Write to the Home Office - hardly anyone is speaking to them on ID Card / Database Civil Liberties
Tony McNulty is claiming in a Written Answer, that only 21 members of the public and no organisations have sent a letter or an email to the Home Office complaining about the Civil Liberties aspects of the new Identity Cards Bill.
N.B. nobody seems to have written to praise its impact on Civil Liberties.
Wednesday, 15 June 2005
Home Department
Identity CardsSadiq Khan (Tooting, Lab)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent representations he has received on the likely impact of identity cards on civil liberties; and what response he has made.
Tony McNulty (Minister of State, Home Office)
Since the publication of the Identity Cards Bill on 25 May 2005, 21 representations have been received from members of the public. No representations have been received from any organisations or official bodies. The representations took the form of both letters and e-mails, and they expressed concern that the Identity Card Scheme would infringe civil liberties.
The Government believe that the Identity Cards Scheme will support civil liberties and human rights. The scheme will be bound by legislation such as the Data Protection Act, Human Rights Act and the Disability Discrimination Act. The Identity Cards Bill also contains a number of important safeguards such as setting limitations on the information that may be held by the scheme and its use. Only Parliament would be able to change the statutory purposes of the Register or the type of information which could be held and only via primary legislation."
After years of ignoring constructive advice and criticism about their Identity Cards / Database scheme, is the Home Office actually willing to listen now ?
We cannot let the Home Office claim that there is no Civil Liberties problem, simply because nobody has successfully managed to penetrate the bureaucratic red tape and isolation from the public, and has therfore failed to contact them about it.
You know what to do - express your concerns via a letter or email to:
Tony McNulty MP
Minister of State for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality
c/o Direct Communications Unit
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
FaxL 020 7035 4745
Email: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
The Home Office contacts page also has a drop down selection option for "Identity Cards" on its web page response form.
If you do happen to agree with McNulty's statement that "The Government believe that the Identity Cards Scheme will support civil liberties and human rights."
perhaps you could explain exactly how this will be achieved, by commenting here or via email.
Comments
I don't believe these stats. I for one wrote to the home office. I know many others do also wrote.
Posted by: Mark | June 19, 2005 9:11 AM
Might be a good idea for everyone who pledged with NO2ID's pledgebank to also write a letter? this would give them over 3800 and increasing complaints to consider.
Maybe send all letters to one place then present them personally to the home office to get around stats.
Posted by: Jason Fontaine | June 19, 2005 1:35 PM
Given the experience of STAND, who organised an online send an/email/fax/letter/automated voice response system, for the Entitlement Card Consultation, where over 5,000 responded.mostly against the proposals, but which the Home Office chose to count as one single "response", one might be cyncical to believe that the Home Office and NuLabour Ministers will not simply ignore any , even constructive criticism, and press on regardless, especially as there is no formal public consultation process open at the moment.
Writing to your MP, at this stage, is provbably more worthwhile, given the Second Reading vote which is coming up on the 28th of June e.g. using
http://www.theyworkforyou.com
or directly.
Posted by: wtwu | June 19, 2005 4:02 PM
I wrote to the email address you provided. Hopefully others more eloquent than myself will be doing the same.
Keep those updates coming :)
"Hello,
I am writing to register my concern with the government's plan to introduce mandatory ID cards.
Here (in no particular order) are the main concerns I have;
The government has no right to demand biometric information of mine, (fingerprints or otherwise) unless I commit a crime of some sort or get arrested. I object to being treated like a criminal.
I object to such a wide scope of personal information being kept in a national database, with hacking being what it is today, not to mention the possible abuses that can be perpetrated by those responsible for storing or manipulating the data.
The goverment seems hell-bent on forcing through ID cards whether the public want them or not. Why has not more parliamentary time been assigned to this critical issue?
Rumours suggest EDS will get the contract for this one. EDS are legendary at going over budget, with poorly planned projects that occasionally result in total disaster. Has everyone forgotten the DWP fiasco already?
You continually state that ID cards will prevent terrorism. If a criminal can get a fake passport, how are you going to stop them getting a fake ID card? How exactly will ID cards prevent terrorism?
We are also told that ID Cards will prevent Identity Theft. Why have you renamed "Fraud" to "Identity Theft"? I believe this fudging of terms is deliberate, so that the association between the two will hopefully blur in the public's perception over time.
ID cards are not the answer to any of the above problems. They will create more problems than they solve, and you'll have a hard time getting me to apply for one.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope that Tony McNulty is able to add my voice to the "21" others he is claiming have registered their dissent against ID cards.
I have already written to my MP and will continue to do so, while alerting my family and friends to this latest liberty-threatening excercise by the government.
Regards,
Chris Godfrey"
Posted by: chris | June 20, 2005 4:38 PM