The consultation period finishes on 31 January 2003. Comments
should be sent to:

Entitlement Cards Unit,
Home Office,
50, Queen Anne's Gate,
London,
SW1 9AT.

Or they can be sent via email to:

 entitlementcardsunit@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Full copies of Entitlement Cards and Identity Fraud are available at
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/dob/ecu.htm

Defy-ID is an adhoc network of groups and individuals prepared for active resistance to increasing surveillance and the introduction of identity or ‘entitlement’ cards in the UK.

For more infomation, visit the Defy-ID website.

Well, it's more interesting writing and sending these letters than it is xmas cards (which I have sent precisely none).



Dear Sir,

I am responding to the consultation paper on the issue of the proposed “Entitlement” card. I am far from convinced that the case has been made.

There is already a vast system of “entitlement” cards for credit, tax, driving, working, drinking, and travelling across national boarders. The “entitlements” themselves in terms of benefit payments, national security, pensions, and so forth are already very complex.

These systems, certainly the ones which control interaction with the government in terms of tax and benefits, can be simplified without the need for a universal “entitlement” card. Without good evidence in that area that the bureaucracy is being tackled and managed, the idea that a new “entitlement” card will simplify matters wears thin.

The so-called advantages of the “entitlement” is not something on which we have a say. The government has the power to create new disadvantages to not having a card. I don’t think they will be fooling anyone.

I expect that one day we will suddenly discover there is an “advantage” to carrying a card because we can’t get emergency treatment in a hospital without it. Maybe it’s got our blood type and disease conditions, and doctors can’t get insurance touch us without this complete knowledge. In fact, once this system is in place, the authorities will find all sorts of new applications for it and we will wind up with far more bureaucracy and control than it was put there ostensibly to solve. It will be like building a big new road: suddenly there is much more traffic and hassle everywhere because it is so useful.

I don’t feel many of its potential applications are useful. I don’t understand all this obsession with illegal immigrants at the very bottom of society, except that they are a very weak target and generally contribute more to our economy than they take away. That’s what the economic statistics seem to state. They have a hard enough time as it is. It’s like clamping down on homeless junkies-- it doesn’t address the problem. It serves short-term political ends, and I would have hoped that the civil service would have stopped playing around to this tune.

As to this “identity theft” argument. This will get worse. As there becomes more forms of identity for access to goods and services, the amount of “identity theft” increases. There is nothing special about this card which breaks it out of the pattern. Counterfeiting technology is readily available. The central databases which this card may rely on as back-up is likely to be no less flaky than the other databases which the government has commissioned and built up. Credit cards use a central database for verification and they are full of fraud. If your technical team thinks they can do it properly now, why don’t they go and practice on one of these other databases, like the passport agency, first and get it working?

All these case studies of “identity theft” in your consultation document were detected and prosecuted without the existence of a universal “entitlement” card. Therefore, none of them gives evidence for the need of a card. In fact, had such a card been used fraudulently, it may have been more difficult to detect these crimes.

In the long term, we shouldn’t go round installing these powerful tools of a police state in our own country by our own free will. While you may think it is unimaginable that such a catastrophic event could happen here, it cannot be ruled out. It has happened to other democratically mature civilized nations in the last century all throughout Europe, from Spain to Lithuania, and almost every single country in Central and South America. A junta can easily seize control over the machinery of the state. How can you assure people that this won’t happen sometime this century? You can’t. All sorts of serious shit happens to a nation in such a time frame. It is beholden to us not to build a complete mechanism which could be used to make our oppression, were such an event to happen, considerably worse. The first episode of such an event is a round up and assassination all the political resistance. This will be pretty swift and easy if the records are all in the hands of the government. I don’t hold much hope that a farsighted civil servant would find the will to shred everything beforehand, as they do in an accountancy firm when they’ve been caught by the fraud squad.

In conclusion, don’t do this. Divert the energy of your department towards clearing up the bureaucratic complexity already present in the system. It’s always easier to add more systems and bureaucracy than to take any away, but the easy option is wrong. Work on solving real challenges that will make life more convenient for the citizens of this country rather than just more convenient for bureaucrats. Then people might think about trusting you.

Yours sincerely,