Police ID check claims rejected

Ms Smith rejected claims officers will be able to demand citizens' identity

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has denied reports police and immigration officers will be able to demand proof of ID from any UK citizen under proposed new laws.

She said there were no plans for "in country" ID checks in the Citizenship, Immigration and Borders Bill.

"The intention is only to enable ID checks at the border," she told MPs in a debate on the Queen's Speech.

The announcement was welcomed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, who were both against such a move.

Human rights group Liberty claims the plan to allow immigration officers and police to demand an identity card is hidden in a sub clause of the draft bill.

The relevant section centred on powers to examine those who "arrive in, enter or seek to enter the UK''.

A sub-clause refers to anyone who "has entered the UK,'' which Liberty said could mean anyone who has entered in the past or recently.

Police or immigration officers would, Liberty claimed, have the power to stop anyone, either at a port of entry or inside the UK, and demand their identity, on the basis that they may have left or re-entered the country at some point in the past.

But Ms Smith said she wanted to put on record that this would not be the case.

The government is pushing ahead with plans for ID cards, with the first ones being issued this year to foreign nationals, but has said it will not be compulsory for Britons to carry them.

'Data battle'

Separately, ministers have been warned not to revive plans for a huge database of mobile phone and internet traffic.

The plans were included in a draft list of bills earlier this year but the legislation did not feature in the Queen's Speech and has been put out for further consultation.

The government has argued that without more capacity to store data it will be harder to fight terrorism and serious crime and insisted the contents of phone calls and internet searches would not be accessed.

But former shadow home secretary David Davis said the idea of such a database was "horrifically unpopular".

Referring to the fight over the government's failed attempt earlier this year to extend pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects, he said the database's implications made "arguments over 42 days look like a picnic".

"I hope if and when this [the proposed bill] comes back it comes back without that database in it," he told MPs during the same debate.

"If it is in there I can guarantee the government an interesting year of battles over the matter."