The Surveillance Society
A YouGov poll in the Telegraph suggests continuing unease over ID cards and the national database, and the potential for outright refusal to co-operate with any scheme from a minority of the public.
50% of people said they were in favour of ID cards, with 39% of people opposed. This is very similar to the last two times YouGov asked the question.
Asked how much they would be willing to pay, only 11% of people said they would be willing to pay extra, although it may well be that people misunderstood the question. The wording asked how much people would be willing to pay for a combined biometic passport and ID card, given that passports currently cost £66, and I suspect some people interpreted as how much extra they would be willing to pay.
Of the 39% opposed to ID card, 25% think they will do more harm than good and 30% think they will be too expensive, but 43% say they are opposed on principle. The poll suggests that many of those people would refuse to co-operate once cards were introduced. 21% of those opposed to cards said they would refuse to have a card even if it meant paying a small fine, 7% said they would refuse even if it meant a long fine. 15% said they would refuse even if it meant a prison sentence.
This works out at about 17% of the population who say they would refuse to co-operate with the ID card scheme. Of course, a large proportion – probably a large majority – of this will turn out to be empty bravado. It is far easier to claim in a survey that you would be willing to go to prison rather than have a card than to actually go to prison. However, if even a small proportion of that 17% of people actually do stand firm then there could be a severe problem with non-compliance and media focus on “ID card martyrs” (not having an ID card will not be an imprisonable offence, but the ultimate punishment for not paying fines for not having an ID card would be).
The survey also asked about the national database that will back up the ID card system. 43% of people thought that the information held upon it would be accurate and reliable, but 48% thought it would not. 66% said they did not trust the government to keep such data confidential and 82% thought there was some danger than civil servants working on the data would divulge it improperly to others. Taking these things into consideration, 52% said they were unhappy about a national database 52%.
The survey also asked about CCTV cameras, also regularly cited in articles about increasing state surveillance, and in contrast to ID cards and the national database found strong support for them. 37% of people said that “CCTV cameras and so forth” made them feel they were being spied upon, but when asked if they approved or disapproved of CCTV in various places, approval was overwhelming. 97% of people approved of CCTV in banks, 93% on public transport, 86% outside pubs, 85% on high streets. The lowest support was for CCTV in taxis, but even then 65% of people supported it.
On other facets of the “surveillance society”, 72% supported photographing airline passengers, 56% of people supported roadside fingerprinting of alleged suspects, 50% supported speed cameras and 45% supported fingerprinting airline passengers (39% were opposed). A majority of those expressing an opinion of people (48% of people overall) were opposed to maintaining DNA records of people who have not been charged or have been acquitted, with 37% of people supporting it. The idea of using the chips within ID cards to track people’s movement met with sharp opposition – 70% said they would disapprove with only 16% approval.
Overall people are supportive, but uneasy, about increasing state surveillance. CCTV cameras have wide support, as do security provisions on flights (presumably because of memories of past terrorist atrocities). However, there are doubts about whether the national database will be secure or accurate and public attitudes towards ID cards are ambivalent – around half of respondents still support them, but a minority seem to be staunchly opposed to the extent that they claim they will be willing to break the law rather than accept them.
I renewed my passport three years early so I will be one of the last people to have an ID card foisted upon them
I must admit I totally loathe ID cards in principle – and I loathe CCTV cameras in the vast majority of places (banks ok). It’s easy to understand if you view each cctv as being a watching policeman-so that’s 5 million police…
Its time for action…this issue really is the last straw for me and I will ultimately be prepared to go to prison and sacrifice my ‘freedom’ to prove my point if need be (and I am no law breaker).
This Government really have lost the plot, the whole argument put forward for the cards is deeply flawed, and I sincerely believe that this scheme is nothing more than a thinly veiled measure of state control.
The ever changing and spurious argument put forward by this Government in support of this scheme just smack of yet another policy with a hidden agenda, which will no doubt see our ‘traditional freedoms’ eroded still further.
Have they really brainwashed us to such an extent that we would now accept this measure without a fight, surely not?
Some years ago I saw the film based on George Orwell’s book 1984, and the nightmare image of state control is still vivid in my mind, although over the years I have taken comfort in the knowledge this was a piece of fiction, but I now believe that it was just dated 20 years too early!
My advice is if you haven’t seen the film get hold of a copy, then think very seriously before accepting this measure at ‘face value’.
“Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local community.” The promise made by Tony Blair’s” on page 68 in New Labours book “New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country, published in 1996. Of course that was when Blair was in opposition and there was a more credible threat from the IRA.
So much for Blair’s new contract with the Citizens of this country. I can’t understand why anyone could be so foolish as to trust this government with ID cards when we think of their record of IT schemes, the war in Iraq, WMD’s, Cash for honours, and all the other sleazy schemes this government have been involved in.