Identity Cards Bill

I had not intended to intervene, but people like me who have been involved in the information and research industry for a large part of our lives, and had to search and organise data when the Holorith system broke down with a knitting needle put through the punch-holes, used to say that the main problem was the technology. Now the technology is so fast that the main problem is the individual. It is not difficult, looking at the amount of information and the options that come in, to calculate—there is a formula that I have not brought with me—that effectively one in 11 of all the forms filled in will be inaccurate. When people at the other end put that data into the machine, depending on the time of the day—it has a big impact; the early morning, Friday afternoons and Monday mornings are not a suitable time—there may be inaccuracies. If you work out the compound factor, you may well end up with 25 per cent inaccuracies. That will be put down either to HE, human error, or ME, machine error, or as some people have said occasionally—and I do not wish to use the words—““BM””, which depends on the attitude of the person there, who may not feel in a particularly good mood. It is right that people should be allowed to know when there has been a mistake. However, we must consider the human content and the amount of labour required to make such corrections, when no one will ever get a direct telephone answer, is enormous. Worse than that, the position becomes very one-sided. As noble Lords know, you may be rung up by someone who says he is an official but who has been in touch with one of the websites that enables people to obtain a false ID card that permits them to drink in a pub when they are only 14. We have a problem of credibility. The Government should look at the total cost of all this and the bureaucracy that is compounded by good intentions—and we know that the road to somewhere is paved with good intentions. Have the Government thought about how much all the checking and counter-checking would cost and in particular whether the privacy and freedom of the individual is being jeopardised? The individual will not know who is at the other end of the telephone, therefore surely every official who is communicating with a private citizen should have a name, rank and number that could be checked. I am making a mountain out of an enormous molehill. Never mind; the bureaucratic cost needs to be thought about.