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12 Sept 2005 : Column 2589W—continued
Home Detention Curfew Scheme
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many participants there have been in the Home Detention Curfew Scheme in London in each month since its inception; and if he will make a statement. [15357]
Paul Goggins:
Information on the home address of persons participating in the Home Detention Curfew Scheme (HDC) is not recorded centrally. The number of
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participants in the HDC Scheme who were discharged from London prisons is available and is provided in a table which will be placed in the Library.
The figures refer to the number of persons recorded as participating in the HDC Scheme on the last Friday of the month, and are not available for the period January 1999 to February 2000.
Human Rights
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what elements of the EU Human Rights Agency have been agreed to be established; what elements have been established; what the treaty basis is for those elements; and if he will make a statement. [15910]
Ms Harman: I have been asked to reply.
A European Council working group attended by all member states has begun to consider the European Commission's proposal for the establishment of a Fundamental Rights Agency and will develop the details of the proposal during the UK Presidency. The Government consider the legal base for the proposed agency should be Article 308 of the Treaty of the European Community.
Identity Card Scheme
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions he has had with representatives of the shipping industry on the implementation of the ID card scheme. [15295]
Andy Burnham: Home Office officials are engaged in discussions with the Department for Transport (DfT). These will continue and will take account of relevant outcomes of the DfT's and the Maritime Coastguard Agency's discussions with their social partners.
Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will identify those items in the database of registerable facts associated with the identity card which are not considered to be personal data as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998; and if he will make a statement. [13166]
Andy Burnham: The definition of personal data" is set out in section one of the Data Protection Act. It is as follows.
Personal data" means data which relate to a living individual who can be identified:
(b) from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller, and includes any expression of opinion about the individual and any indication of the intentions of the data controller or any other person in respect of the individual.
Whether or not data is personal therefore depends on whether it relates to an individual and whether he can be identified from that data either on its own or in conjunction with other data.
The information which may be recorded in the National Identity Register is set out in schedule 1 of the Identity Cards Bill. Although much of the data held on the National Identity Register could not, on its own, identify the individual to whom it relates, some items of data in a person's entry on the register could be used, in conjunction with other data in his entry, to identify him.
Any information recorded under paragraphs 1 to 4, 5(a) , 7(a) , 7(b) , 8 and 9 of schedule 1 will most likely fall within the definition of personal information. Any information recorded under paragraphs 5(b) , 5(c) ,6, 7(c) , 7(d) and 7(e) will most likely fall outside of the definition. Paragraph 5(c) allows for the recording of a person's date of death. Information which relates to a dead person is not personal data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act.
None of the information listed in schedule 1 of the Identity Cards Bill falls within the definition of sensitive personal data as defined in the Data Protection Act.
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what methodology was used to arrive at the estimates contained in the document Identity Cards Scheme Benefits Overview on the financial benefits to (a) citizens, (b) the public sector and (c) the private sector; which (i) public, (ii) private and (iii) voluntary sector organisations were consulted as part of the research; how much the research cost to conduct; and what the duration of the research was from commissioning to completion. [13214]
Mr. Charles Clarke: The methodology used to calculate the Identity Card Scheme's financial and economic benefits is based on the Treasury's Green Book: Appraisal and Evaluation in Central Government" guidelines. This outlines how public sector proposals should be appraised before significant funds are committed.
In addition, our estimates have been developed based on input from stakeholders based on a consistent set of assumptions. Associated costs, potential dis-benefits and risks are accounted for and updated regularly using best information available at the time. In the course of conducting our benefits research, the following organisations have been consulted:
Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), Driving Standards Authority, Office of e-Envoy, Department for Education and Skills (DfES), Confederation of British Industry, Department of Health (DoH), the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), Royal Mail, Post Office, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), Department for Work and Pensions (DWPO, Bichard Projects involving CRB and DfES, Criminal Justice Information Technology (CJIT), UK Passport Service (UKPS), UK Visas, Board of Airline Representatives, British Air Transport Association, Office of National Statistics (ONS), Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND), E-Borders Programme, Department for Transport (DfT), the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), Newham Council, Greenwich Council, Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum (TUFF), British
- Bankers Association, Association of Payment Clearance Services (APACS), Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance, Financial Services Authority(FSA).
In addition, a consultation group of 35 employers were engaged through HMRC to discuss benefits relating to payroll and human resource management for the private sector.
In the calculation of the benefits overview, no voluntary organisations have been involved to date. However, we are engaging a range of voluntary organisations with regard to requirements definition of the identity card scheme as a whole.
Finally, members of the scheme's principal users group (PUG) and private sector user groups (PSUG) were either involved or informed of this work. The membership of these groups is as follows:
Cabinet Office, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Department for Education and Skills, Department for Transport, Department of Health, DVLA, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, Her Majesty's Treasury, IND, Local Government Association, the Northern Ireland Office, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Office for National Statistics, E-Government Unit, ACPO, RDS, Scottish Executive, UKPS, National Assembly of Wales.
Airbus, British Airways, BAA, BAE Systems, Bank of England, Barclays, BBC, BNFL, BP, BT, BT Syntegra, Eli Lilly, Experian, GlaxoSmithKline, HBOS, HSBC Holdings, Lloyds TSB, Pfizer, Pilkington, Proctor and Gamble, Rolls-Royce, Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Mail, Sainsbury's, Shell, Standard Chartered Bank, Tesco, Unilever, Verisign, Visa International, Visa Europe, Vodaphone and YELL
While exploratory work started in 2003, in-depth work on the calculations involved in the benefits overview commenced in July 2004. The work behind the benefits overview was conducted as part of the overall work of the identity cards programme team, not as a specific research project, and cannot be separately quantified.
Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the types of crimes that would be preventable under the Identity Card Scheme. [15967]
Andy Burnham: The Identity Cards Programme has worked extensively with law enforcement agencies and a number of public and private sector organisations to consider how the Identity Cards Scheme will achieve its strategic objective of preventing crime.
As a whole, the Identity Cards Scheme will put additional deterrents in place for those who might otherwise commit crimes. It will hinder the ability of criminals to operate by introducing a more reliable system of identity checks and by helping to prevent the use of false or multiple identities. It will also increase the likelihood of the criminal being caught by providing additional tools to law enforcement agencies to assist in their investigations.
The Identity Cards Scheme Benefits Overview", published on 28 June 2005, provides some specific examples of how the Scheme can prevent crime and in particular, identity fraud. Work is continuing with
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stakeholders in this area to understand how the Identity Cards Scheme can achieve further crime prevention objectives.
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much his Department has spent on preparations for and feasibility studies on identity cards. [4607]
Paul Goggins: The Government announced their intention to introduce legislation for an identity cards scheme in November 2003, following a six-month consultation exercise. In preparation £19.00 million has been spent since the start of the 2003 financial year and the end of June 2005. A further £1.61 million has been spent on trials.
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost of the identity cards scheme has been to date. [9946]
Paul Goggins: The Government announced their intention to introduce legislation for an identity cards scheme in November 2003, following a six month consultation exercise. In preparation £19 million has been spent since the start of the 2003 financial year and the end of June 2005. A further £1.61 million has been spent on trials.
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if British seafarers possessing an international biometric identity card will also be required to purchase a UK identity card; what consideration the Government have given to the overlap of these two schemes; and if he will make a statement. [15296]
Paul Goggins: The Government are working towards ratification of ILO Convention No. 185 on Seafarers' Identity Documentation and is undertaking a detailed study of the practical and technical issues. The Maritime and Coastguards Agency is in the final stages of agreeing a specification for a feasibility study in respect of a biometric Seafarers' identity card.
This will include consideration of a range of options, including the possibility of sharing facilities and functions with other biometric initiatives.
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) civil servants, (b) public sector secondees, (c) private sector secondees and (d) consultants are (i) employed by the identity cards programme team and (ii) otherwise employed on the identity cards project. [15369]
Paul Goggins: As at end of May 2005, the identity cards programme team comprised 43 civil servants and contracted staff, 62 consultants and one public sector secondee. Within the Immigration and Nationality Department, there are 4.5 people working on the Identity Cards Project. All figures are full-time equivalent. As of end of financial year 2004–05 there were a number of people at UKPS working on the ID Cards Project although none exclusively. In terms of full-time equivalent there were 4.2 consultants and 3.2 UKPS staff working on the Identity Cards Project.
Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the citizen identification number carried on identity cards will appear on computerised Government databases for (a) health, (b) tax, (c) social security and (d) other records. [15966]
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Andy Burnham: The unique identifier applied to each entry on the National Identity Register will be the National Identity Register Number, NIRN. Final decisions have not been taken on which databases include the NIRN. However this would be with the consent of the individual under Clause 14 of the Identity Cards Bill or under Clause 15 of the Bill in relation to the provision of a public service. In addition the NIRN can be provided to public authorities in limited circumstances under Clauses 19 to 23 of the Identity Cards Bill.
Administrators of any databases which include the NIRN will need to ensure that any use of that number is compliant with their obligations under the Data Protection Act 2004.
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