ID cards and new police powers?
01 July 1992
The debate over identity cards (ID) being introduced in the UK is continuing. The Home Office evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee in February states that if internal borders controls were dropped (that is, for people arriving from within the EC) "compensating action" would have to be considered. The crux of the Home Office evidence states that if "ports controls under the Prevention of Terrorism Act were abolished, the introduction of identity cards, coupled with new police powers to demand their production away from the frontier, would not compensate for the loss (of frontier controls)... the present arrangements could not realistically be replaced by a system of purely internal checks". The rejection by the UK government of removing border controls is because it does not believe that the external border controls by its EC partners will be efficient, and anyway, many "undesirables" are already resident in the EC. The government therefore argues that: "in order to ensure that non-EC nationals are successfully identified for examination, it is necessary also to check the status of British citizens and other EC nationals."
The argument continues: "It is unrealistic to think that the external frontier could ever be strengthened to the point where it was able to provide a certain barrier against such people (terrorists or drug traffickers). A further particular consideration in this respect is that the principal terrorist threat to the United Kingdom and to UK interests on the continent of Europe comes from the Provisional IRA not from terrorist organisations external to the Community."
The "compensating action" would include measures such as: punitive sanctions on the employers of unauthorised third country nationals and a requirement for people to establish their identity on demand...[and] procedures designed to prevent access to various kinds of State-provided benefits and services." The government would have to consider "a power for spot-checks without particular reason...a new power for spot-checks might well need to be underpinned by a requirement that people should carry identification documents at all times and that might be facilitated by a standard identity document or card for British citizens or perhaps, the resident population."
The evidence presented to the Committee by the Police Service speaks of the need to exclude "criminals, terrorists and their supporters" in the opening paragraph and later refers to terrorists, other criminals and illegal immigrants.". These 'illegal immigrants', especially from Eastern Europe, are described as "economic migrants many of whom live by crime". They call for 1) the extension of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to remove the constraint of "reasonable grounds" when they suspect a person of having committed an offence; 2) the introduction of a "Euro-warrant" to by-pass "complicated extradition procedures"; 3) the introduction of mandatory ID cards throughout the EC. The Association of Chief Police Officers presented evidence on ID cards which it is still studying. Any ID card, they say, should be a computer-readable smart card, including fingerprints, photograph, date of birth and National Insurance number.
In the EC it is compulsory to hold a card in Germany, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg and Spain (though only on Belgium and Greece is it compulsory to carry it around); there are voluntary ID cards in France, Italy and Portugal; and no ID cards in Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands and the UK.
Mr Bangemann, an EC Commissioner, has said that the UK could face legal action in the European courts if it maintained immigration controls for EC nationals after 1 January 1993 (when the internal borders of the EC are due to disappear). The Schengen Group of EC countries - Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and now Greece - are to remove their internal borders at the end of the year. This leaves the UK, Denmark and Ireland committed to retain