FC: Privacy International: U.K. gvt lies about ID card statistics

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 13:28:34 +0100
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
From: Simon Davies <s.g.davies () lse ac uk>
Subject: dirty tactics by the UK


Hi Declan,

I hope all is well with you.

Thought this may interest you. It's a legal newsletter piece on our press 
release (below) on how the UK government has been serially lying over the 
consultation responses to the proposed ID card. Quite a convoluted mess :(

Best wishes

Simon

http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=governmentaccusedo1054808657&area=news


PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL

MEDIA RELEASE

GOVERNMENT DECEPTION DEEPENS OVER ID CARD STATISTICS

Home Office flouts the Open Government Code by refusing to
disclose consultation information


5th June 2003

For immediate release


The Home Office has rejected an Open Government request for statistics and 
related information concerning responses to the Entitlement Card consultation.

On May 2nd, in an attempt to determine how and why almost 6,000 
consultation responses inexplicably "disappeared", Privacy International 
(PI) lodged a formal request to the Home Office under the Code of Practice 
on Access to Government Information.

The request was submitted following repeated claims by government ministers 
that had gravely underestimated both the number of responses and the extent 
of opposition to the government's proposal. On April 28th, in a repetition 
of a similar statement made previously by Lord Falconer, junior Home Office 
Minister Beverley Hughes informed the Commons that the government had 
received only 2,000 responses to the consultation. But Internet and 
telephone portals established during the consultation by Privacy 
International and stand.org had resulted in an unprecedented 5,820 
responses from the public, the overwhelming majority of which were opposed 
to the proposal. Together with an estimated 2,000 other responses, the 
total response figure was in the range of 8,000.

Privacy International had previously been informally notified by Home 
Office officials that a decision had been made to "collapse" the 6,000 
responses into one or two by treating them as a single petition. See 
http://www.kablenet.com/kd.nsf/Frontpage/9BDD7713ACE6E76680256D39005693E7?OpenDocument 
for more background.

Despite a clear undertaking by civil servants to provide a response to PI's 
request by June 2nd, a Home Office official telephoned PI's director, Simon 
Davies yesterday to advise that the request had been rejected outright.

The justification given was that Conservative MP Anne McIntosh had lodged a 
Question on Notice relating to a part of PI's Open Government request. The 
Home Office claimed that to provide PI with information would amount to a 
breach of Parliamentary procedure.

The Open Government Code contains no mention of Parliamentary procedure 
constituting grounds for exemption from the Code. 
http://www.lcd.gov.uk/foi/ogcode983.htm

"The government's refusal to provide this information makes a mockery of 
its commitment to Open Government, and it makes a mockery of this 
consultation" said Mr Davies.

Anne McIntosh's question (which was scheduled for reply on June 3rd, but 
which appears to remain unanswered) involved only one element of the PI 
request (see the letter below). The MP had asked only for the number and 
preferences of responses sent through the stand.org portal. PI had 
requested an overall and much wider spectrum of information relating to:

- The method by which the number of responses has been calculated.
- Any analysis of the responses.
- Whether the Home Office had received and registered the 798 telephone 
responses to the consultation.
- A justification for any refusal to count particular communications as 
individual responses.

"To reject our request for information in these circumstances is as 
justifiable as refusing data on the national birth rate because an MP had 
lodged a question about empty beds in a maternity ward" said Mr Davies.

"The Home Office has arbitrarily and improperly rejected this legitimate 
request", continued Mr Davies. "The government knows that eighty percent of 
the responses had opposed an ID card, yet it continues to use deceptive and 
duplicitous tactics to perpetuate the myth that the consultation was a 
victory for the proposal".

"Throughout this entire process the conduct of the Home Office has been 
disgraceful. They materially breached the code of conduct on consultations, 
they lied about the figures, and now they have shamelessly flouted the Open 
Government code. In terms of barefaced arrogance I have never seen anything 
quite like it."

See PI's complaint on the consultation breaches at 
http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/idcard/uk/omb-complaint-103.html


Notes to editors:

- Privacy International (PI) is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a 
watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations. PI is based in 
London, and has an office in Washington, D.C.  Together with members in 40 
countries, PI has conducted campaigns throughout the world on issues 
ranging from wiretapping and national security activities, to ID cards, 
video surveillance, data matching, police information systems, and medical 
privacy, and works with a wide range of parliamentary and 
inter-governmental organisations such as the European Parliament, the House 
of Lords and UNESCO.

- Simon Davies can be reached at simon () privacy org and on 07958 466 552 
(+44) 7958 466 552 from outside the UK.




PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL

John Hughes
Open Government Co-ordinator
Records Management Services
Home Office
Room T151
50, Queen Anne's Gate
London, SW1H 9At

2 May 2003

Dear Mr. Hughes,

This is a request for information under the Code of Practice on Access to 
Government Information.

We would like to know the method by which the number of responses that the 
Home Office received as a result of the "Entitlement Card and Identity 
Fraud" consultation paper released in July 2002 has been calculated and any 
analysis of the responses.

As reported in Hansard, the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration 
Beverley Hughes on 28 April 2003 [Col. 16] told the House of Commons in 
response to an oral question, "We published a consultation paper on 
entitlement cards and identity fraud on 3 July 2002. We are at the moment 
making a detailed assessment of the 2,000 responses received to the 
consultation exercise, which ended on 31 July. Many organisations and 
individuals have expressed support for a card schemeŠ.the 2,000 responses 
that we have received from individuals show that ordinary members of the 
public generally do not share his [MP Chris Mullin] concerns. The responses 
have been about 2:1 in favour of introducing a scheme."

We would like this information as there appears to be a discrepancy in both 
the number of requests received and the analysis of respondents' opinions. 
Stand.org.uk reports that 5,029 individuals submitted comments to the 
Entitlement Cards Unit using the stand.org.uk website consultation service 
between 10 January and 31 January 2003 and another 798 individuals 
submitted comments (257 in favour, 541 against) using a voice mail system. 
Were these email and voicemail responses received? If so, why are they not 
included in the numbers cited by Ms. Hughes?

I look forward to hearing from you within 20 days as provided for under the 
Code. If you wish to discuss this request, you can reach me at 07958-466-552.

Yours sincerely,

/sig
Simon Davies
Director




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