David's Damascene Conversion

Here at Data Grub we’ve so far held off from writing about ID cards, in part because this long-running saga has been so comprehensively covered in most mainstream media.

But we couldn’t let the Rt Hon David Blunkett get away with Tuesday’s speech at, of all places, Essex University. Blunkett, the original panegyrist of ID cards in this country, used his speech in part to propose scrapping compulsory ID cards.

So, what prompted David’s Damascene conversion, especially given that he’s often expatiated on the benefits of ID cards in his News of the World column and was at one point trousering a decent sum as adviser to Entrust, a company interested in bidding to run the UK card scheme?

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Blunkett went on to recommend that all UK citizens be required to have a fancy biometric passport which is, in effect, an ID card with a handy notebook attached for shopping lists. (Let’s be honest, when was the last time Bermondsey Bob needed a visa?)

Blunkett proposes that ID cards be voluntary but that biometric passports – which contain exactly the same information and will be linked to exactly the same database – will be compulsory. That way, the government can spin ID cards as a handy “mini-passport” that fits snugly into your wallet.

But even if compulsory passports are merely ID cards in disguise, one wonders what his rational is for jumping horses now, especially given that the current Home Secretary is still keen on the cards. Could it be that he wants the law on the statute books before the Tories’ inevitable election in 2010?

Blunkett and his successors have been trying to get make ID cards mandatory for donkeys’ years, but couldn’t do so until a large proportion of the population started carrying them voluntarily.

That’s clearly not going to happen in the next 12 months; but plenty of people have passports – make them compulsory and you’ve got your ID database system sorted.

Of course, all this completely ignores the question of whether ID cards might not, in fact, be quite a Good Thing after all. In spite of the government’s claims that they will prevent benefit fraud and halt terrorists in their tracks, Data Grub remains to be convinced of their utility.

Should Jacqui Smith decide to take Blunkett’s advice by making passports compulsory, it’ll be interesting to see if she employs the traditional ID card arguments (fraud, terrorism) or if Labour spins it some other way.

Watch this space.