By Laveen Ladharam
Originally, I must admit, I was in favour of introducing Identity Cards in the United Kingdom. Being a holder of a Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card, like many other students at the university, I could see a situation where they came into practical use.
I realise now how wrong I was, as you shall see.
One of the main arguments used for ID cards is that it will prevent illegal immigration. However this is something that only works if the carrying of ID cards is made compulsory. In Hong Kong, we had a very bad case of illegal immigration ever since the rise of communism in Asia especially in China and Vietnam. To cut a long story short, the Hong Kong government made the holding of ID cards compulsory, but it was in conjunction with other factors, such as patrolling Hong Kong waters and having more vigilant land borders. This was done under the British and it was the British Army who secured the Chinese Border. Introducing such an intrusive system in the UK would not attract popular support and the alternative chosen by the Government, ID cards with no compulsion has no deterrent effect against illegal immigrants.
The other main argument for ID cards brought forward by the government is that they can prevent terrorism. In reality, ID cards would be irrelevant as the perpetrators of the most recent terrorist attacks in the western world were entitled for ID cards anyway. Such was the case with the Madrid bombings and the Bali bombings. The 7/7 terrorists had British passports and thus by extension would have been issued ID cards. Similarly, the IRA campaigns would have held either British or Irish passports. ID cards preventing terrorism is a non-argument. The only way to prevent terrorism is through hearts and minds and through intelligence which is, by and large very good in the UK.
Furthermore, the introduction of ID cards requires something that our government and many governments before it are incapable of doing – seeing a project through correctly. For instance, the government has tried to improve the efficiency of the NHS without trying to make it spend money more efficiently and Lord Adonis successfully implemented the (Tory) City Academies scheme only for it to be obliterated by Ed Balls through bringing them under government control. With ID cards, the cock-up resulting from the creation of an enormous database overloaded with information would be even greater. One only needs to remember the case of the loss of data about members of the RAF in 2008 to fear the consequences should our biometric information find its way onto discs or memory sticks in public. And those are great risks that I do not wish to take.
