We Know Where You Live
A speech given by Henry Porter at the Great Hall, King's College, London at a conference organised by Took's Chambers, entitled State Powers, Individual Lives: A legal Perspective
Saturday, 24 June 2006
The other day I went to see my publisher in central London. There is always a performance at the entrance which involves me writing my name, who I'm visiting and the time in a book. But on this occasion the man asked me to type these details into a keyboard then he angled a camera on a stalk into my face. I typed away but held one hand in front of the lens. Then I moved swiftly out of the camera's field and made for the lift. 'Hold on, sir,' shouted the security guard after me. 'You can't go unless you've had your picture taken.' 'I can,' I said, 'because you have no right to take my photograph without my consent. And you most certainly don't have it.' I mean, how much data needs to precede a novelist meeting his editor?
A week later I was confronted with the same piece of equipment at my gym in Bayswater. Again I placed my hand over the camera lens and to the baffled receptionists quoted the Image Retention Act 2002. As you will all know, there was no Image Retention Act in 2002 - or any other year. That time the she let me in. By my next visit I had forgotten all about the camera. But they were waiting for me. With a smile the receptionist stood back out of range of my hand and snapped my picture.
To many, my behaviour would seem unreasonable. After all, my picture is taken hundreds - maybe thousands - of times every day in London. But that is not my objection. What bothers me is when someone puts my image, my name, the place & time together. That seems to be information of personal nature, an invasion of my privacy.
I have exactly the same response to the ID card and the much more sinister National Identity Register which one day will track each one of us through almost every important transaction of our lives. I could just about carry a voluntary little plastic ID card because I have no objection to identifying myself when it is my choice. I don't mind taking my passport along to the bank or showing my driving license - but I am preternaturally against the state forcing me to supply biometric measurements and forty nine separate pieces of information about myself to a database which will be accessed by god knows who without my knowledge. I am genetically incapable of submitting to such a process. I cannot do it. I will not do it. And I pray that when the public understands how this scheme will profoundly alter the relationship between the individual and the state thousands more will say 'I cannot do it . I will not do it.'
SO WHAT WILL THE CARD AND THE REGISTER DO FOR YOU? The trouble with the ID card is that this hugely expensive project has been sold to the British public on a false prospectus. (By my count that is at least the second time during New Labour's administration). The government began by saying it would prevent terrorism. When that wasn't tenable, they said it would prevent ID theft. When that didn't work, they said it would prevent benefit fraud and when that didn't work they resorted to - yes, you've guessed it - a claim that it would help control illegal immigration.
WELL, IT WON'T STOP TERRORISM. The Spanish ID card did not stop the Madrid train bombers and a British ID card wouldn't have stopped the attack on 7/7 last year. ID cards, it is plain, will not deter home grown terrorists or suicide bombers who are quite happy for their names to be known once they have carried out their attacks. For there is little point to martyrdom if it is anonymous. And given the care terrorist to live their lives up until the attack below the state's intelligence radar, it is unlikely that the National identity register would pick up suspicious signals in a terrorist's file.
AND IT WON'T STOP ID THEFT. The fallback position was for ministers to stir up fears about ID theft as the great scourge of modern society. Yes, it is a problem, but it is nhaps think of clean water supplies in Africa, or famine and Aids relief or environmental programmes. I'd say that the LSE has got it about right: after ten years there won't be much change from £20 billion, which, incidentally is about four fifths of the cost of renewing Trident, which surely must be a figure that interests Gordon Brown. The crucial thing to remember is that this is our money and our children's money and we are about to spend it on a project that will divide people and government with mutual suspicion, that will invade everyone's privacy to a degree never seen in human history and that will make criminals of the people like me who feel that they cannot submit to the system. And do you know what really kills me - it's the vast amount that will be spent on the government advertising campaign which will by turns dragoon the British public, threaten us and seek to reassure us.
AND BY THE WAY let us not be under any illusion that ID card will remain voluntary. There would, of course, be absolutely no point in such a scheme if people like me were allowed to opt out. It only works if everyone is forced to carry a card and submit their details to the National Identity Register. Already £55 million has been granted in contracts to set up 69 enrolment centres across the country and the bill, which became law this year, includes provision for a system of heavy fines for non-compliance. These speak eloquently of the government's intention to enforce its will
SO LETS JUST SEE HOW IT WILL AFFECT YOU. It will involve considerable inconvenience.- that is clear. You will be required to attend an enrolment centre with some form of identifying material - bank statements, credit cards, driving licence or birth certificate - who knows what. Then you will be fingerprinted, photographed and your iris will be measured. You will give the authorities 49 pieces of information about yourself. If you don't, you may be fined up to £2,500. Additional fines of up to £2,500 may be levied every time you fail to comply
IF YOU FAIL TO INFORM the police or Home Office when you lose your card or if it becomes defective, you face a fine of up to £1000. If you find someone else's card and do not immediately hand it in, you may have committed a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to two years or a fine, or both.
YOU WILL BE FINED UP to £1,000, if you fail to inform the National Identity Register of any change of address. By the way you will also be expected to tell the authorities your previous addresses. Truly the government will be able to say with all the menace of the underworld enforcer, 'We know where you live.'
IF THERE ARE SIGNIFCANT CHANGES to your personal life, or any errors they have made, you will be responsible for informing the NIR or face a fine of up to £1,000. Astonishingly you may also be required to submit to being re-interviewed, re-photographed, re-fingerprinted and re-scanned, and if you don't, you will face a fine.
AND FOR THIS PRIVILEGE you will pay between £30 and £93 (or more) to be registered, with further charges to change your details and to replace a lost or stolen card. It would be a devilishly clever scam if it didn't cost so much taxpayers' money because in essence the government is charging you so that it can charge companies that wish to confirm your identity. Don't you think we ought to be getting a cut somewhere along the line? After all, who's information is it?
BUT THERE AGAIN, YOU WON'T OWN your identity under the new law. The card that you have paid for and have taken so much trouble over remains the property of the Secretary of State and he or she may withdraw it without explanation. Once that happens you will find it very hard to function in our brave new society. I would have thought almost impossible.
WHEN READING THE ID CARD LEGISLATION, I am constantly struck by the minatory tone of the bill - the threats of fines and the general contempt for the average citizen. There's a reason for this. Rather than beave thousands of entry points where the information on your file can be accessed.
One of the worst failures of a database came to light a few weeks ago when the Home Office admitted that the Criminal Records Office had wrongly identified 2,700 people as having criminal records. I cannot think of a clearer case of defamation and it surprises me there is not some kind of class action against the Home Office. Not only were these people's reputations seriously damaged, many were turned down for jobs as a result of the CRO's mistake and can therefore argue for a serious loss of earnings. The Home Office did not even apologise to them and instead insisted that the CRO had only been guilty of the kind of vigilance which aims to offer us all protection from convicted rapists, fraudsters and paedophiles. The Prime Minister, ever the opportunist, reacted by saying that this was another argument for ID cards and the National Identity register because they would not allow such mistakes. It's a strange kind of logic that defends a cock-up in one government data base by spending many billions on another.
BUT IT WAS THE TONE of the Home Office reaction which sent a chill down my spine because it is exactly the arrogance that I fear will come to characterise all government dealings with the man in the street once this database is operational.
AS I SAID AT THE BEGINNING, I am instinctively - genetically, as I put it - opposed to the ID cards and the Identity Register. I am also politically opposed because as the government database grows, I believe there will be a commensurate lessening in the state's respect for each one of us. We will be reduced either to suspects, the have failed to supply their details, or the great mass of classified specimens which will be pinned down and itemised like so many dead butterflies and moths in a showcase. Familiarity breeds contempt, and in these circumstances I believe the government will gradually become less accountable and less responsive to the needs and wishes of the people because of the power it possesses over us. Whereas once politicians were our servants, they will become our masters and we their slaves.
I HAVE PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS TOO. In a free society I believe that every human being has the right to define him or herself independently and without reference to the government of the time. The ID card and National Identity Register require and will bring about a kind of psychological conformity among the vast majority of people, which is utterly at odds with a culture that has thrived on individualism and defiance. And it will remove the right of those who for whatever reason wish to withdraw from the cares of the world and the influence of society, to resort to the consolation of solitude and privacy without inspection from a centralised authority.
In an age when people go on TV shows like Big Brother in an act of exhibitionist self-intrusion, it may seem absurd to talk of such subtle needs. But they are every bit as important to humanity now as they were centuries ago. Privacy, anonymity and solitude are rights and we are about to lose them forever, and hand over the keys to our house when we're out at work to let some faceless bureaucrat rifle our desks and our drawers, our photograph albums and children's reports, our bills and love letters. For that is the kind of access they are going to have in your life. And when they've got their system they will come along and ask for a sample of your DNA and say it's for your own good. Well, it won't be because then they will have everything.
I cannot do it. I will not do it, and I hope you won't either.
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