From midnight tonight, ID cards may no longer be used to prove identity or to travel in Europe.
The documents are to be scrapped by the government under the Identity Documents Act 2010.
Tom Brake MP, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Policy Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities told Lib Dem Voice,
After yesterday’s annoucement of the cut from 28 to 14 days pre-charge detention, this is the second really big step in restoring the balance between civil liberties and security concerns.
This delivers yet another Lib Dem commitment in Government.
All personal information supplied during the process of applying for an identity card, including photographs and fingerprints, will be destroyed by 21 February 2011.
The Register reports that physical equipment holding the data will be physically shredded and degaussed (a method of erasing magnetic storage media):
The actual dismantling of the systems and the destruction of the personal data will be a mere £400,000, though. Which seems like a bargain compared to the £330m Labour spent on the scheme, of which £41m went on “developing the policy, legislation and business case for the introduction of identity cards”.
Refunds will not be given to those who obtained ID cards, and the Passport and Identity Service recommends that people securely destroy their cards.
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8 Comments
Bye bye police state.
Or part of it anyway.
How about a bonfire of CCTV cameras and an end to kettling?
A good step toward a freer, more liberal Britain. Still work to do though.
I am very disappointed that ID cards have been abandoned. They enabled the Madrid bombers to be located and stopped from perpetrating further outrages.
@PSJ
“How about a bonfire of CCTV cameras . . ..?”
That would certainly make thousands of rapists, murderers, and other perpetrators of violent crimes very, very happy. But we all know Liberal Democrats care much more about their precious principles than helping the victims of violent crime and bringing criminals to justice.
Good riddance. That was a useless waste of money and the single biggest threat to personal safety and financial security that the country has faced since the cold war.
No regrets about the demise of a wildly overpriced scheme which came complete with it lots of apprehensions about abuse and loss of civil liberties.
However, it is still ironic that my French relatives can travel to and from the UK without passports by using their ID cards, whereas I need a (rather expensive) passport to do the same. So far from the situation envisaged by Ernest Bevin: “Ernie Bevin, our great Foreign Secretary, said that he dreamed of the day when a British citizen could go to Victoria station and buy a ticket to anywhere in the world without worrying about papers. Passports have always been a sensitive issue for politicians in this country.” (Dennis MacShane MP (Hansard 29th June 1999))
And you try to board an airliner, even on a UK internal flight, without a passport.
I can just remember the previous UK ID cards, introduced in World War II, retained until the early 50s when a court case by a Liberal prodded the Churchill government to abolish them.
• Andrew Suffield
Posted 21st January 2011 at 7:11 pm | Permalink
Good riddance. That was a useless waste of money and the single biggest threat to personal safety and financial security that the country has faced since the cold war.
Really? A bigger threat to personal safety than Islamic Terrorists? A bigger threat to financial security than greedy, reckless bankers?
Whilst I have always been in two minds re the ID cards, and can see both sides of the arguement for and against, I am very happy that the policy has been enacted and they are scrapped.
A question arises though, which someone here may be able to answer: foreign nationals, who like my civil partner, who currently hold ID cards in order to prove their entitlement to work and reside in the UK; are they covered under this or is it just the cards issued to UK nationals?
If if applies to overseas nationals, from outside the EU, how, as an employer, can we easily verify someones entitlement to work within the UK (as the old systems of stamps in passports was fraught with problems).
Chris
Excellent news. By a distance, the single best thing this Government has done to date. Now to get rid of the insidious biometrics from the passport system, please.