The Scottish ID Cards Scandal

This is an Edinburgh pensioners' bus pass
- which is really a National Entitlement Card
- which in truth turns out to be a national identity card!

We introduced the free national bus pass.
First Minister Jack McConnell,The Politics Show, BBC1, 15 April 2007

Early in 2006 the then Labour controlled Scottish Executive introduced national identity cards into Scotland for the first time in fifty-four years. Disgracefully, it did this by conning the most vulnerable members of society - the elderly and the disabled - into believing that they were merely being given a new kind of bus pass. And most shockingly of all it did this in total secrecy and by going behind the back of the Scottish Parliament.

The new ID cards (see illustration above), backed up by a centralised database, are so intrusive that they would be forbidden in Germany and other European countries which already have ID cards. One of the pensioners who applied to renew his bus pass, retired academic Dr John Welford, said:

“It is a national scandal that the Executive should have behaved so dishonestly towards the elderly, and heads should now roll. I have returned my ID card to be destroyed, but despite months of fruitless correspondence with the Executive it has refused to send me the bus pass I applied for and am entitled to."

Fortunately, here in 2009 we now have a Scottish Government at Holyrood that is firmly opposed to the UK identity card scheme. That’s the good news. The bad news is that remarkably it remains completely untroubled by the Trojan Horse Scottish ID card for which it now has full responsibility. So what is really going on here? Is the Scottish Government just playing politics with the Westminster-based ID card scheme? Or does it remain as thoroughly duped as the Scottish pensioners and disabled?

Further Information

Campaign leaflet: The Trojan Horse ID Card (2 pages): trojanhorse.pdf (1.1Mb)

Report: The Scottish national entitlement card: an exercise in wholesale systematic deception by Dr John Welford (12 pages): report.pdf (544Kb)

Briefing paper: Three cards compared (a formal comparison of the former Edinburgh City bus pass, the Scottish national entitlement card and the UK identity card, 3 pages): 3cards.pdf (2.2Mb)

In late 2008 the tentacles of the Scottish ID card are now spreading dramatically within the Scottish Borders. Before long it threatens to become 'one card for everything' - and for everybody.

From now on it will be obligatory for school students to obtain a Young Scot (ID) card if they wish to obtain school meals. See: letter1.pdf (120Kb)

First they came for the pensioners, then they came for school students - now they're coming for the rest of us. Anyone who wishes in future to use the Council's libraries will be forced to register for a 'National Entitlement Card'. See: letter2.pdf (96Kb)

The following table provides details of images which you may wish to download and use. Click on any one of the thumbnail images in order to display the equivalent full-size image. Then to download the relevant JPEG format file to your computer just select Save As... in your browser's File menu.

	City of Edinburgh bus pass, c. 2005 bus.jpg (160Kb)
	Scottish national identity card - Winston Smith, 2006 snec.jpg (120Kb)
	Scottish national identity card - John Welford, 2006 snecjw.jpg (116Kb)
	UK identity card, c. 1944 idcard.jpg (128Kb)

NO2ID Placards - Holyrood, Edinburgh

Used at the NO2ID Scotland demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament
21 August 2007

NO2ID placards

Scottish Green MSP Patrick Harvie said:
Here’s a real opportunity in a Parliament of minorities, with a new team of ministers who share our opposition to ID cards, for us to get harebrained schemes like the Scottish Identity Register re-examined. I shall certainly be raising this in the new session of Parliament.

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