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Identity Cards Bill

I think that there may be an illogical inconsistency. It is a clever way of defining external characteristics. Your iris is internal but it can be read externally. That is presumably how an external characteristic is defined. It is not something that is external to the body, but it can be read externally. On the other hand, hair contains DNA. I think that most people would define hair as a characteristic external to the body. You could therefore take a piece of someone’s hair, or it could be shed, and that would not be internal to the body. If we are defining the external and internal characteristics by the way in which the sample is taken, then the Bill is possibly flawed. You are either permitting the inclusion of DNA by taking it externally, or excluding the iris because it is an internal characteristic.