Identity cards in Britain: past experience and policy implications

This paper examines the two experiences of identity cards in British history and identifies features relevant to contemporary debate. The first national register (1915-1919), and accompanying identity card, was a failure, and the second (1939-1952) a partial success. The success of the second system was secured by analysing the causes of the failure of the first. Universal registration systems have repeatedly been proposed as solutions to short-lived moral panics. But there is little evidence that national registers effectively resolve such panics. Public indifference or hostility to identity cards was managed by building 'parasitic vitality' into the second experience. In particular, the system of national registration was intimately connected to the system of food rationing. Without similar 'parasitic vitality', contemporary proposals can be expected to struggle to win acceptance. However, such interconnection encourages the phenomenon of 'function creep': eventually the pattern of disclosure and use of personal information is markedly different from that originally declared. The last National Register, while relatively simple to operate and dependent on manual technology, was only marginally judged value for money when subjected to sympathetic but critical analysis. Meanwhile, a large part of the effectiveness of the simple cards lay in their very simplicity: the lack of information contained permitted a cheap and effective check system. Even so, the historical record also reveals the diverse unofficial, including criminal, uses of identity cards. The latest proposals seem to resemble the first national register more than the second. Policymakers would do well to follow their predecessors and learn from the past.