ID Cards

The Introduction of Biometric ID Cards in the UK: A snapshot of the Debate in the Printed Media

When the idea of a National Identity Scheme was first launched by Tony Blair's Government five years ago, it immediately proved controversial and plans to implement it were rejected several times by the House of Lords. Despite legislation eventually being passed in 2006, the Scheme still remains a political hot potato, generating a great deal of coverage and debate. 

On 6th March 2008 the Home Secretary launched the Delivery Plan 2008, a document presenting the revised government strategy and plans for implementation of the National Identity Scheme. The speech that accompanied the launch of the Plan, together with the idea of a biometric card and a National Identity Scheme continue to fuel debate.

This project investigates the debate as covered on UK national newspapers (four broadsheets and their Sunday editions, and three tabloids and their Sunday editions), in the month preceding the launch of the Delivery Plan (Feb 08) and the three months following it (March-May 08). The study explores the arguments mobilised to present, support and oppose the idea of the Scheme, and to discuss the biometric cards, and it draws on frame analysis techniques (see methodology below)

 

 

 

*** FINAL REPORT OUT***  

 

ID cards: A snapshot of the debate in the UK press -  FULL REPORT

see also  Executive Summary  and  Press Release

Contact details:                        
Elisa Pieri
senior researcher
elisa.pieri@manchester.ac.uk

 

ESRC National Centre for e-Social Science
University of Manchester
Arthur Lewis Building 2C, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
t 0044 (0)161 306 6882

Identity

Both private and public sectors attribute great importance to identity management and assurance. The number of transactions that take place remotely and involve people 'we do not know' has increased exponentially, due to the digitalisation of payment over the internet, and the increased mobility of businesses and citizens. This poses challenges in identity assurance and verification that have been first identified by the financial and banking sector and have since percolated to other service providers - public and private.

Citizen mobility also poses other challenges, for instance at border control, and in the climate of heightened security in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks, nations like the USA and the UK have tried to deploy new ways of capturing and managing passenger and citizen's identities.

As citizens and consumers we leave daily trails of digital data recording our habits - the transport we use, the food we eat, how we use our mobiles, how we access public services - and this information affects our identity, partly as it may contribute to our sense of who we are and what we do, but mainly because it allows various entities in the private and public sector to profile us, marketing or tailoring services to us on the basis of our documented behaviour.

Identity assurance and profiling are different activities, but the plans to introduce a National Identity Scheme in the UK brings together many issues arising from both. For instance not only will the Scheme verify that we are who we claim we are, but also it will keep track of the various 'encounters' with public and private services that will require us to verify our identity with the new ID token (most probably a card), as well as storing records of our data and biometrics.

In doing so, and in encouraging a level of access and exchange of our identity data across different public bodies many issue arise, including issues of privacy and the effects of surveillance and profiling, possible misuse of data, loss of data, as well as the risk of having one's identity - and one's biometrics - compromised.

Methodology

For this study, media content will be analysed, looking at the arguments mobilised by various actors whose views are reported in the press, and by various newspaper editors and journalists. The project will make use of frame analysis as its main methodology (follow this link for a bibliography on Frame Analysis)

Frames can either be seen as cognitive schemata through which we perceive, organise and communicate experience, or as conscious devices used strategically for casting 'events' in a certain light, defining 'the issues' that we ought to attend to, and prioritising some interventions and responses over other possible. It is perhaps unsurprising that the different disciplines involved in theorising frames - from Cognitive Psychology to Sociology, Politics, Journalism, Media and Communication, and Cultural Studies - emphasise different accounts of framing, the more or less conscious use of these frames, and a more individualistic or culturally-embedded notion of what it means to 'use frames'.

Frame analysis can be thought of a multi-method approach, and in the context of this project, it will be aided by Atlas.ti software for qualitative analysis.

This project will also try to establish ways in which the analysis can be supplemented and aided by current research and advances in text mining techniques. This work is in fact part of a JISC funded project on Text mining for frame analysis of media content .

Presentations:

E Pieri (forthcoming 2009) 'Risky Identities and the UK Biometric ID Cards' . Paper to be presented at the 9th Conference of the European Sociological Association, Lisbon 2-5 Sept 2009.

E Pieri (forthcoming 2009) 'ID Cards: A Snapshot of the Debate in the UK Press'. Paper to be presented at Identity and Privacy Forum, London 14-15 May 2009. Further details on http://www.identityandprivacy.com/

E Pieri (2009) 'ID cards: a frame analysis of the debate in the UK printed media'. Paper presented at Politics and Web 2.0 Research Methods Workshop, Infoscape Research Lab (Canada) and the National Centre for e-Social Sciences (UK), Manchester 19-20 February 2009. Abstract and further details on http://infoscapelab.ca/node/517

E Pieri (2009). ' The introduction of ID cards in the UK: A snapshot of the debate in the press'. Paper presented at the panel on Innovations in Methods in Media and Communication Studies at the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) Conference, 14-16 Jan 2009.

E Pieri (2008).  'The National Identity Scheme and the introduction of biometric identity cards: The debate in the press'. Paper presented at the 'Text Mining and the Social Sciences' Workshop at the at the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science, 18-20 June 2008. [Slides here].

 Useful links

Legislation (under construction)
Campaigns (under construction)
Frame Analysis bibliography (for internal release)