The introduction of a national identity card moved a step closer following a Government decision to allow individuals voluntarily add their date of birth to their Public Services Card (PSC) if they want to use it as ID.
Presenting new legislation in the Dáil on Tuesday, Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary said it would allow public service cardholders to use their card “of their own volition and purely on a voluntary basis, as a form of identity”.
A PSC is issued to individuals to allow them access a range of public services including social welfare payments. It currently includes their name, signature, photograph and personal public service number (PPSN).
Only public sector bodies specified in law can request the card as a form of identity. “If any other institution does so, such as a bank, credit union or utility company, they are currently guilty of an offence,” the Minister said.
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Under the Social Welfare, Civil Registration and Charities (Amendment) Bill, other institutions will not be allowed to request the card as identity but they will no longer be guilty of an offence if they accept it.
The Bill also provides for miscellaneous measures including provisions to improve the functioning of the General Register Office, measures to address issues arising for people affected by illegal birth registration, and a range of technical provisions.
Sinn Féin’s social protection spokeswoman, Louise O’Reilly, questioned the provisions seeking to expand the functions of the PSC “at a time when that very card and the legal underpinning are being called into question in court”.
She pointed to former minister Regina Doherty’s comment in 2018 that the card was “mandatory but not compulsory”. O’Reilly said this revealed the Government’s intention to make the card “a de facto national ID card without the proper security features that any such card should have”, and “without proper discussion and consultation”.
[ Public Services Card to be used as ID for banks under plans to go before CabinetOpens in new window ]
Her Louth party colleague Ruairí Ó Murchú said “we need to just knock the idea that it is voluntary on its head straight away”.
“There has to be a greater element of truth around the fact that this is becoming a requirement” or “something the State has made things so hard that it may as well be a requirement for State services”, he said.
Social Democrats spokesman Eoin Hayes said the State had introduced an “identity infrastructure through the back door” when in 2012 it started using the card’s biometric facial data. Now 70 per cent of the population can be facially detected, he said.
