- The UK receives 89 million foreign visitors every year†. A small minority of these are illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.
- The identity card legislation does not require foreigners entering the country to have passports or identity cards with biometric technology equivalent to that proposed for the U.K. identity card.
- Biometric passports will only be used by European countries as part of the EU plan for an EU wide identity card.
- It is legal under the Identity Card Bill for foreigners to use fake documents to enter the country and claim asylum*.
- Illegal immigrants can enter the U.K. as
tourists and are free to live in the U.K.
for 3 months without any ID card. Once the 3 month period is up they can
simply disappear.
The only effective way to stop illegal immigrants entering the country in the first place is to have tighter border controls. However, this is in conflict with the EU initiative to have more open borders and remove travel restrictions. As the British adopt the pan-european identity document (biometric passport), then there is a stronger argument to completely open our borders – and hence allow in more illegal immigrants.
America does not believe an American identity card will help prevent illegal immigration, in contrast to Europe it chose instead to strengthen its borders.
Biometric passports have a 10% failure rate. This means you have
a 1 in 10 risk of being mistaken for an illegal immigrant (or potential terrorist) when
you attempt to re-enter the UK. When
your biometric passport fails, people with
small children will be subject to extra scutiny (because of the risk of child abduction/smuggling) and members
of the ethnic community.
You will be held by Immigration Control until your identity can be confirmed using conventional methods (i.e. non-biometric).
People with the standard British passport (issued before October 2005) will not have this problem.
If the facial biometric is only used to confirm that the picture in the passport matches the biometric pattern stored on the microchip, then the risk of failure is reduced. However, if attempts are made to compare this to a ‘live’ facial biometric, i.e. by facial recognition a camera, then the risk of failure increases. In practice, when you pass through passport control in the UK today, there is no comparison made to the facial biometric you have provided, so 'biometric security' is not being used.
The limitations of iris-scanning technology can be seen at Heathrow airport where it takes 6 to 10 times longer for a person to pass through the iris scanning booths than a person using a conventional passport at immigration.
The government plans to include finger-prints and eye-scans on the biometric passport. This increases the complexity of the identification procedure and raises the failure rate of the biometric passport.
You will be held by Immigration Control until your identity can be confirmed using conventional methods (i.e. non-biometric).
People with the standard British passport (issued before October 2005) will not have this problem.
If the facial biometric is only used to confirm that the picture in the passport matches the biometric pattern stored on the microchip, then the risk of failure is reduced. However, if attempts are made to compare this to a ‘live’ facial biometric, i.e. by facial recognition a camera, then the risk of failure increases. In practice, when you pass through passport control in the UK today, there is no comparison made to the facial biometric you have provided, so 'biometric security' is not being used.
The limitations of iris-scanning technology can be seen at Heathrow airport where it takes 6 to 10 times longer for a person to pass through the iris scanning booths than a person using a conventional passport at immigration.
The government plans to include finger-prints and eye-scans on the biometric passport. This increases the complexity of the identification procedure and raises the failure rate of the biometric passport.
identifying illegal immigrants using routine identity checks There are a number of methods to identify illegal immigrants using the identity card system (assuming the whole population has a card). Those in the front-line will be police officers, doctors, nurses, and social security staff.
- routine checking when you are stopped by traffic police. The government claimed this would never happen, however they have already done trials of roadside fingerprinting of drivers to check their details against police criminal databases
- routine identity checks in your place of work. This can be done at the point of interview, but under the present scheme would involving going with your potential employer to an ‘authorised place’ (such as a post office) and being scanned and checked against the register. This would not affect illegal immigrants already employed before the introduction of the ID card system
- routine checking on arrival to hospitals. Your details wil be checked against the NIR on arrival. This has met with resistance by nursing bodies. To prevent abuse of the NHS, people whose ID cards fail will be refused access.
identifying illegal immigrants using random checks - stop, search, and scan The ID card scheme will allow police to stop people in the street. This will mainly fall on the ethnic community and foreigners. For the system to work they must be able to scan the suspect and check their ID card against the Identity Register, otherwise the person could be using a fake ID card.
Techniques similar to those used in France such as setting up road-side checks will be employed in the UK. We are familiar with police road blocks to check road tax, under the ID card scheme this will include an ID check. The trials being used by traffic police are a pre-cursor to this (see above).
With 89 million foreigners visiting the UK each year, there is the problem that during a ‘stop-search-and-scan’ the suspect could show a foreign passport and claim to be a tourist. To overcome this, the police will have to focus their operations away from tourist areas and concentrate on towns with high ethnic populations. Alternatively, they can also rely on ‘intelligence’ from members of the public, such as people that inform on fellow employees or neighbours (you may remember the same technique was used when the Poll Tax was introduced).
identity checks to expose illegal/cash-in-hand workers Under the ID card scheme:
- you cannot be employed without biometric ID
- you may not have a bank account or national insurance number
A large proportion of illegal workers are employed in ‘cash-in-hand’ work where they do not need national insurance numbers, bank accounts, etc. So the only way to prevent illegal working is to stop ‘cash-in-hand’ work. Despite Blair/Brown's dream of a 'cashless society', it is impractical to remove cash completely from our daily lives. Hence, identity cards will need to be produced when cash-in-hand work is performed (e.g. plumbers, plasterers, car-mechanics). This has the added advantage that when reported by the purchaser there would be a record of the transaction on the audit log, and cash-in-hand workers could be accurately taxed.
The Commission on Racial Equality* states there is no evidence that identity cards solve the problems associated with the employment of illegal workers.
abuse of the NHS and benefits system
- Illegal immigrants will not be refused medical care under the ID card system
- new EU citizens from eastern Europe have a right to use the NHS the same as other EU citizens
- People will not be required to show ID cards to have access to medical care in Scotland and Wales
- Organisations connected with our hospitals
and health care, such as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), have pointed out
that it is not their responsibility to police the ID card system. They will
continue with their long tradition of providing medical care to those in need
of it.***
As a result of the stress this places on the NHS, benefits, and housing market, the government began considering introducing quotas for immigrants from new EU states.