Identity Cards Bill

moved Amendment No. 13:"Page 1, line 11, leave out ““registrable facts about such””" The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 13 I shall also speak to Amendment No. 14. They are probing amendments designed to explore the kind of information that the Government intend to be recordable on and accessible through the ID register. We must remember that we are talking not about matters relating to national security but to what an organisation or a person can ask or be told about another. If it were limited to the single purpose of identification, as my amendment suggests, that would be one thing, but the clause is drafted in such a way that it will allow people to record—and by that token others to access or be given via the register—any registrable fact that they want to about themselves. Those facts, as set out in Clause 1(5), are potentially far-reaching. They might include where a person lived in 1999; his national insurance number or insurance policy number; certainly a driving licence number, and perhaps even his car number if the regulations say so. We simply do not know because we have not seen the regulations. We know from subsection (6) that information could not include their race, religion or membership number of a political party or trade union. Criminal records are also excluded. Otherwise, pretty well anything goes. That will be a hacker’s goldmine and provide instant access to a range of information that otherwise could be only laboriously ascertained. However, if the Government are peddling that as a convenient—how often that word seems to come up—means of information exchange, will there not be a tendency to encourage people to register more numbers than may be prudent in one place? We are always told to keep our numbers separately. Once a person has registered his numbers voluntarily under Clause 3(2), how exactly will access to them be controlled? Clause 19 onwards sets out areas in which information supplied can be used without a person’s consent. However careful the original intent—when will we see the draft regulations?—there must be a risk of information creep if the register becomes used as a general identification service, voluntarily or otherwise. It would be much wiser and the whole process more manageable if the scope of the register were limited to a narrow, circumscribed list of information that could be recorded and accessed. Does the Minister have examples of any personal identification numbers that it would not be permitted for an individual to record? If I want to put my bank account number on it, will I be allowed to and will it be secure? The present wording is far too wide for comfort and should be narrowed. Does the Minister have any reasonable objection to that? I beg to move.