Hackney students well miffed at New Labour’s ID Card

PRESS RELEASE DATE: 27 March 2007

EMBARGO: Immediate

To mark ID-Day; March 26th 2007, the government’s planned opening date for it’s new network of passport interrogation centres, [1] Hackney NO2ID campaign group held information and awareness raising events at Hackney Community College’s Shoreditch and London Fields Campus, as well as outside the central Library by the Town Hall.

“We choose the college specifically” , the local NO2ID [2] spokes person said, “because the current government strategy is to target all 16 to 24 year olds applying for their first passport, calling them in for a compulsory interview at one of the new registration centres once they open.  Clearly this group are targeted because they will not be familiar with the present application system and would be expected to dutifully comply with these highly intrusive data gathering plans.”

However, the team from NO2ID were impressed by the general level of awareness amongst students about the objectionable and invasive nature of what is being undertaken by the government, with comments from students varying from describing it as “some king of sick plan to control all of us” to “squeezing more money out of us isn’t it – and we’re getting nothing back.”

“What is worrying” said “is how many people still don’t realise that the ID Card Act came into force nearly a year ago now and that it is being used to gather and store personal information about people applying for their passports.  But we have found with more and more discussion in the mainstream press about what is being done behind their backs, people are increasingly aware of the creeping surveillance by the state and they are beginning to get angry about it.”

Although none of the interrogation centres have actually opened on schedule, with the earliest date now put at late April or early May, NO2ID recommend that anyone who does not have a passport, or who will soon need to renew theirs, to act fast and beat the government’s data dragnet before the newly named ‘Identity and Passport Service’ get their 69 new interrogation centres up an running. [3]

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

[1]. The Home Office yesterday justified the intention to open a network of 69 passport and identity card offices.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,2038873,00.html

[2]. NO2ID is the non-partisan national campaign against ID cards and the database state.  See: http://www.no2id.net

[3]. The Identity Cards Act 2006 turns your passport into a one-way ticket to control of your identity by the government.

http://www.renewforfreedom.org/index.html

Contact: ; email: hackney@no2id.net Tel: 020 7241 0966