Privacy Digest

Government predicts one third of people will resist ID checks: "

But Home Office says 'pah, the figures are out of date'

One in three people will resist identity checks according to Government figures. The just-released statistics predict a widespread revolt over identity cards, but the Home Office has dismissed the figures as irrelevant and out of date.

In 2004 Mark Oaten, the then Liberal Democrat spokesman on home affairs, asked for figures to be published on the assumptions being made by Government about ID cards' use. The Government refused. Oaten's request was backed by the Information Commissioner and an Information Tribunal and the figures have now been released.

The figures show that 30 per cent of people were predicted by the Government to refuse to co-operate with ID card checks. The papers, published by the Department for Work and Pensions, show that officials expected that 60 per cent of people would carry an ID card even if it became compulsory to own but not carry one.

ID cards will be introduced next year on a voluntary basis, but the officials had operated on the assumption that they would be compulsory to have but not necessarily to carry by 2014. Even then, just 60 per cent of people would choose to carry a card, and a further 10 per cent would be happy to confirm their identity by a finger or eye-scan on the street, officials assumed.

They also calculated, though, that 30 per cent of people would refuse to carry or show their card or to submit to a finger or eye scan to confirm their identity.

(Read Original Article - Via The Register - Security.)