And we think we've got it bad

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) alert for December 8 reports that Europe, which used to set a good pace for protection of privacy, is slipping backwards.

First, it develops that

[t]he United Kingdom government is going forward with its plans for a mandatory national ID card in its Identity Cards Bill, recently announced in the Queen's Speech, which sets out the government's legislative program for the coming year.

The bill would require getting the new ID card with a renewed passport. A National Identity Register would store a wide variety of information about every resident of the UK, including
- name
- current and previous addresses
- place of birth
- identifying characteristics
- nationality and immigration status.

Biometrics (fingerprints and iris scans) would be stored on the card and in the database. The card and the register would be necessary to seek employment, to gain access to health and various other services, and would be used by police and immigration officers.

What's more, the Home Secretary, on their own authority, would be able to issue regulations to expand the scope of the law.

Since 1952, the issue of national ID cards has come up every few years in Great Britain and has been soundly rejected due to public opposition. Shortly after September 11, 2001, Home Secretary David Blunkett again proposed the card but was forced to back away.... It has subsequently been promoted as a means to prevent illegal immigration, improve public services and to prevent terrorism.

In other words, the scheme continues, just the arguments change. Which is another way of saying the arguments are bogus and the real purpose is the natural tendency of all government to assume more and more power if not resisted by the people. Like the man said,

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty - power is ever stealing from the many to the few.... The hand entrusted with power becomes ... the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity. - Wendell Phillips, 1852

The proposal still faces stiff opposition; even several of Blair's own ministers were against it. The Liberal Democrats party, the Law Society and the Information Commissioner are against it, and

[a] public opinion poll, commissioned by Privacy International earlier this year, found several million people would conduct civil disobedience and one million would go to jail before they submitted to the new card.

So it is by no means a done deal. Still, even if it's killed now, it will undoubtedly come up again in another couple of years, promoted by whatever the convenient arguments will be at that time.

Meanwhile, the Council of the European Union has proposed a regulation

that would require biometric identification of all European citizens and residents by taking their fingerprints and digital photographs and storing them in police databases.

A coalition has called for the proposal to be dropped, calling it "an unnecessary and rushed policy that will diminish Europeans' right to privacy" as well as questioning a lack of oversight and even the legal basis for the measure.

Moreover, the Council appears to have deliberately acted in the last few months in a way that has precluded meaningful participation of the European Parliament in the "consultation" procedure used to adopt Council regulations, despite Parliament members' critiques aimed at limiting the scope of the draft regulation and securing oversight.

That is, trying to do an end run around the process. Sounds familiar.

EPIC has more about national ID cards here and Privacy International is taking a leading role in opposition to the Council's fingerprinting proposal.