The survey was carried out by polling firm YouGov on behalf of
the Daily Telegraph newspaper and in a sample of 1,979 people found
that a significant proportion were prepared to defy the government
over the database.
Of the 39% of the people who opposed the identity register, 21%
said that they would resist signing up, even if it meant paying a
small fine. That figure is 8% of the total.
If the figures are extrapolated to the entire UK population of
60 million people they mean that 23.4 million people would oppose
the database and 4.8 million would be prepared to face a fine for
resisting signing up. If just 2% of the country's over 16s refused
to register then the Government would face a one million person
revolt, the Telegraph said.
The survey found that 52% of people are unhappy at their details
being kept on a database, and that the biggest concern was that
people could access the information who were not entitled to see
it.
Of those 52% of people, 77% said that they believed unauthorised
personnel would see the information, while 71% said that the system
could contain harmful errors about them.
The national identity register will be the main database for the
Government's proposed ID cards. The register will contain
identifying biometric data.
Though residents will not be required to carry the ID card at
all times, OUT-LAW revealed last week that the ID card legislation
allows the mobile fingerprint scanners that police are currently
testing to access that database. That means that if police are
given the go-ahead for mobile fingerprint machines that someone's
identity can be checked immediately on the street against the
database.
The Telegraph survey showed that there were high levels of
approval for many of the kinds of surveillance that are on the
increase in the UK. CCTV cameras in high streets were approved of
by 85% of people, photographing airline passengers by 72%.
Maintaining DNA material on a national database had an approval
rating of just 37%.
The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has repeatedly
warned that the UK is becoming a surveillance society without any
real public debate about the process or its consequences.
"Two years ago I warned that we were in danger of sleepwalking
into a surveillance society," Thomas said in November. "Today I
fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that
is already all around us."
Despite 79% of the people surveyed saying that they thought that
the UK was a surveillance society, 62% of them said that the did
not feel that they were spied upon.
