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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, perhaps I may explain why I have put my name to the amendment. The purpose of the national identity register is to prove one’s identity. We are told continually that it is not Big Brother and its purpose is not to track an individual. We are then told that the purpose of the audit trail is to be able to track identity theft. In other words, is your identity being stolen? Apart from those audit trails undertaken by intelligence services, the only person who knows when you did or did not use the card is you. The theory is simple. If you were there, offered up the card and the access occurred in front of you, you know that it took place. Therefore, there is nothing to be gained by having the information stored because you already know that it has happened; you will know whether your identity has been stolen. It would not be difficult to press a button which states whether or not you permit the storage of the fact that there has been access to the national identity register. An exemption may need to be included—that is perhaps why the issue should be left until Third Reading—to provide that if you are stopped as a result of some matter of national security, and it is felt that you were involved, the security services may want to keep on file the fact that you were stopped. That is a difficult provision to frame and it is for government to do so. But it is not necessary to know when normal activities took place—going to a bank, and all the other purposes which are supposed to help with the efficient provision of government services. There could be some embarrassing situations. People could leave themselves open to blackmail because they were not where they had told someone they would be at that time. It would be very dangerous to have every single access recorded. As a matter of privacy, it is important that these amendments are accepted.