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Identity Cards Bill

My Lords, one thing I know about my noble friend Lord Northesk is that he has, over many years, been thorough in the extreme. He probably does more research on the issue than the entire Home Office put together. However, that said, I sometimes find it quite difficult to understand exactly what he is saying—and that proves to me how extraordinarily complex the issue is. I suggested in one debate last week that we should look at the German legislation on data protection, which made it absolutely impossible for any government department to share data with anyone else, or for the butcher to pass on the names of customers. While sitting with a glass of wine or two and talking to my friends around the world over the weekend, for a bit of fun I tried to access the 22 countries who are members of the EEA—those whose people are effectively allowed to travel at present into this country with an identity card. I sought to see whether I could harmonise the data on that identity card, and which countries had legislation which would mean approving the sort of legislation which we are introducing today. I had these sorts of comments, some from politicians and some from others; ““You cannot be serious!””—that was one—or, ““You cannot be doing such a thing in a country with greater liberty than anyone else””. There must be some form of protection. This morning, I had a sudden knock on my door to ask whether I would support a CCTV camera in the lane. There were several others with new houses who wanted them and they were asking me—because they had heard that I occasionally came to this place—whether I could tell them what the law was in relation to the data. The discussion—with some of a Lebanese nationality, or British; I use the word ““nationality”” guardedly—went that they were worried about doing the wrong thing if they put up a CCTV camera to record information. Some cameras can record for nine months on a single disc, and we discussed who that information belonged to. Would the state have access to it, or would they? Where was the intellectual property? Going over that in time, I concluded that we are either a bright spark leading a light in the wilderness, and doing the right thing, or—as I tend to believe—we are doing totally the wrong thing. I therefore support my noble friend and hope that he will press this amendment.