Memorandum by The Home Office (VOT 31)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This memorandum is confined to how the ID cards
scheme—legislation for which is currently before Parliament—and
the Home Office led work on reducing identity fraud might contribute
to improving the verification of identity for the purposes of
electoral registration and voting. The Government's position on
individual registration is set out in the Memorandum to the Committee
by the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Office of
the Deputy Prime Minister.
2. The Government does not believe that
people should be required to register with the ID cards scheme
or produce an ID card before they are able to register on the
electoral register or to cast a vote. The Identity Cards Bill
currently before Parliament provides for registration with the
ID cards scheme to be linked to the issuing of designated documents
such as passports and residence permits. As 80% of the adult population
has a passport, the database which will hold details of those
issued with ID cards (the National Identity Register) should become
increasing useful as a means of checking the accuracy of the electoral
register. There is also a provision for registration with the
ID cards scheme to be made compulsory at some future date. Should
it become compulsory to register with the scheme, the Government
will want to examine whether the ID cards scheme can offer benefits
in terms of:
(i) providing a simple means to check
the authenticity of information supplied during the electoral
registration process; and
(ii) facilitating ways of voting remotely.
3. In considering these issues however,
it should be noted that:
(i) there will be people eligible to
vote who will not be required to be registered with the ID cards
scheme, even if ID cards become compulsory. Chiefly, these are
British citizens resident abroad; and
(ii) the personal information which can be
held on the ID cards scheme is strictly controlled by statute
and would not include a person's eligibility to vote, though in
many cases this may be derived from information held by the scheme.
4. The Home Office co-ordinates a cross-public
and private sector initiative to reduce identity fraud. While
some of this work would undoubtedly improve the verification of
identity for electoral registration purposes, none of the projects
is sufficiently universal in coverage to apply to everyone entitled
to vote.
INTRODUCTION
5. The Clerk of the ODPM Committee invited
the Home Secretary to provide written evidence on the subject
of electoral registration, with particular reference to the verification
of identity. This memorandum discusses two areas of the Home Office's
work which are of relevance:
(i) the introduction of a national ID
cards scheme including the establishment of a National Identity
Register. Legislation for this is currently before Parliament;
and
(ii) the cross-public and private sector
programme to reduce identity fraud which is co-ordinated by the
Home Office.
6. In each of these areas, the memorandum
discusses the contribution which may be made to improving the
security of the electoral registration process and the process
of voting itself.
IDENTITY CARDS
AND THE
NATIONAL IDENTITY
REGISTER
7. The Government introduced legislation
to establish a national ID cards scheme on 29 November 2004. This
memorandum refers to the contents of the Identity Cards Bill which
received its Second Reading in the House of Commons on 20 December
2004. Prior to the introduction of this legislation, the Government
conducted two public consultation exercises in 2002-03 and 2004.
The first consultation exercise sought views on whether what was
then referred to as an entitlement card scheme would benefit the
maintenance of the electoral register and facilitate new ways
of voting. Responses were received from the Electoral Commission,
the Association of Electoral Administrators and some local authorities.
The Commission suggested that a card scheme could help address
some of the security issues and problems presented by remote electronic
voting for example a card could be used to generate specific voter
identifiers or to confirm identity when casting a vote.[64]
ELECTORAL REGISTRATION
8. The Government does not believe it is
appropriate that people must have an ID card before they can register
to vote or cast a vote. Therefore any role for the National Identity
Register or the Identity Cards scheme to enhance the maintenance
of the electoral register should only be decided after
it became compulsory to register under the ID cards legislation.
This is likely to be some years in the future as the first registrations
under the scheme will probably not take place until 2008, subject
to Parliament approving the Identity Cards Bill in the current
Session. Clauses 6 and 7 of the Bill provide for registration
to be made compulsory subject to the agreement of both Houses
of Parliament via a "super affirmative" process.
9. If registration under the Identity Cards
legislation became compulsory and ID cards were universally held,
the ID cards scheme could offer a means of verifying personal
information which was submitted to the electoral register during
the process of registration. The information which could be confirmed
by the ID cards scheme is set out at Annex A. Given that electoral
registration is not done face-to-face, the ID cards scheme would
only be able to confirm that the information held/entered on the
electoral register matched the information held on the National
Identity Register. It would not be able to verify that the person
who submitted the details on a registration form was in fact that
person. However the National Identity Register information will
be recorded to a much higher degree of assurance than the electoral
register as the process of registering for an ID card will involve:
(i) a personal visit;
(ii) the checking of personal details against
other sources of information eg National Insurance records; and
(iii) associating each person's record with
unique biometric information such as fingerprints to guard against
people trying to establish multiple identities.
10. While there will be a considerable degree
of overlap between those who will be required to be entered on
the National Identity Register and those who are required to be
entered on the electoral register, there would not a complete
overlap. The most important difference is that there is no obligation
on those resident abroad who may be entitled to vote in the UK
to be registered in the National Identity Register. In addition,
the information which may be held on the National Identity Register
will be strictly limited by statute[65]
and, in the current version of the Bill, does not include entitlement
to vote, though it may be possible to deduce entitlement to vote
from the other information held on the National Identity Register.
There may therefore be efficiency benefits in utilising information
held on the National Identity Register to help compile local electoral
registers .
VOTING
11. Everyone whose application to be entered
on the National Identity Register is approved will be issued with
an ID card. The precise format of ID cards is not specified in
the Identity Cards Bill, though the format of each card issued
under the legislation will require the approval of Parliament.
It is likely that ID cards will be plastic, credit-card sized
cards which will incorporate a photograph and signature of the
holder, some printed information eg name and a micro-chip which
may contain some information and security features. As discussed
in paragraph 9 above, information held on the National Identity
Register can be verified without requiring the production of a
card. In circumstances where a card can be produced, the identity
check can take four general forms:
visual check eg comparing the photograph
to the likeness of the person presenting it;
validation using a card reader which would
confirm that there was a matching, valid record on the National
Identity Register;
in addition to (b) some information not
shown on the card but held on the National Identity Register could
be provided by the card holder and its validity confirmed with
the National Identity Register eg address; and
in addition to (b) or (c) some information
not shown on the card could be provided from the record held on
the National Identity Register eg whether the person's immigration
status placed restrictions on his eligibility to work.
For (b) to (d) above, confirmation that the
person producing the card is the person to whom it was issued
could be achieved via the card holder entering a PIN. If a higher
level of assurance is required, biometric information such as
the card holder's thumbprint could be matched against that held
on the National Identity Register.
12. An ID card could therefore play a part
in more secure and convenient means of voting, though the Government
believes that this should not be the case until the ID cards scheme
itself is compulsory.
CHECKING THE
ACCURACY OF
THE ELECTORAL
REGISTER
13. The National Identity Register could
be another means for electoral registration officers to check
the accuracy of the electoral register. This could be a useful
facility once a significant proportion of the population had registered
on the National Identity Register, rather than waiting until the
ID cards scheme was compulsory. The Identity Cards Bill would
require specific regulations to be approved by Parliament for
the National Identity Register to be used in this way (see paragraph
15 below).
LEGISLATION
14. Registration and issuing of ID cards
will operate on a UK-wide basis and regulations setting out required
identity checks for public services can be made in the Westminster
Parliament for non-devolved functions. The Identity Cards Bill
includes provisions which allow regulations to be made specifying
how ID cards or checks against the National Identity Register
may be required for public services.[66]
Therefore should it be decided—after the ID cards scheme
itself became compulsory—that the scheme had a role in either
electoral registration or voting, the Identity Cards Bill includes
the necessary provisions to allow Parliament to make regulations
setting out precisely how the scheme would be used for this purpose.
15 The Identity Cards Bill also allows regulations
to be made which would allow organisations to make checks on the
National Identity Register without the consent of the person registered.[67]
These powers could be used to help identify people who had registered
with the National Identity Register and appeared to be entitled
to vote (eg because of their age and nationality), but who were
not on the electoral register. They could also be used to help
compile local electoral registers more efficiently than at present
(see paragraph 10 above). As with the public service checks discussed
in paragraph 14 above, Parliament would need to approve specific
regulations to enable either of these uses.
REDUCING IDENTITY
FRAUD
16. The Home Office leads a cross-public
and private sector initiative to reduce identity fraud which is
defined as the use of fictitious or other people's identities
to facilitate crime such as financial fraud or the obtaining of
false documents eg passports. Part of this work involves evaluating
whether there would be a benefit in being able to check the validity
of documents such as passports on-line eg by enquiring whether
some of the attributes shown on a passport eg passport number
are associated with a valid passport on the passport-issuing database.
While this may improve identity checks for the more economically
active population, it would not be sufficiently universal for
enhancing the security of the electoral registration process as
only 80% of the adult population in the UK holds a passport.
Annex A
PERSONAL INFORMATION WHICH MAY BE RECORDED
IN THE NATIONAL IDENTITY REGISTER
The principal items of personal information
which may be recorded in the National Identity Register—not
all of which may be relevant for the purposes of electoral registration—are
as follows. A person's:
full name;
other names by which he is or has been
known;
his date of birth;
his place of birth;
his gender;
the address of his principal place of residence
in the United Kingdom;
the address of every other place in the
United Kingdom where he has a place of residence;
addresses (whether in the United Kingdom
or elsewhere) where he has previously resided at any time during
a prescribed period;
his nationality;
his entitlement to remain in the United
Kingdom and where that entitlement derives from a grant of leave
to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, the terms and conditions
of that leave;
his National Identity Registration Number;
the number of any ID card issued to him;
and
his date of death.
64 Identity Cards-A Summary of Findings from the Consultation
Exercise on Entitlement Cards and Identity Fraud (CM 6019) page
74. Back
65
Clauses 1(5), 1(6), 1(7) and Schedule 1 of the Identity Cards
Bill. Back
66
Clauses 15-17 of the Identity Cards Bill. Back
67
Clause 22 of the Identity Cards Bill. Back
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