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May 23, 2004
1 The National Identity Register
Registration
(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to establish and maintain a register
of individuals (to be known as .the National Identity Register.).
(2) The Register is to be established and maintained for the following purposes
only ("the statutory purposes").
(a) providing a record of registrable facts about individuals in the United
Kingdom;
(b) providing a record of registrable facts about other individuals (living
and dead) who have been in the United Kingdom, or who have applied
to be entered in the Register;
(c) facilitating the issue of cards containing information that may be used
by an individual issued with one for establishing his identity, place of
residence or residential status;
(d) facilitating the provision of a service by means of which registrable
facts about a registered individual may, with his consent, be
ascertained or verified by other persons; and
(e) enabling information recorded in the Register for any of the preceding
purposes to be disclosed to persons in cases authorised by or under this
Act.
(3) The establishment and maintenance of the Register for those purposes does not
authorise.
(a) the use in or as regards Scotland of the Register or of a card issued in
accordance with this Act, or
(b) the disclosure in or as regards Scotland of information recorded in the
Register,
except in relation to a matter or for purposes outside the legislative competence
of the Scottish Parliament or in accordance with an Act of that Parliament.
(4) In this Act "registrable fact", in relation to an individual, means.
(a) his identity;
(b) where he resides in the United Kingdom;
(c) where he has previously resided in the United Kingdom;
(d) the times at which he was resident at the different places in the United
Kingdom where he has resided;
(e) his current residential status;
(f) residential statuses previously held by him;
(g) information about numbers allocated to him for identification purposes
and about the documents to which they relate;
(h) information about occasions on which information recorded about him
in the Register has been accessed or disclosed; and
(i) information recorded in the Register at his request.
(5) In this section references to an individual.s identity are references to.
(a) his full name;
(b) other names by which he is or has previously been known;
(c) his date and place of birth and, if he has died, the date of his death; and
(d) physical characteristics of his that are capable of being used for
identifying him.
(6) In this section "residential status" in relation to an individual, means.
(a) his nationality;
(b) his entitlement to remain in the United Kingdom; and
(c) the terms and conditions of that entitlement.
Posted by wtwu at May 23, 2004 08:47 PM
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Comments
NO! c.f. Schedule 1 (1) below
With a Biometric Identifier based Smart Card and/or Central Database There is no need to record any of the following:
"(b) where he resides in the United Kingdom;
(c) where he has previously resided in the United Kingdom;
(d) the times at which he was resident at the different places in the United Kingdom where he has resided;
(e) his current residential status;
(f) residential statuses previously held by him; "
"or (b) other names by which he is or has previously been known;
(c) his date and place of birth and, if he has died, the date of his death; and "
in order to identify someone with a Biometric ID Card.
Address information is not Identity information !
Nothing which is not on the face of the ID Card except for the Biometric Identifiers and their secure cryptographic hash function Digital Signatures should be recorded in secret either on the ID Card or on the Central Database.
Coupled with the ?1000 civil penalty to ensure accuracy of the NIR entry, this is more data than is required to be given to the police by people who are on the Violent and Sexual Offender Register (ViSOR)
Unlike ViSOR entries, the NIR entries will be for the rest of your life and then for an indeterminate period after you are dead !
RECCOMENDATION:
Remove the intrusive and hugely timewasting requirement requiremnts to register address information.
Posted by: wtwu at May 24, 2004 02:19 AM
Address information has the potential to change frequently, even regularly, for some individuals (e.g. students) and very frequently for others (e.g. 17 or 18 year olds in Care).
Keeping records of 40+ million individuals' addresses constantly up to date would not only be logistically close to impossible (it hasn't been achieved yet!) but, if records are not accurate, this data is also likely to be directly responsible for MISIDENTIFICATION errors - such as currently can, e.g. affect one's credit record if you happen to move into an address to which a CCJ has been issued.
The imposition of a ?1000 fine will in no way ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the address information in the NIR, and would be most likely to be applied to those who are least able to pay - see examples above, and include also the elderly and (especially mentally) infirm.
N.B. I offer no reccommendations, as I believe that the concept of a National Identity Register as currently expressed is FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED in respect of: security - e.g. if implemented, it will become one of the most attractive terrorist targets in the UK; practicality - keeping the data up to date will simply cost too much, and yet if the data is not accurate the point and benefits of the system will be lost; and principle - a NIR with compulsory ID cards radically alters the relationship between citizens and the State, invades personal privacy and is wide open to abuse (from inception but, more worryingly, by any future authority for undefined purposes at any point in an uncertain future).
Posted by: lankyphil at May 27, 2004 12:19 PM