UK Poll on ID-Cards

Privacy International has published a public opinion survey (PDF-File) on the proposed National ID Card in the UK. The representative Poll contains some interesting results, since it shows both support and strong opposition against ID Cards. 61% support compulsory ID Cards, but 16% of those opposing an ID card said they would participate in a "campaign of civil disobedience" and 8% even would go to prison in order to avoid registration...

The proposed Card will include biometrics and interfaces for government IT but at present there are no plans to include Digital Signatures, as is the case with other proposed ID Cards in Europe.

The Belgian government just presented their e-ID Toolkit for the new Belgian ID Card, which already contains Digital Signatures. The e-ID Toolkit is available in the eID Shop . Besides pursuing a modernized and DigSig enabled citizen ID card, Germany has announced to issue 80 million (!) 'Gesundheitskarten' - eHealth Cards - for the whole population by 2006. 40 Million 'Jobcards' are due to be issued in the same timeframe. Both are essentially Smartcards containing the private key for use in a government approved PK-Infrastructure.

While most observers are skeptical about the feasibility of this plans, there is very little debate on this issue in Germany. The Citizen ID card has recently seen some critique (PDF-File German), but nothing comparable to the debate in the UK.