[Captured Article from Reuter]
17 Nov, 7:22 AM _ Reuter
A specimen copy of the new identity smart cards for asylum seekers
The Government is coming under pressure to rethink its plans for identity cards after a former security service boss warned they would not make Britain any safer from terrorists.
The ex-director general of MI5 Dame Stella Rimington said she did not believe her former agency is pressing for the introduction of ID cards, and she warned they would be “absolutely useless” unless they could be made unforgeable.
Her comments led to calls from opposition parties and civil liberties groups for the Government to abandon the scheme, which the Home Office estimates will cost ?5.8bn, while critics claim the bill could reach ?40bn.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said Dame Stella’s comments were “yet another nail in the coffin of the massive identity card folly”.
Speaking to the Association of Colleges annual conference in Birmingham, Dame Stella, who retired as head of MI5 in 1996, said: “ID cards have possibly some purpose. But I don’t think that anybody in the intelligence services, particularly in my former service, would be pressing for ID cards.
“My angle on ID cards is that they may be of some use but only if they can be made unforgeable – and all our other documentation is quite easy to forge.
“If we have ID cards at vast expense and people can go into a back room and forge them they are going to be absolutely useless.
“ID cards may be helpful in all kinds of things but I don’t think they are necessarily going to make us any safer.”
Dame Stella’s remarks came as ministers suffered a defeat in the House of Lords on their controversial ID card legislation.
Peers backed a Tory amendment to ensure that only those who reasonably required proof should be entitled to ask for verification of identity.
