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Identity, individuality and legitimacy in a modern age
WHO DO YOU THINK
 YOU ARE?
 
This
New Statesman
round table, which took place on30 November 2006, attempted to explore the socialsignificance of identity in a modern age
-
our individuality,entitlement and legitimacy
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and look at how a nationalidentity card would work.The round table is a part of the
New Statesman
New MediaAwards programme, which looks at how information andcommunication technologies can be applied to make publiclife better. The whole programme is sponsored by Atos Origin.
15 January 2007
New Statesman52 GrosvenorGardens,London SW1W 0AUTel 020 7730 3444Fax 020 7259 0181E-mail info@newstatesman.co.uk
Editor 
Caroline Stagg
Photographs
 Joel Chant
Cover picture
Scott Rothstein,Dreamstime.com
Sub-editor 
Sue Laird
2
| NEW STATESMAN | 15 JANUARY 2007
Philip Chalmers
Director,Atos Origin
Gareth Crossman
Director of policy,Liberty
Carolyn Quinn(chair)
Presenter,
The Today Programme 
,BBC Radio 4
Commander JanetWilliams
Deputy assistantcommissioner,Police of theMetropolis
Nick Johnson
Director of policyand public sector,Commission forRacial Equality
Richard Thomas
InformationCommissioner
Professor IanAngell
Professor of information systems,London School of Economics
Liam Byrne MP
Minister of State,Home Office
 James Hall
Chief executive,Identity andPassport Service
Professor AngelaSasse
Head of humancentred technology,University College,London
Professor AnthonyGrayling
Professor of philosophy,Birkbeck College,University of London
Clive Reedman
Managing director,Identity Solutions
Round table participants
 
15 JANUARY 2007 | NEW STATESMAN |
3
Carolyn Quinn (chair)
Thank you all for coming. Let us make a start. Liam Byrne, welcome.
Liam Byrne
I hope that the issue of identity and IDcards in particular is going to come up on the agendaduring the next month or two, so I am grateful to the
New Statesman
for bringing us together this morning.Despite the absence of much conversation in themedia about identity and ID cards over the past sixmonths, I think it remains outstandingly popularthroughout the country. I recently took a poll of myconstituents and an incredible 80 per cent were insupport of ID cards. I think the reason is quite simple– they address fundamental concerns about Britainand the world today.Migration is changing the nature of our country. Upand down the country, the pattern, shape and natureof communities are different. If you look at CanningTown in London, the population born abroad literallydoubled between 1991 and 2001. When you havecommunities in such flux, very often those peoplewho were here already will ask questions about fairness – whether newcomers have greater rightsthan they have – the concern is whether that fairnessis real, and it is an error for government or politiciansto deny that concern exists.The second great concern is around security. I wastold last night by our polling company that immigration is no longer the number one issue of concern to people in Britain – it is the number twoissue – but that is only because defence and terrorismare at number one. This issue of defence, terrorismand counter-terrorism is, quite rightly, of enormousconcern to people. The advent of asymmetric warfarein the past 15 years, particularly suicide attacks, is a bigissue and people are worried about it.The third point is that the nature of the way inwhich we live our lives is different now. The onlineworld has changed us in all sorts of ways. People livemore of their lives, and define more of their identity,online and with that growth of the online world comenew opportunities to undermine identity.Now, for the first time, we have the chance toacquire a new critical national infrastructure to helpus manage many of those risks. What we have doneover the past two or three months is to set out someof the ways in which we think identity services will be able to help.I will start with identity fraud. Since 2000, over250,000 people have been victims of identity fraud,50 per cent of consumers do not feel their identity issafe and 65 per cent of people are concerned that theywill become a victim of identity fraud. People arelooking for things, particularly in the online world, tohelp protect their identity. One in four criminals usesa false identity; the al-Qaeda training manual advisedits people to acquire and solicit multiple identities.One of the September 11 hijackers used around 30different identities and had incurred about £250,000of debt. So, false identity is an important part of howterrorists and criminals operate, but we also knowthat identity technology has great potential to help usto protect our borders in a far more secure way. We have already found 1,400 people who we havedeported trying to sneak back into the country using adifferent identity. We are introducing a couple of interesting trials at the moment; one is biometricvisas. We have the fastest growth in iris scanning barrier gates anywhere in the world. More than 40,000 people have now joined the scheme becauseit is harder to get through borders now. Identitytechnology helps us to do that faster and helps usmanage risks that people are worried about. We are having wide debates and discussions todayabout the nature of identity in Britain in the 21st century. If we want to build stronger communitieswhere there is more diversity, we have to persuadepeople that the foundation is a set of common rules.Unless people believe that those rules are beingobserved, you do not get the kind of harmony that isneeded in order to live life to the full in the 21st century. Identity systems will help us project theconfidence of enforcement in those rules. Out of 55 of the biggest passport issuing nations, 53 are issuing biometric passports. We need to upgrade ourinfrastructure. We cannot have our passports becoming second class. There will be concerns about money but you have to remember that much of thecost of ID cards is going to be incurred, anyway,whether James and I stop the project today or not.
Who ownsyour identity?
This issue of defence,terrorism andcounter-terrorism is,quite rightly,of enormousconcern topeopleLiam Byrne
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