Clause 1 - The National Identity Register
Identity Cards Bill
2:45 pm
Mr Des Browne (Minister of State (Citizenship, Immigration and Counter-Terrorism), Home Office; Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. This register will be subject to the very same data protection legislation. All the protections that we feel are necessary to stop the abuse that people are capable of perpetrating with information will relate to the register as well. The provisions are not in any sense separate from those in general law now under the Data Protection Act 1998 to protect people's valuable personal information. We will later consider specific provisions to ensure that behaviour that is designed to try to use or abuse the information or the register is seriously criminalised, which I am sure will be supported. The Government want to protect against any vulnerability, although they accept that their principal responsibility is to devise a register that is secure against that such behaviour in the first place.
The only information that we believe needs to be held at a higher level is the record of when information has been provided from the register, as that could arguably be used in order to glean information about where and when an ID card has been used. It is obvious that an audit trail of when an ID card has been used and of when access has been granted to information on the register or information from the register has been provided will tell us something about the behaviour and activity of the individual carrying the card. There is no question but that people could draw other conclusions from that information. That is why the many millions who have Tesco cards sign up to allowing Tesco to record information on a database about their personal and shopping habits. A friend of mine told me that his cat got a Christmas card from Tesco, because the firm could tell that he bought cat food and so clearly had a cat. I wonder about the extent to which people in this country, including those who object to the proposed scheme, already unwittingly allow a significant amount of information about themselves to be gathered by commercial organisations.