Identity Cards Bill

moved Amendment No. 15:"Page 1, line 13, at end insert—" ““(   )   The Register shall be established and maintained so as to be secure against any unauthorised use or access.”” The noble Lord said: I raise this amendment for the commendation of the Committee because it is essential that flat on the face of the Bill is a clause which tells us what is required in respect of the maintenance of the register. The register, after all, is at the heart of all this, and there has been, and I am sure will remain, persistent concern on all sides of the Committee—this is as much a concern of the Government as it is of the Opposition—that this whole new world of a national identity card with a national database should be maintained with full integrity. Many speeches at Second Reading, and comments made since, referred to the dangers to which the register will be subject by reason of those who want to subvert it. We live in an age unfortunately where there are many such people and the information on the register will be of value to them. The Minister said—she said it both today and yesterday—that it stands to reason that security is paramount and that we do not need to state it in the Bill because it is so obvious. In any event, said she, the seventh data protection principle states as much. That may be true as a matter of psychology, but I really believe that the duty to maintain a secure register should be slap-bang in Clause 1. Let us compare this Bill with the Charities Bill, which we have just finished debating. Most of the duties which are imposed on the Charity Commission in that Bill could similarly be said to stand to reason and no doubt they do, but we want them on the face of the Bill. This amendment is pretty modest. It states:"““The Register shall be established and maintained so as to be secure against any unauthorised use or access””." I have to put it to the Government that it is rather odd to say that we do not need this amendment, which refers to security, when Clause 1(3)(b) refers to ““a secure and reliable method””. If it is not necessary to refer to having a secure register, I do not see why it is necessary to refer to ““a secure and reliable method”” in Clause 1(3)(b). That aside, Clause 1(3) is hugely troublesome. It really is a conundrum within a conundrum. There has already been enough discussion for that to be apparent. I refer to the first amendment moved today, on which we voted. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, went as far as to say that she was not fully apprised of every ramification in the subsection. I am certain that the rest of us would say amen to that. As I read Clause 1(3), it says nothing about the establishment and maintenance of a secure register. The reference made to ““secure and reliable”” concerns, as I have said already, the method by which registrable facts are to be ““ascertained or verified””. I come back to the point. For the life of me, I cannot see why the Government should resist what they say is so obvious as not to be needed, but which many will think as I do, that this should be plainly asserted at the start of the Bill. It would give a reassurance to any citizen who hereafter reads it—God help him or her if he or she does—and it should be a duty on the Government, the Secretary of State and the chief executive of the authority to maintain a secure register that is,"““secure against any unauthorised use or access””." I rest my case on that and I beg to move.