Identity Crisis

It is also deja vu for the critics of this proposal as New Labour reiterates the same '96, argument: 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear'. But once people began to scratch the surface of this debate which, not surprisingly, surfaced again during a vitriolic attack on immigration and asylum seekers, you did find there is indeed a lot to fear, particularly, but not exclusively, if you were Black.

Central to this debate is the social and political climate we are in. First, although the Metropolitan police have made improvements since the death of Stephen Lawrence they are, according to Home Office data, still 5 times more likely to stop and search Black youths than they are white.

With this prevailing sense of suspicion therefore, what happens when a Black youth is stopped and asked for his ID card and replies, 'I've left it at home' or heaven forbid states, 'I don't have one'?

What is often ignored during this debate is that for many white people the greatest inconvenience of an ID card will be proving who they are when paying with a credit card, and that won't be very often. For too many Black people it will be about proving innocence, and many of us have stories to tell. My own was being arrested outside my home on suspicion of burglary, presumably because offices assumed that Black people in leafy suburbs can only be up to no good.

Given then, the already tense police-Black community relations the introduction of a voluntary ID card far from improving relations is more likely to worsen them.

But the debate doesn't stop there. The ID card, we have been led to believe, will be an important aid in the fight to keep track of immigration and asylum seekers. Once again Black people will come under particular scrutiny from security services, the police and employers, who will demand that they prove who they are. It would also open up the flood gates for international gangs to produce fraudulent ID cards to assist their illegal practices of human trafficking.

During the 1996 ID card debate it was clearly demonstrated that it wasn't just Black people who would be affected by this system. Here the question centred on what information the card would carry and who would have access to it? A card with just your name and address would have no more use than your bus or tube pass. However, if it had your social security details, health data, police records, employment records, then of course the Government - or by then the real Big Brother- could really keep track of you.

Furthermore, the more people with access to this data, the greater the possibility for misuse or misinterpretation. Two examples: you apply for a government job. You're the ideal candidate, but your ID card's medical record reveal that you have a rare heart condition. All of sudden you're not the ideal candidate. Another scenario job related or otherwise might occur if a Government department notices that although you were never charged, the police stopped or searched you on suspicion of possessing drugs; If that information wilfully or by accident falls into malicious hands a promising career could quickly go down the tube.

The last two scenarios have led some to argue that the ID card proposal is a 'small, visible manifestation of a huge, invisible process of collection, computerisation and centralisation of personal information that is going on'. Once again the political environment is crucial in all of this. Whilst the Government is seeking to centrally store more information about us, they vociferously resist transparency within the labyrinth of democracy, and refuse to contemplate a comprehensive Freedom of Information Act.

Whilst the social and political mainstream thinking continues to demonise Black youths, and immigration and asylum seekers, Black Britain must passionately resist the imposition of Blunkett's ID card proposal. Furthermore, in the absence of a Freedom of information Act we should all worry about what information will be on the cards and who will have access to it.

I'm sure the late Bernie Grant is looking down and thinking in his no nonsense way, 'Right Woolley and you other Black activist don't be fooled by this, "you've got nothing to fear", argument, this is the thin end of the wedge to keep Black people down.