Who are you and can you prove it? is the states eternal demand of the citizen. The pervasive atmosphere of political fear in the post-9/11 world has given it added sharpness. Around the world, states are gathering more information and imposing tighter controls on those they govern. In response, many citizens ask whether they have more to fear from the democratic state than from terrorists or criminal gangs. At the heart of this distrust is the citizens eternal demand of the state: whose side are you on?
These questions have moved to the centre of political debate in Britain with the Labour governments proposal of an Identity Cards Bill that makes provisions for every United Kingdom citizen by 2008 to have a card that records biometric information (fingerprints, an iris image, and facial dimensions) as well as name, address, gender and date of birth all linked to a national database. Its use will not be compulsory (at first) but it will become essential for access to public services, and vital in the governments eyes in combating terrorism, illegal immigration, fraud and identity theft.
Britains passports too will become biometric, soon after those of its European Union partners and United States allies. All this will sweep away Britains time-tested system of birth-certificate-plus-proof-of-address as a way of certifying identity. The protest from groups like Liberty and No2ID (whose spokespersons Shami Chakrabarti and Simon Davies have been especially articulate and forceful) has claimed that the measures will be unworkable and intrusive, but most of all that they represent a threat to the civil rights of the individual.
The issues are both technical and political: whether it is feasible (as well as democratic) to require every resident in the country to carry an identity card at all times, what data is collected for the production of that card, and how this data is stored and managed.
The Swedish way
The experience of Britains Swedish neighbours may hold some lessons here. In Sweden, holding identity cards is not compulsory, although proof of identity is so frequently asked for that one would think that it was. It is practically impossible to conduct normal day-to-day Swedish life without an identity card; an identity document is required even to make a payment with a credit card. There is no national format for the document; a variety of documents, like drivers licences, passports and ID cards issued by the post and banks are all valid for the purpose.
However, it is compulsory to belong to the register containing the ID card data. At birth, or when settling in the country, everyone receives a personal identity number (personnummer), which was introduced in the current form in 1947. It is a ten-digit number that remains with the person throughout his or her life. It is composed of the date of birth, written in the form yy/mm/dd, followed by four random digits where the last digit reveals the gender of the bearer.
This national registration dates back to the 17th century. Until 1991 the Swedish church conducted the national register. The long history of registration has made it a part of the cultural heritage. Churches and the old church registers are for instance often the first place to visit for people looking for details about their ancestors. A vast amount of information is usually found. Today, the identity records are administered and kept by the tax authority.
This explains why an instrument that (from a British, or indeed an American perspective) could be perceived as a compulsion is in Sweden at least seen as a persons natural right. There is an important contractual, even democratic, element here: some data (like tax returns) has to be provided to state authorities, but citizens also expect the state to automatically provide them with the different types of benefits due to them including many that are sent automatically and not even applied for.
Such procedures are possible because all the Swedish personnummer, though registered by local authorities, are connected to the national register. The law regulating public documents (offentlighetsprincipen) establishes that all documents held by governmental bodies are public, i.e. free for everyone to see. Authorities can therefore use the citizens identity number effortlessly to exchange data.
There is an important exception: data protected by the privacy law. Personal details regarding a persons character, state of mental and physical health, family circumstances, economy and ability to work are protected from the public eye and only available to relevant authorities and the individual himself. The privacy law protects any information that can be damaging to the person concerned if it were to be circulated.
Some voices utter concern at the Swedish states ability to trace every step of an individuals life; but equally, many find the privacy laws that to some extent limit this ability too effective, since the records of people who have committed criminal offences are protected in equal measure as those of law-abiding citizens with clean records.
Intrusion or freedom?
Against this background, the argument heard in Britain that it is an infringement upon privacy to ask citizens to carry an identity card that will guarantee easier access to private and public services seems less convincing.
No doubt, data collected on a national identity register can be used and diffused in ways that are far beyond the wish of citizens if meticulous rules for how to treat the data are not defined. Liberty argues that the proposed British bill has too many unanswered questions that must be addressed before the bill is passed.
The British public seems more sanguine, with the mixed messages of opinion polls suggesting a lot of open minds. The opposition Conservative Party broadly supports the Labour governments scheme, though the third party Liberal Democrats are firmly against it. The Lib-Dems argue that the £5.5 billion pounds that recent estimates say it will cost would be better spent invested in the police force, and that the project will prove another IT disaster.
The Swedish model may again offer clarity on this point. In Sweden, the identity register is in general seen as a positive tool when dealing with official matters. In a society where 35% of the population is now using the internet every day, the personal identity number, ID cards and e-ID cards are revolutionising not only the way Swedes deal with state authorities, but also their way of banking and conducting business.
A centralised system of data, with effective laws ensuring its correct use, has led in Sweden to streamlined administration across a range of public and private bodies. The accumulative society-wide benefits of the scheme far outweigh the cost of implementing it. The result has been a more efficient country and no real diminution in civil liberty.
The combination of a centralised system (developed and anchored in peoples minds over time), open access, the Swedes distinct political culture and the computer age has created this particular outcome. Could Britain make it work?
