The government's plans for compulsory identity cards are finally coming under the spotlight, with two anti-ID campaigns being launched in September. As activists prepare to turn up the pressure, we unmask the corporations propelling New Labour's drive towards a surveillance society. by Chris H

National Identity Card schemes have come and gone, along with the governments that floated them. This time, however, it looks serious. David Blunkett is hell-bent on the project, which he's been kicking around ever since he entered the Home Office, and it seems to appeal to Tony's cuddly totalitarian instincts as well. The arguments against a national ID card scheme are becoming well-rehearsed, and range from the principled to the practical. Aside from the huge costs of the scheme and its potential for generating miles of red tape, the basic issue cannot be avoided: this is about social control. Through compulsory identification, the state is set to acquire unprecedented surveillance powers over all of us. In the current climate of eroding civil liberties and lack of democratic accountability, it can only be expected that these powers will be used to extend government invasion into our daily lives, buttress social inequalities and stifle political dissent. The recent warning from UK Information Commisioner Richard Thomas that we may be “sleepwalking into a surveillance society” should thus be taken very seriously.

What makes the current plan especially menacing is that it is the first to be powered by a range of high technologies. Computer systems have now reached the point where their power and penetration make a database of 60 million people and their day-to-day activities feasible. To this is added the megalomaniac bureaucrat's Holy Grail: Biometrics. This is the field of technology devoted to identification of individuals using biological traits, such as retinal or iris scanning, fingerprints, or face recognition. In the ID cards scheme, the biometric information will be stored on a chip and linked to a unique entry in a database called the National Identity Register. It's not clear whether other information such as address, immigration status or ethnicity will also be included. The ultimate biometric is, of course, DNA, and while it hasn't so far been mentioned in conjunction with the ID cards scheme, it's worth bearing in mind that the police have for years had the right to take DNA samples from anyone they arrest. Linking this information to your Identity Register entry will be a comparatively simple matter.

With such a strong high-tech dimension, it should not be surprising that large IT corporations already have their snouts in the trough. There are many companies taking an interest in ID cards, but the five who participated in the trials are most likely to be taking an active part in the future. These are Atos Origin, NEC, Identix, MORI and Iridian Technologies.

The Roll-call

Atos Origin is the “prime contractor”: the company who designed, supplied and ran the trial equipment and software for the government. A “leading international IT services company”, it operates in 50 countries, has a revenue in excess of 5 billion Euros and employs more than 47,000 staff (7000 in the UK). The company formed in France in 1997 and has grown by acquiring related businesses like KPMG Consulting and Sema Group (from Schlumberger). It has offices all round the country, including two in London - at Triton Square NW1 and Dorset Rise EC4Y. Atos Origin's promotional literature boasts that half of the company's revenue comes from multi-year “Managed Operations” contracts. In other words, in the case of ID cards its major earnings would come not from setting up the scheme, but from running it for as long as possible. This gives Atos a huge interest in the project going ahead, and sets it as the primary target for campaigners. In an attempt to appear less sinister, the company is throwing sponsorship cash around various public events. With no apparent irony it bankrolled the New Statesman's New Media awards, set up to focus on “how new (media) technology is used to make a difference to public life”.

Among the technologies used by Atos is NEC's Automated Fingerprint Identification software. This is considered the best of its type on the market, and is used by the US Department of Homeland Security among others. According to NEC, the technology has been “found to be 99.3% accurate when tested against a database of 64,000 fingerprint records”. Scaled up to UK population figures, that 0.7% margin amounts to 420,000 people being mistakenly identified. NEC has UK operations based primarily around mobile phones, display screens and computer networks.

Iridian Technologies supplied the trials with iris recognition equipment, and holds patents on both the technology and the concept. Iridian seems to mostly work by partnering with companies who want to make use of the technology it owns. Its products are mushrooming through border control and other population monitoring systems from Canada to the United Arab Emirates. Iridian's headquarters is in Morristown, New Jersey, but its website lists two UK partners: Aditech of Aylesbury and Human Recognition Systems of Liverpool.

Identix provided the fingerprint capture and facial matching technology to the trials. Its other notable customers include California's Justice Department and a $27 million deal over 5 years with the US Department of Homeland Security (them again). In 1998 the company (“Your trusted biometrics provider”) paid $3 million to settle a Class Action lawsuit over violation of Federal Securities Laws filed in a California District Court. The allegations were of overstating revenues to artificially inflate the company's stock price. Its corporate HQ is in Minnetonka, Maine; the UK office is at Aldermaston.

MORI has offices all round the UK. It's not clear how far its involvement goes, beyond recruiting and surveying volunteers for the trial, but its expertise in data handling might lead to continued interest when the scheme goes live.

A Legal Labyrinth

A bill authorising the creation of a National ID Card Register (database) will appear in the next Queen's Speech. It is likely to pass (Labour and the Tories both approve), despite having been attacked in a recent report by the Home Affairs Select Committee for being run in secrecy and allowing commercial considerations to prevail over the public interest. “The government's lack of clarity about the scope and practical operation of the scheme, and the nature of the procurement process does not give us confidence”, the committee said. Despite these and other grave reservations the plan was given the go-ahead, with only two committee members opposing.

The overall legal status of the project has been hard to follow, however, because the government is proceeding in a softly-softly piecemeal fashion. They have run small-scale trials in London, Glasgow, Leicester and Newcastle to test the data gathering process and the public's response to it, as well as a “consultation” exercise, which was so poorly publicised that it can be said to have effectively been run behind the public's back. The trials started three months late because the machines needed redesigning and, in Glasgow at least, they have failed to attract the expected number of volunteers. However, the introduction of biometrics is being rolled forward already. As of next year all passports will be issued with a form of biometric information included, initially facial recognition data. When the roll-out of cards begins, driving licenses will also include biometrics, which combined with passports is expected to cover 80% of the “economically active” population by 2008. The rest of us will then be compelled to acquire a card by further legislation, which may be enacted by government without parliamentary discussion.

It's clear that widespread opposition from the general public is the only way to stop the scheme from going ahead, and a number of groups have already been voicing their opposition.

Several of the largest, e.g. Liberty, Privacy International, the Greens and the Lib Dems, have joined together under the banner “NO2ID” whose website contains plenty of useful information on the scheme.

Their campaign will be launched with a rally in central London on September 18th. A more radical network of local activist groups has also been coming together under the banner of “Defy-ID”. Campaigning so far has been locally-organised and sporadic, but response from the public and the media has been good. A Defy-ID group in Glasgow managed to disrupt the press launch of the cards trial, and have conducted awareness-raising activities like setting up an ID checkpoint in the street. A national gathering to organise resistance to ID cards is taking place in Manchester on Saturday 11th of September. Those wanting to attend should email admin@defy-id.org.uk or call 07980 291478 for details of the venue.