Guy Herbert (London, NO2ID): Gordon Brown says he is interested in constitutional change - something that constitutional reformers in OurKingdom and beyond have welcomed. But be careful what you wish for.
Under the table, Brown has carried on with a real constitutional revolution, of which ID cards are only a token. What it means to be a citizen is being transformed (it is even called “Transformational Government”). This is happening now. The pace has not slackened under a new PM; while (very probably) you weren’t paying attention, implementation plans (opens pdf) were published on October 10th with the Chancellor’s autumn statement.
Transformational Government, dressed in the language of consumerism, is what NO2ID calls “the database state” – management of citizens’ lives through centralised computer systems; pooling and cross-referencing information about people gathered on any pretext for any purpose, amounting to mass surveillance. Once your relations with the state preserved your privacy, being limited to relationships with bodies that were separate from each other. A single department was powerful, but it did not judge you on your whole life.
Transformational Government changes that. You will have a single permanent record, and your identity managed (or determined) by the state. That will be held together by cross-referencing databases – which is what a National Identity Register is needed for. ‘ID cards’ are the concrete expression of this register, but strictly speaking are not necessary: numbering you and making constant reference to the central file will do.
If that still doesn’t sound constitutional you, consider the key task placed with the Ministry of Justice. It is to remove the ‘barriers’ to data-sharing presented by human rights law (Art.8 of the ECHR being troublesome), data protection, common law confidentiality, and ultra vires. Brown adverted to this in his “British liberty” speech:
This is an issue for both private and public sector transactions alike. And whatever views people have in the debate we are currently engaged in about the management of identity for entry into our country and in other respects, I believe we need a wider debate - right across the public and private sectors - about the right form of independent oversight and parliamentary scrutiny and safeguards
Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. You’d think the debate “about the management of identity” had not been started by the government. Lord Gould of Brookwood, back in 2005, was more direct:
This is not some silly idea of the phoney left. It is a mainstream idea of modern times. It is a new kind of identity and a new kind of freedom. I respect the noble Lords' views, but it would help if they respected the fact that the Bill and the identity cards represent the future: a new kind of freedom and a new kind of identity.
Mr Brown is already making a new kind of liberty, and that means a National Identity Management Scheme (opens pdf). Who you are, managed by the state. If that’s not constitutional change, I don’t know what is.
