have reasonable belief that you
are up to no good.
Q655 Mr Cameron: Okay. I look like
I am up to no good and they stop me and say, "Can I see your
ID card?", I say, "Sorry, I have left it at home",
what happens then?
Mr Blunkett: If they believe that
they need to investigate this further and, therefore, there is
the potential for taking action against you, they could actually
ask you to accompany them down to the station and if they had
any doubt by asking you to go and retrieve your card that you
would abscond, they would take your biometric specific identifier
there and then. Actually, it is perfectly feasible now for them
to take fingerprints using the new portable machines that they
are trialling anyway for other purposes. The real issue here is
that no-one should be stopped or required to produce their identity
in circumstances where their identity is irrelevant and where
there is no belief that the person is actually committing, or
is likely to commit, or is about to commit, a crime. We have brought
in the phased-in requirements in relation to stop as well as search
in order to ensure that where people are stopped as well as searched,
they are given a note of why so that we overcome the belief, particularly
in minority ethnic communities, that there is disproportionate
targeting of particular groups.
Q656 Mr Cameron: Let me just explore
this for a second. At the moment if you are stopped, for instance,
for some minor driving offence and you do not have your driving
licence, the policeman cannot take you down to the police station
to check your identity; you say "I am sorry, I have left
it at home" and you have to produce at a later date.
Mr Blunkett: Yes.
Q657 Mr Cameron: Are you saying that
with the ID cards they would be able to say, "Ah, well, you
have committed a minor driving offence, you must come down to
the station now, I must check your biometrics"?
Mr Blunkett: No, I am saying that
commonsense would apply and they would apply the same reasoning,
namely that you will produce it within a specified period, we
know the car, the registration number and we have the details.
Thank goodness we still operate in a country where there is no
real fear that that will not do, ie people do comply. They have
got to comply if they want to drive again and want to operate
in a free society again.
Q658 Mr Cameron: You are being absolutely
clear that there will be no change in the way that things operate
now in terms of when ID cards come in?
Mr Blunkett: No. It will make
it a lot easier for people to prove their true identity which,
as the CRE have rightly pointed out, will actually be of great
benefit to those who are most likely to be and are most often
misidentified.
Q659 Mr Cameron: So it is a response
that anyone can use, "Sorry, I do not have my card, it is
not with me"?
Mr Blunkett: Not anyone anywhere.
You gave a perfectly reasonable example, if I might say so, and
I responded reasonably, but if the police believed there was a
very real danger that your identity was absolutely crucial to
the pursuance of an investigation they would require the card
or your specific identifier there and then.
4 Note by witness: At its simplest level this
telephone check would be to confirm that a card had not been reported
lost or stolen, and that the information shown on the card, for
example entitlement to work, was still valid. A higher level of
security would be to combine a telephone check with the use of
a pin number or a security question. Back
5
Note by witness: ie the Information Commissioner. Back
| 
