Identity - unsatisfactory state of affairs that the Government should look at
When an elderly person is no longer allowed to drive for health reasons they no longer have a driving license and a means of proving their indentity. A government approved identity card costs £15 - if applied for.
The card is not a statutory requirement because banks etc., will accept a recent utility bill and an official letter a government authority, like a letter from HM Revenue & Customs (the Tax Office). There is, however, a hassle in providing this information, which can be of a confidential nature.
During WWII everyone had an ID card and it should be noted that National identity cards are now issued by the governments to the citizens of all European Union member states except Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Liechtenstein.
Fast forward to 2019 and digital identity technologies such as smart cards and biometrics have come of age, with an estimated 120 countries now deploying electronic passports incorporating these highly secure features and over 70 countries implementing eID cards.
Here in the UK we have gone backwards. The Identity Cards Act 2006 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was repealed in 2010. It created national identity cards, a personal identification document and European Union travel document, linked to a database known as the National Identity Register (NIR), which has since been destroyed.
When the Labour Party were in office they were in the process of setting up National Identity Cards but the following Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition formed after the 2010 general election announced that the ID card scheme would be scrapped. The Identity Cards Act was repealed by the Identity Documents Act 2010 on 21 January 2011.
With The UK being the 10th largest source of migrants to the rest of the world, the need for ID cards is greater than ever.
