The Cabinet Office has disclosed the dates that its civil liberty bills should pass Parliament, including the Identity Documents Bill.
A government document titled Political reform, draft structural reform plan says that the Identity and Documents Bill, which also includes scrapping the National Identity Register and the halting of fingerprints on passports, should complete its passage through Parliament by December 2010.
"The coalition wants less big state intrusion and interference with our private lives. We will move to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power, in keeping with our traditions of freedom and fairness," says the document, published on Tuesday.
"We will reverse state intrusion into the lives of law abiding citizens by scrapping ID cards and unnecessarily intrusive databases, and restoring rights to non-violent protest."
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ID cards, National Identity Register scrapped
The Conservative-Lib Dem government has begun its term by confirming the imminent cancellation of Labour's identity card scheme and its underlying database
The Freedom Bill, which includes plans to "adopt the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database" and further regulation of CCTV, is scheduled to be passed by November 2011.
Home secretary Theresa May announced at the end of May that the £4.5bn national identity card scheme would be scrapped. The government first outlined plans to further regulate CCTV in its coalition agreement, published days after coming into power.
It has not yet detailed what it plan to do about CCTV. In response to a parliamentary written question from Lord Brett on whether this will include reducing camera numbers, Home Office minister Baroness Neville-Jones said on 28 July: "We support the use of CCTV. Rather than seeking to reduce the number of CCTV cameras, our aim is to ensure that where CCTV is used, there is a clear framework for its use so that it commands public confidence. We will bring forward proposals shortly."
Talkback
It's a pity we can't trust the government to look after and not abuse personal info.
A national fingerprint database could in theory wipe out identity fraud, especially in the benefits arena. I suspect claiming benefits under multiple identities is rife & costs us billions.
They will be ways and means to tackling the above issue, but not at the cost of storing all of our fingerprints.
@Andy
Sorry, but a national fingerprint database would be useless. You would get an enormous number of 'collisions'.
Rather like DNA testing, finger prints do not definitively say who you are, they can only positively say who you are not.