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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, the way in which such checks have sometimes gone awry has been when there were very similar data such as very similar addresses, and human error has occurred in the system. It is by no means a matter of pride, because every effort is made to try to make sure that we eradicate mistakes. We believe that it would be appropriate to use the new register in a way that would make those mistakes more difficult. An identity card check would provide a much more reliable method of confirming a person’s true identity and help to avert such mistakes. As I have said previously, when it comes to any requirement to use identity cards to access public services, there are already provisions and safeguards in the Bill at Clauses 15 and 16. By restricting the statutory purposes of the Bill and the scheme therefore to only combating illegal or fraudulent access to public services, we would define it far too narrowly and would risk restricting the usefulness of the scheme to the public. I hear what the noble Baroness says about tracking data, but she knows as well as I do that, with the use of CCTV cameras, with our bank details from HSBC and other banks, and with the clutch of store cards that some of us have in our pockets from Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, there is a huge amount of data about where we go and what we do. It is not proposed that that sort of data will be utilised as the noble Baroness fears; this register will enable us simply to advance the proper use and efficiency of public services in a way that we believe would be very helpful to members of the public.