The Government published its consultation paper on the so-called Entitlement Cards last year. In April this year, Beverley Hughes, Minister for Citizenship and Immigration, told the House of Commons: "We are at the moment making a detailed assessment of the 2,000 responses received". She added that these responses "have been about 2:1 in favour of introducing a scheme."
Privacy International wrote to the Government on 2nd May, asking the method by which this number of responses was calculated. Its issue was that there seemed to be some discrepancy in both the figures and the opinions when compared to those of Stand.org.uk, a site that campaigns "for safe e-commerce legislation".
Stand had reported that 5,029 of its visitors submitted comments to the Entitlement Cards Unit using the site's consultation service, the overwhelming majority of which were opposed to the proposal, and another 798 individuals submitted comments (257 in favour, 541 against) using a voicemail system.
So Privacy International asked the obvious questions: were these responses received? And if so, why were they not included in the numbers cited by Beverley Hughes?
Questions have now been asked in the House of Commons. Conservative MP Anne McIntosh lodged a Question on Notice, asking: "how many responses to the entitlement card consultation were received via the Stand website; and how many were (a) in favour and (b) against."
In a written reply last Tuesday Beverley Hughes admitted:
"5,031 emails have been received via the Stand website. 4,856 expressed views against an entitlement card scheme, 44 expressed views in favour. A further 131 contained obvious false information, for example a made-up email address or were judged highly likely to be duplicates."
According to the BBC, Ms Hughes also said that it might take a further month to analyse the results properly.
Simon Davies, Privacy International's director told the BBC, "I don't understand why they need until the end of this parliamentary session to analyse this. There are dodgy tactics going on here".
According to the BBC, Davies has called for another public meeting to consider the issues raised by ID cards, such as the proposed use of biometric information, and the linking of the system to a national database.
As yet the Government has made no comment on the suggestion.