There’s a recurring argument, often made by people I admire, that says: come on, all this civil liberties stuff is just for rich liberals in Hampstead and Chorlton. Normal people in the real world don’t care about any of this ID cards and 42 days bullshit- what’s important is getting food on the table.
Here it is expressed more elegantly:
On the other side, my argument with Henry Porter concerns his paranoia about the state and the disproportion of his indignation over things of minor importance. Given the sheer volume of human suffering and social injustice all around us, he encourages undue obsession with CCTV, the DNA database, ID cards, the children’s database, or indeed the silly anti-protest laws that make rather happy (Turner prize-winning) martyrs out of mild protesters.
This has always seemed like a false dilemma to me – the question is not liberty or equality, it’s both or neither. You don’t lose a need for freedom just because you’ve fallen beyond a certain economic level. You could go to jail and have a guaranteed three square meals and a roof over your head – but would anyone really prefer this to being poor and free?
And then I see this story:
An official report has warned that the government’s plans for ID cards may put poorer people at greater risk of fraud, and that ministers are failing to coordinate implementation of the 10-year programme.
In a blow to Downing Street, which insists that biometric technology will make ID cards safe, the report says people with a “rich biographical record” will have better protection when the cards are introduced by the target date of 2017.
Poorer people could be at particular risk of having their identity stolen because their cards could be their only form of ID, unlike holders of credit cards. ‘Identity verification is a process and should not be dependent upon any one piece of data (biographic or biometric) alone. It is already difficult successfully to pretend to be someone who has a ‘rich’ biographical record – provided the verifying organisation does adequate checks. Care must be taken that confidentiality and integrity are supported by proper processes and policies are not over-dependent on technology.’
Damian Green, the shadow Home Office minister, said the danger to poorer people showed the need to scrap the scheme. ‘Poorer people who don’t have lots of credit cards will be exposed to the mistakes and will therefore have their lives made a misery by being unable to prove their own identity.
“Gordon Brown is getting used to U-turns. This would be one of his more sensible ones before he makes the lives of poor people in this country even worse.’
So: people on low incomes are not only going to have their liberties infringed, they are also going to be made more vulnerable to being ripped off – and this when the poor are already more likely to be victims of crime. Given all this, will Toynbee now concede that ID cards may be a bad idea?
