April 19, 2005

Canadian Interim Privacy Commissioner questions merit of a national ID card

the Canadian Interim Privacy Commissioner questions merit of a national ID card:
"In my brief, I suggest that this Committee consider certain essential questions about a national identification system, because simply asking them brings out the enormous implications of such a scheme-the practical and technological challenges of creating and managing it, the need to develop comprehensive legal and policy frameworks, the implications for privacy. These questions include:

* Who would be issued an identification card? Everyone? Canadians at the age of majority only? If children are issued a card, at what age?
* Would participation in and identification by the system be voluntary or mandatory?
* What would be the scope of the data that would be gathered about individuals participating in the system?
* Who would be allowed to demand production of a card from card carriers for proof of identity?
* Who could contribute, view, or edit data in a national ID system?
* What types of uses of the card and its attendant system would be allowed?
* What legal structures would protect the system's integrity as well as the data subject's privacy and due process rights, and determine the government and other parties' liability for system misuse or failure?
* Who would bear the full weight of privacy rights accountability and responsibility for a national identity system?
* What are the alternatives to a national identity system?

My view is that the challenges of putting in place a national identification system that is effective, affordable, and respectful of privacy are enormous. A strong case for the benefits of a national identification system has not been made; to the extent that benefits would exist, they would be marginal at best.

Accordingly, my recommendation is that this Committee reject the idea of a national identity card as unworkable and unjustified.'"

In the case of the current proposed British ID sytem some of the questions are easily answered:
* Who would be issued an identification card? Everyone? Canadians at the age of majority only? If children are issued a card, at what age?
Everybody that has a Passport or Driving Licence, or just has money to burn, will have to buy one. So most people over the age of 18, but not children.

* Would participation in and identification by the system be voluntary or mandatory?
New Labour like to claim that it will be voluntary, but that will soon be changed to mandatory. It is simply useless without compulsion.

* What would be the scope of the data that would be gathered about individuals participating in the system?
Well within the card itself there will be biometrics. But this isn't really the important part of the question which is really about how the database will be used to log peoples actions. This hasn't been talked about, but a good guess that the monitoring will be extensive.

The most important of his questions are the civil liberties onew, the ones that New Labour has studiously avoided answering.
* Who would be allowed to demand production of a card from card carriers for proof of identity?
* Who could contribute, view, or edit data in a national ID system?
* What types of uses of the card and its attendant system would be allowed?
* What legal structures would protect the system's integrity as well as the data subject's privacy and due process rights, and determine the government and other parties' liability for system misuse or failure?
* Who would bear the full weight of privacy rights accountability and responsibility for a national identity system?
* What are the alternatives to a national identity system?

The only question that he doesn't ask, the fundimental one, is:
* Why do we need an ID card at all?
For which there is no good reason. We got along fine during previous waves of immigration without. We got along fine during real sustained terrorist attacks without, unlike the current sustained absence of terrorist attacks. The public services worked, in so much as they have or will ever work, without.

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