Identity Cards Bill

Do I understand things correctly? A commercial organisation, in querying the register, will present certain information to the register—the identity card and maybe a biometric. The question will be, ““Do these two things go together? Is this a valid person?””. The answer will come back ““Yes”” or ““No””. So there is no extraction of data from the register for commercial purposes. Essentially we are offering government departments a facility to come along with a piece of information—it may be a credit card, or a face biometric taken by a high resolution camera in the street—ask ““Who is this?”” and have the answer come back ““It is him””. We are enabling government departments to identify people in all sorts of different circumstances, for all sorts of good reasons. I entirely accept that there will be lots of good reasons why we should give government departments this power. None the less, is it a correct understanding that a government department will present some piece of information to the register, which will be recorded in there for one reason or another, and back will come a set of data enabling it to identify the individual concerned and gain a more complete picture of their activities? One should not underestimate the width of that power. But am I right in understanding that, subject to the safeguards, each little bit has to be agreed by affirmative resolution—which we will do in due course, because everything will be for good reason—and that is the way we see the future?