Parliamentary Committees come out against ID Cards

5.24.16pm GMT Tue 25th Oct 2005

UK National Identity Card (Design Mock-up)

Two parliamentary committees have come out against ID Cards in their current form. Both the Lords Committee on the Constitution and the Joint Committee on Human Rights found reasons to object to the scheme as currently proposed.

A report by the Lords Committee on the Constitution called for safeguards "to protect individuals from excessive intrusion into their affairs by institutions of the state or indeed by others", it further said "This is all the more important when the scheme envisaged will record in a single database more information than has ever been considered necessary or attempted previously in the United Kingdom or in any other Western country."

In a report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights says "It is not clear that the gathering of personal information of persons applying for a passport, for example, bears any relation to the protection of national security or the prevention of crime."