This article examines the concept of "identity cards" as it exists in India and the "citizen card" proposed in the United Kingdom; and evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed Citizen Card of UK. It concludes with answering the debate on whether India could consider introducing a Citizen Card as contemplated in the UK.
An "identity card" is commonly found in wallets and purses. It is used in its plastic form for financial transactions, retail and consumer services and employment identity. The driving license, birth certificate and passport allow others to identify us. Less obvious but no less important is the use of personalized numbers for identification purposes for health, social security and taxation. Both in the private and public sectors, formal identification of individuals is commonplace. Many organizations dealing with health care, travel, government subsidies, need to be sure of your age or identity.
In 2004 The United Kingdom introduced a bill concerning, interalia, the issue of Identity Cards which is termed a "Citizen Card". The Bill proposes the creation of a National Identification Register which will contain a wide range of details on every UK citizen and resident over the age of 16. Over 50 categories of information will be held on their citizens. Each person will be given a unique registration number which will become the key to allow access by state and private agencies and also support information exchange. There are also "biometrics" involved which will require individuals to submit to fingerprinting and other means of physical identification. These are likely to include electronic face scanning and iris recognition. In addition, there will be an ID Card with its own chip. Initially, the Card will not be compulsory but the declared intention is that it will become so. The ID Card will eventually replace the passport and driving license.
In India, unlike the United Kingdom, there is not yet a government initiative to have a compulsory "Citizen Card" as identification. Thus, some of the common forms of identification prevailing in India, are: the Passport; Driving License; Income Tax Identity (PAN) Card; Voters Id card; Senior Citizen's Card; Ration Card. It is to be appreciated that each of the abovementioned forms of identification are for a specific purpose.
Passport:- if you are an Indian citizen, you have a right to the Indian passport which is an important document serving diverse purposes - for travel abroad, for identification, as a political document, inherently containing a request for protection (since it is issued in the name of the State and intended to be presented to the Governments of foreign nations).
Driving License:- is a legal requirement for operating any motor vehicle in a public place. A driver's license issued by the competent authority of any State/Union territory is valid throughout the Indian Union.
Income Tax Identity (PAN) Card:- Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a ten-digit alphanumeric number, issued in the form of a laminated card, by the Income Tax Department. It is mandatory to quote PAN on return of income, all correspondence with any income tax authority. From 1 January 2005 it will be mandatory to quote PAN on vouchers for any payments due to Income Tax Department. It is also compulsory to quote PAN in all documents pertaining to financial transactions notified from time-to-time by the Central Board of Direct Taxes. Some such transactions are sale and purchase of immovable property or motor vehicle or payments in cash, of amounts exceeding Rs. 25,000/-to hotels and restaurants or in connection with travel to any foreign country. It is also mandatory to mention PAN for obtaining a telephone or cellular telephone connection. Likewise, PAN has to be mentioned for making a time deposit exceeding Rs. 50,000/- with a Bank or Post Office or depositing cash of Rs. 50,000/- or more in a Bank.
Voters ID card:- Voters' ID cards have been issued by the Election Commission of India at huge cost, as one of the measures to ensure improvements to the current system so that the voter in India feels confident that the elections are free and fair. Senior Citizen's Card:- Eligibility - Senior Citizens [male or female] residing permanently in India, who have reached the age of 65 years may apply to the state government for the Senior Citizen's Card to avail benefits such as Maharashtra State Transport - 50% (65 years), Air travel concession - 50% only on basic fare (65 years), Some private hospitals give discounts - 30% (60 years), Government hospitals give treatment free of cost (60 years), Banks give extra interest 1/2 % (60 years), 9% interest on investment upto Rs. 15 lakhs at Post Office (60 years), High Court will give priority hearing (65 years), Maharashtra Professional Tax - 100% (65 years), Maharashtra Telephone Nigam Ltd. 25% discount on monthly rentals (65 years), Railways have a separate queue for Senior Citizens, Income Tax Relief, Old age home admission free or nominal cost.
Ration Card:- Every family residing in a State will be entitled to a ration card under the regulations as prevail from time to time. Special cards of a different identifiable color are issued for those 'Below the Poverty Level', which would entitle them to a)obtain the essential commodities at specially subsidized rates; b)Timely availability of food grains under Targeted Public Distribution System; c)Availability of Essential Commodities of mass consumption at reasonable prices; and d)Protection of Consumer rights through enforcement of provision of Standard of Weights and Measures Act and rules framed there-under. It is envisaged that stringent steps would be taken to ensure detection of bogus and unauthorized Ration Cards through a system of effective surprise checks.
It may be appreciated that an Indian citizen may well choose to stay out of the conspectus of the abovementioned Identity Cards; not wanting to travel abroad, or drive a car in a public place, or exercise the franchise, or wanting government subsidy for rations, or wanting to avail the senior citizen benefits and not requiring to file his income tax return! It is thus legally possible for such a person to opt and stay out of the umbrella of requiring any form of identification. Such a person would therefore technically be "non existent"; a phantom, so to say, as far as officialdom is concerned.
The question that flows from this is,would such a state of affairs be conducive to maintaining internal security? On the other hand, if one were faced with a situation existing in the UK where the citizens may be required to have a citizen card, compulsorily, would such a card be effective in maintaining internal security and prevent terrorism, or would it lend itself to misuse and result in a serious encroachment of civil liberties, including infringement of the right to privacy? If India were to go the UK way, would the Government of India, achieve better internal security? Would such a trade off by the citizens of India result in better governance by the state and ultimately result in a safer environment?
In the UK, historically, the Identity Card debate revolved around the relationship between the individual and the state. During the two World Wars the formal concerns were associated with state security, recruitment and the rationing of food and clothes although the cards continued to be employed in peacetime until 1952. The post-war period has seen the regular resurrection of the demand for the re-introduction of identity cards. In particular, issues of criminal and anti-social behavior have been paramount in parliamentary debates concerned with the introduction of these cards. A series of questions arise and remain unanswered about the proposed Identity Card. For example, maintaining an accurate and up to date database required for such a programme will be costly and inevitably produce human error and abuse of records. Who will monitor the records for accuracy and also who will have access to the information? Even those within the system may discover that they are excluded from registration.
Let us examine the position by evaluating the case for and against the Citizen Card, proposed to be compulsorily introduced in the UK. Arguments in favour of the Citizen Card of UK:
Convenience - It can make life much easier - even if you have a passport or driving license, the Citizen Card means you can leave these more valuable documents safely at home.
Many organizations recognize Citizen Card as valid photo-ID or proof-of-age. The Home Office and the Trading Standards Institute endorse the scheme as a member of the British Retail Consortium's PASS (Proof of Age Standards Scheme) initiative.
From the government's perspective, having a Citizen Card would result in reduction of benefit fraud.
Terrorism could be prevented by personal identification in the fight against crime.
Promote emergency health care, donor information, and overseas travel.
The Card could be effective against the growing problem of identity theft. However, we must not confuse credit card fraud, with identity theft. [Overseas experiences suggest that the central register is not a solution to such theft. Indeed, it may even promote it.
In the USA the social security number has become an identity hub and a central reference point to index and link identity. This has made identity theft easier.
A similar pattern occurred in Australia after the introduction of a tax file number].
Arguments against the Citizen Card
Costly - In 2002 the Home Office put the cost of introducing the Register and Card at £3.1 billion. In November 2004 it revised it to £5.5 billion and that excludes the very large number of "reading machines" that will be required to verify the information on the Card. The certainty in this, is that the final set-up costs will exceed the current estimate. The Bill establishes several new crimes to ensure that people comply with the ID requirements. Fines can run to £2500 for each failure to attend for an iris scan and fingerprinting appointment. In financial terms the ID Card is wasted money given the cost of establishing and maintaining the system.
Centralized Data Base can be dangerous - An ID Card system does not have to be linked to a Central Government Database. In fact in Germany, this is explicitly forbidden by law. Presumably, in order to avoid being criticized that an ID Card containing lots of sensitive personal, medical financial etc information would be a huge "all eggs in one basket" risk, and would actually be a more attractive target for Identity thieves, and hugely inconvenient if it gets damaged or lost, David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary who was forced to resign in 2004, talked vaguely about holding only the minimum amount of data on the ID Card. This would be admirable, except for the talk of connecting it to a Centralized Database, which could effectively store or act as a gateway to huge data files on an individual, which would not physically fit onto any ID Card. The Home Office documents totally fail to budget for the installation and then subsequent maintenance and running of the huge infrastructure that would be needed to connect millions of ID Card readers securely to a central database.
Aid to Terrorists - It is suggested that instead of countering terrorism, such a centralized data base, if it gets into the wrong hands, could actually aid the terrorists. The twenty-first century is experiencing a new form of terrorism. This new variant of terrorism is tending to lose its specific and identifiable goals. At the same time, traditional issues of leadership, ideology, state association, and weaponry are also changing. For example, and in contrast, the IRA in Ireland has a specific, publicly declared and achievable political agenda: it has a clear command structure; it is prepared to enter into political negotiation at various levels; its weapons are of a traditional "industrial-war" type which rely upon the acquisition and use of guns and explosives; coded alert warnings are communicated; and its membership is geographically specific. However, new forms of terrorism simply do not fit the IRA pattern. For example, Al-Qaida and its supporters have no allegiance to a nation state; they have a global reach; the membership is international; there is no apparent command structure; their ideology is a construct of Islamic fundamentalism; their weapons are both traditional and innovative as demonstrated by the devastation caused in the USA on 11 September, 2001, and there is an alleged willingness to use chemical weapons and "dirty" bombs. It was immediately after 11 September that David Blunkett reopened the question of national Identity Cards in the House of Commons although he stated that "the debate must not focus on issues of national security alone". Blunkett, a passionate advocate of compulsory Identity Cards, set out the government's restrictive policies on nationality, immigration and asylum in February 2002. In that White Paper notice was given that a consultation paper would be produced on entitlement cards (identity cards by another name). The consultation period provided by the "Entitlement Cards and Identity Fraud" Consultation Paper expired in January 2003. The new terrorist is characterized as a shadowy, fanatical, isolated foreigner who may operate in any corner of the world as part of a discreet unit with or without support, formal association or direction from a headquarters or a director of operations: the born-again, international anarchist. The responses of liberal democratic states to these new challenges have been instant, often ill considered and highly questionable in terms of international law and the democratic principles that underpin these states. The price politicians claim has to be paid is the diminution of civil rights. This reduction in rights is meant to be temporary and the rights returned when society returns to normal. However, the definition of normality, being a social construct, has resulted in the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974 becoming permanent within the terms of the Terrorism Act 2000. Thus, in the UK they now live in a permanent state of "emergency". It is within this context of extraordinary events specifically fuelled by the fear of terrorism that the Identity Card issue is raised with unfailing regularity. Thus, we can see that Identity Cards, or "entitlement cards", as they are euphemistically named, constitute part of a response pattern which, in turn, reduces civil rights in the name of the fight against the common international enemy: the terrorist. Given the national "emergency" supposedly faced then protection against terrorism is a powerful argument, but not sufficiently powerful to convince the President of the USA to promote the introduction of ID Cards. Indeed, if the UK government felt so strongly about the Card's fighting efficiency they would be introduced immediately on a compulsory basis rather than seeking to introduce them by attrition over a period of years. On 3 July 2002, David Blunkett stated in the House of Commons "I accept that it is important that we do not pretend that entitlement card (now called ID Card) would be an overwhelming factor in combating international terrorism." Last year, Privacy International published unique findings on the relationship between ID Cards and terrorism. It stated there is no evidence to support the claim that ID Cards combat terrorist threats. This is because terrorists move around using tourist visas, such as employed by the 9/11 terrorists, or they are already domiciled and therefore have legitimate ID Cards, such as those who carried out the Madrid railway station bombings. The Report states "Almost two thirds of known terrorists operate under their true identity. The remainder use a variety of techniques to forge or impersonate identities."
Ineffective Technology - Some techno wizards are skeptical about the effectiveness of current technology to handle this national project. The track record of public services is both poor and costly. IT failures include the Passport Agency, Inland Revenue, Court Service, National Air Traffic Services, Child Support Agency, Ministry of Defence, Prison Service and even the Home Office.
Incompatible with EU laws - Today all UK legislation must be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Human Rights Act requires that a statement of compatibility be prepared. The Home Office refused to publish the advice of the Attorney General on the Identity Cards Bill and in January 2005 Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights, which scrutinizes every Bill, stated that there were "serious questions of Human Rights compatibility" and went on to say that "We consider the absence of such explanation (on compatibility) to be deeply unsatisfactory."
India is a vast nation of 1.2 billion people, as compared to the UK which comprises of 59.6 million. India is a country with limited financial resources - per capita income is 2,900 US dollars per year and 300 million (30 Cr.) is the number of people who live below the poverty line. In financial terms the ID Card is wasted money given the cost of establishing and maintaining the system. Although terrorism is rampant in India, issuing citizen cards would not act as a restraint on such activities. If only it would have been that simple, the President of the USA would have introduced ID Cards by now in the USA! The disadvantages of having a centralized data base, and the risk of the data getting into the wrong hands, is actually a huge deterrent for serious consideration in a country like India. Such centralized data could actually aid the cause of terrorism. IT failures include the election process, passport Agency, Ministry of Defence, Prison Service. One of the major short comings in the Indian election process was the problem of "Missing Names" in the voter's list, which makes a mockery of the "Identification" process. With these limitations in mind to be weighed against the so-called benefits which may accrue if India opted for a similar system of having a Citizen Card, it does not appear a viable proposition.
It was announced in March, 2005 that the Identity Card Bill, proposed in the UK, has been dropped. This is because of the general election which is due May, 2005. One casualty has been the Bill. This does not mean it is lost. Rather it will become part of the election manifesto and a replacement Bill will be tabled in the next Parliament, assuming Labour is returned. There is no guarantee that it will be identical. Despite widespread public opposition to the introduction of the Card supported by the Liberal Democrat and Conservative Parties the Labour Government considers it to be a vote winner. Many will disagree.
Authored by Sunita J. Masani........ [June, 2005]