Identity Cards Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes a decent point in truth. A large database should be introduced on an evolutionary basis and slowly. However, that could be done on a much more steady basis with a voluntary system. The point here is the strategic problem of the database itself, but I will come back to that in a moment because it is a serious point to take on. There is also the question of inaccuracy. The Government have tried to persuade the public of the value of an identity card, but they have not considered the consequences if there are erroneous records. Many hon. Members have dealt with personal disasters that have befallen constituents when some data held about them have been wrong. As the Select Committee Chairman will know, the Home Office cannot even ensure that the Criminal Records Bureau database is accurate. At one point two thirds of it was in error, and at the last check it was one third. Those are serious errors in what should be an absolutely accurate record. So what chance with a 40 million person database? So there are many major problems even before one considers the hundreds of thousands of people who will be the victims of false positive or false negative biometric tests, as has been clear from the studies done. Finally, there is the most important question about the whole issue—the insecurity of the system. The Government have made, in a way properly, much of the issue of identity theft, particularly with regard to terrorism. Yet their proposal—a point I referred to earlier—is to gather the access keys to virtually every Government database in the national identity register, put them on one large computer and then create many thousands of direct access points to that computer. They will have created the most attractive possible target for every fraudster, terrorist, confidence trickster and hacker on the planet. Those people will be able to lift data out and put viruses and false data in. If the Pentagon and Microsoft cannot keep hackers from penetrating their mainframes, what chance the Home Office? Speaking about the scheme, Microsoft’s national technology officer has said that a central identity database could worsen the very problems that it was intended to prevent, such as terrorism and identity theft. He said that "““ministers should not be building systems that allow hackers to mine information so easily.””" So, far from protecting the public, the Government will put the individual citizen at risk by creating a culture of complacency that is based on an ill-designed and ill-thought-out scheme. Incidentally, this is yet another area where the Government mounted a mendacious attack on the independent LSE report. I will deal with that in detail because it is rather important. The section of the report that highlights the very serious security flaws in the proposed system was written not by an antagonist of the identity card system, but by somebody who favours identity cards, Dr. Brian Gladman, the ex-technical director of NATO, who had an eminent career in the British military ensuring the security of our military computer systems. He himself has said: "““the UK ID cards programme as now envisaged will create safety and security risks for those whose details are entered into the system.””—" that from an avowed supporter of ID cards.