UK's Blair Dismisses Online Anti ID-Card Petition

An anonymous reader writes "Prime Minister Tony Blair has responded personally via email to 28,000 online petitioners opposing the UK's planned identity card scheme, and has closed the online petition. The email reads: 'We live in a world in which people, money and information are more mobile than ever before. Terrorists and international criminal gangs increasingly exploit this to move undetected across borders and to disappear within countries. Terrorists routinely use multiple identities — up to 50 at a time... ID cards which contain biometric recognition details and which are linked to a National Identity Register will make this much more difficult.'"

Comments

Better link

[baadger]

Link to the actual petition -> here

Re:Better link

[blane.bramble]

E-petition: Response from the Prime Minister

The e-petition to "scrap the proposed introduction of ID cards" has now closed. The petition stated that "The introduction of ID cards will not prevent terrorism or crime, as is claimed. It will be yet another indirect tax on all law-abiding citizens of the UK". This is a response from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

The petition calling for the Government to abandon plans for a National ID Scheme attracted almost 28,000 signatures - one of the largest responses since this e-petition service was set up. So I thought I would reply personally to those who signed up, to explain why the Government believes National ID cards, and the National Identity Register needed to make them effective, will help make Britain a safer place.

The petition disputes the idea that ID cards will help reduce crime or terrorism. While I certainly accept that ID cards will not prevent all terrorist outrages or crime, I believe they will make an important contribution to making our borders more secure, countering fraud, and tackling international crime and terrorism. More importantly, this is also what our security services - who have the task of protecting this country - believe.

So I would like to explain why I think it would be foolish to ignore the opportunity to use biometrics such as fingerprints to secure our identities. I would also like to discuss some of the claims about costs - particularly the way the cost of an ID card is often inflated by including in estimates the cost of a biometric passport which, it seems certain, all those who want to travel abroad will soon need.

In contrast to these exaggerated figures, the real benefits for our country and its citizens from ID cards and the National Identity Register, which will contain less information on individuals than the data collected by the average store card, should be delivered for a cost of around £3 a year over its ten-year life.

But first, it's important to set out why we need to do more to secure our identities and how I believe ID cards will help. We live in a world in which people, money and information are more mobile than ever before. Terrorists and international criminal gangs increasingly exploit this to move undetected across borders and to disappear within countries. Terrorists routinely use multiple identities - up to 50 at a time. Indeed this is an essential part of the way they operate and is specifically taught at Al-Qaeda training camps. One in four criminals also uses a false identity. ID cards which contain biometric recognition details and which are linked to a National Identity Register will make this much more difficult.

Secure identities will also help us counter the fast-growing problem of identity fraud. This already costs £1.7 billion annually. There is no doubt that building yourself a new and false identity is all too easy at the moment. Forging an ID card and matching biometric record will be much harder.

I also believe that the National Identity Register will help police bring those guilty of serious crimes to justice. They will be able, for example, to compare the fingerprints found at the scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes against the information held on the register. Another benefit from biometric technology will be to improve the flow of information between countries on the identity of offenders.

The National Identity Register will also help improve protection for the vulnerable, enabling more effective and quicker checks on those seeking to work, for example, with children. It should make it much more difficult, as has happened tragically in the past, for people to slip through the net.

Proper identity management and ID cards also have an important role to play in preventing illegal immigration and illegal working. The effectiveness on the new biometric technology is, in fact, already being seen. In trials using this technology on visa applications at just nine overseas posts, our officials have already uncovered 1,400 pe

Tony Blair closes online petition?

[rj21]

"Prime Minister Tony Blair has...... closed the online petition."

There was a deadline for signatures and it has passed. Blair has responded to the petitioners after the petition was complete. That sounds more like he was pissed of with it and closed the petition. The fact that the prime minister personally closed the petition was the item in this story that pissed me off the most and that wasn't even true.

There's plenty we can moan at Blair for without making things up.

Closing the petition

[iainl]

Umm, I think Blair is a duplicitous murdering sack of shit as much as the next guy, but the petition was always going to end on the 15th of February as a fixed closing date. From the FAQ page:

How long will my petition run for? You can decide how long your petition can run for and we will carry it for up to 12 months.

Besides, telling 28,000 people that they've given the wrong answer, and should go away and think about it until they realise he's right is nothing. He did exactly the same to the more than a million people who marched in London against invading Iraq, and is about to do so to the 1.6 million who have signed the road pricing and car tracking scheme at the top of the "most popular" list on that site as well.

No2ID Saw This Coming

[alexpage]

No2ID, the UK's leading campaign against the National Identity Card and the Database State, realised even before this petition was launched that the site exists only to encourage "fire and forget" activism from people. People signing up to No2ID are encouraged to subscribe to a fortnightly e-mail newsletter which keeps them up to date with the latest news on ID Cards in Government and across the country.

The No2ID campaign has encouraged a 30% swing in public opinion against Identity Cards, has encouraged councils and other organisations across the country to oppose the Government's plans, and formed a wide alliance of political parties and unions from all sides of the spectrum in opposition to this scheme. It's unlikely that the Tories would have come out against ID cards (albeit in a half-arsed way) without No2ID's influence.

If people want to make a difference, joining and supporting No2ID is the best way to do so. There are local groups nationwide, which can always benefit from more supporters.

Join No2ID.org

[Cally]

If you're a UK citizen and can see what a bad implementation of a disastrous idea this is going to turn out to be, please join no2id.org and help in a practical way, as well as moaning about it on Slashdot! :)