'Lewes says No2ID' celebrates the British Deputy Prime Minister's announced scrapping of the British ID Cards and 'database state' scheme.

PRESS DISPENSARY - Thursday, May 20, 2010 - The campaigning group 'Lewes Says No2ID', part of the national No2ID campaign, is celebrating victory following the announcement yesterday by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg that the costly and controversial ID Cards scheme is to be scrapped, but warned that the campign will not yet disband and will be looking carefully at the details to ensure that the database behind the scheme is also completely eradicated.

Mr Clegg announce yesterday that the ID Cards scheme is to go, along with the ContactPoint database that would have made details of every child in England accessible by up to 500,000 people. The coalition government is also promising to stop schools fingerprinting children without their parents' permission, and to reduce the number of innocent people's DNA profiles held on the police database.

Lewes Says No2ID coordinator, Rob Shepherd, said: "This welcome announcement marks a significant defeat for the surveillance policies of the previous government and the encroaching 'database state' that would have treated us all as criminal suspects."

Launched in 2006, the anti-ID cards campaign in Lewes has been fairly low key as, early in its life, Lewes MP Norman Baker declared himself to be against ID cards, as did the Liberal Democrat party which controlled Lewes District Council. Nationally, however, the No2ID campaign has been fighting vigorously and noisily for four years against the scheme, achieving some significant victories along the way.

But, despite Mr Clegg's declaration, Shepherd warned that No2ID would not yet go away. "The most dangerous aspect of the ID Card scheme was not the cards themselves but the massive database of confidential personal information that was being built behind it, at massive financial cost, at great expense to civil liberties and being built by a state with a track record for poor security and loss of data. We'll be looking to ensure that the new coalition government completely scraps the database, in line with Mr Clegg's promises, and not just the cards."

He also sounded a cautious word on timing: "Mr Clegg hasn't yet put a date on any of this and we would counsel against going to public consultation or any other bureaucracy which could delay the end of teh scheme while people's personal data continues to be gathered. Both coalition parties had a clear manifesto commitment on the subject and therefore have an overwhelming mandate to scrap the cards and dump the database straight away."

Phil Booth, national coordinator of NO2ID and also a Lewes resident, said: "Millions of people have been waiting to hear the words. But now it's time for action. Both the Lib Dems and Tories are committed to scrapping ID cards and rolling back the database state. We don't need a public consultation about it. They have a massive electoral mandate.

"Further repeals will be necessary. No-one imagines 'tearing through the statute book' will be quick or easy. But the new government must get on with the job straight away, rather than compile a huge shopping list. They can root out the rest later."

Notes for editors

No2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of 'database state' initiatives that No2ID is actively opposing, and http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how it all fits together.

'Lewes says No2ID' was formed in 2006 to represent the campaign locally and to lobby for local commitments against ID Cards and the 'database state'.

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