NATIONAL IDENTITY CARDS

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Conference
2004 National Lesbian & Gay Conference
Date
24 September 2004
Decision
Carried

This conference believes that the Home Secretary’s National Identity Card Initiative is an attack at an individual’s right to privacy and a possible violation of their human rights.

Areas of concern include:

1.Recording of a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, race, colour, or impairments;

2.Recording of a person’s political persuasion or religious beliefs;

3.Medical data and some previous convictions being stored;

4.Other personal information being recorded without our knowledge;

5.Abuse/misuse of the collected data.

Although these issues may have been addressed in draft legislation, we need to continue the pressure on the Government to prevent the possible implementation of a system that is open to abuse.

Therefore this conference instructs the NLGC to write to the Home Secretary:

A.Voicing our concerns and request reassurance that this type of data is not collected or stored;

B.Insisting that the proposed legislation continues to contain provision to prevent the misuse of any collected data, by current or future governments, authorities or anyone who deals with, or has access to, this data;

C.That this initiative is not tendered out to private companies who are not fully answerable to Parliament. This could create a conflict of interests between the right to privacy of the individual and the right to information that may prove profitable to the company.

This conference also instructs the NEC to liaise with, and support, human rights and civil liberties groups, such as Amnesty International and Stonewall, in campaigning to prevent the implementation of legislation that may be open to abuse and misuses that will particularly affect Black, Disabled, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities, and young people.

This conference further instructs the NEC to keep the issues at the forefront of any ID card discussions and debate.