Covid immunity passports must not be allowed to become ID cards

Oh dear Mr Cleverly. Don’t you know that if you want to prod the Brit into picking up the pitchforks, you only have to hint they might have to carry ID cards?

Clearly the Foreign Office minister has forgotten how stubborn the British are to carrying any form of self-identification such as an ID card. They might be brilliantly patient at queues and acquiescent to the most extraordinary degree about following lockdown restrictions but mention ID cards and they will head for the barricades.

Not even the threat of the greatest pandemic for a century has changed our deep-rooted objection to being a number on a centralised computer hidden away somewhere at GCHQ. Which is why Cleverly dug himself the deepest hole today after making ambiguous comments about whether the new Covid-19 vaccination card – to be given to people once they have had the vaccine – was a passport by another name.

Asked on TV whether this new NHS card will become a de facto passport allowing the holder greater freedoms, Cleverly said: “It’s about unlocking people’s lives, it’s about unlocking the economy, it’s about making sure we protect lives and protect livelihoods.”What does Cleverly mean by this?

Sadly, when asked again, he dodged the question by suggesting he ‘hoped’ the card would not become a “ticket” to enter pubs and other places of mass gatherings such as football or theatres.

Well, his fellow Tory MPs were the first to the barricades warning that civil liberties will be crushed if carrying such a card becomes mandatory. So far, the official word is that those vaccinated must carry the card in their purse or wallet.

No wonder David Davis, former Brexit secretary and one of the party’s most obsessively anti-ID card campaigners, warned immediately that the cards sound altogether too much like a freedom pass. In Britain the citizens don’t hold their freedom by the dispensation of the state, he said. Quite.

Another Tory former minister, David Jones, wants the government to legislate to ensure that it should be an entirely free decision to carry a card. Jones added that there is a great danger of restaurant owners or theatre managers demanding people show their cards as proof of entry. And he’s right: Quantas has already said that it will give preferential treatment for passengers who have such an “immunity” passport.

There is another objection to such cards. Just imagine the black market in fake cards if businesses and venues started asking for them on entry? With copies of the NHS cards already appearing in the newspapers and on the internet, they are probably being copied and manufactured as we speak.

Civil rights campaigner, Liberty, is another critic. Grey Collier, it’s advocacy director, said: “We should all be able to live our lives free from unnecessary interference – but immunity cards risk creating a two-tier system in which some of us have access to freedoms and support while others are shut out.”

Once again Number 10’ s communications team has been put on the back-foot. The PM’s spokesman tried to dampen the criticism by defending the decision to hand out cards to those who have been vaccinated, saying the cards are simply a “reminder” to get a second jab and not a form of “immunity passport”.

Hmm. That’s not a good enough answer: there must be clarity on such a tendentious issue. Businesses are not allowed to ask for medical cards, so why should they ask for special Covid-19 ones?

Number 10 has denied any plans for a UK immunity passport. However, there have been enough ambivalent statements now from ministers such as Cleverly and Nadhim Zahawi, who is the new vaccines minister, to raise doubt about the long-term plans of the Covid card. Zahawi has hinted that while the vaccine will not be compulsory, some businesses might require their guests to provide proof that they have been vaccinated.

Those who want to see people being forced to carry a card point out that travellers visiting certain countries are obliged to have vaccines to protect themselves against illnesses such as yellow fever. So, they say, why is this different?

It’s a fair point but misses the broader perspective. The distribution of this new card has much wider implications because it sets the scene for a compulsory ID system which the British, quite rightly, have rejected on so many occasions.

Yet there is a paradox at the heart of the debate over our supposedly freedom loving nation. While we dislike the idea of ID cards, we don’t seem to mind being photographed or indeed, followed. It’s impossible to get the right number but it’s estimated there are more than 6 million surveillance cameras in the country, which is more per citizen than any other country in the world bar China.

Recent research by the CCTV Image magazine showed the number of private and local government operated cameras in the United Kingdom was 1.85 million in 2011, and has shot up considerably since then.  These numbers were based on surveys carried by the Cheshire Constabulary jurisdiction and suggested that there is one camera for every 32 people in the UK. On a typical day – a pre-Covid day when we used to travel about – we would on average have been filmed by 70 CCTV cameras.

While the Brits are right to be against ID cards, it may well be a sideshow to the real curtailments on our freedoms.