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Plans for ID cards are 'big brother by stealth'
By Jason Beattie, Evening Standard, Political Correspondent Last updated at 00:00am on 16.08.04Government plans for compulsory identity cards have been criticised by Britain's information watchdog.
Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, said the country was in danger of "sleepwalking into a surveillance society."
He singled out David Blunkett's plans for ID cards and separate proposals to set up a population register and a database of every child under 18. Mr Thomas compared the expansion of Government information gathering to the snooping of the secret police in former Soviet bloc countries. "I don't want to start talking paranoia language, but data protection has a strong continental flavour.
"Some of my counterparts in eastern Europe, in Spain, have experienced in the last century what can happen when government gets too powerful and has too much information on its citizens," he told The Times.
"My anxiety is we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society where much more information is collected about people, accessible to far more people shared across many more boundaries than British society would feel comfortable with," he said.
Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, echoed Mr Thomas's concerns, saying: "While the Government can sometimes justify each measure individually, the danger is we are slipping into a big brother society by stealth."
But the Home Off ice defended plans for ID cards.
"The Government remains committed to its plans for a national identity card scheme which, among other things, will protect people in the fight against identity fraud and organised crime," said a spokesman.
But Mr Thomas said he was concerned at the Government's failure to spell out the exact purpose of identity cards. "The Government has changed its line over the last two or three years as to what the card is intended for. You have to have clarity. Is it for the fight against terrorism? Is it to promote immigration control? Is it to provide access to public benefits and services?"
His warning of a Big Brother-style state follows statistics showing Britain has four million CCTV cameras, while the national DNA database contains details of more than 2.5 million convicted or suspected criminals.
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