The truth behind The Last Enemy

The Last Enemy, BBC One's visionary and dynamic five part thriller series which takes a shocking look at the emerging political world of tomorrow, today, is out to own on DVD on 10th March 2008 courtesy of Universal Playback. Find out the truth behind The Last Enemy...

• “Our decision to introduce a National Identity Scheme was announced in the Queen's Speech on 17 May 2005. The Identity Cards Act received royal assent, becoming law, on 30 March 2006. We will introduce biometric residence permits for foreign nationals in 2008 and we expect the first ID cards to be issued to British citizens in 2009.” Home Office Website

• “ID cards will link your basic personal information to something uniquely yours - like the pattern of your iris, your face shape or your fingerprint. It will protect your identity from people fraudulently claiming to be you and make it easier for you to prove your identity when you need to - like opening a bank account, moving house, applying for benefits or starting a job.” Identity & Passport Service Website

• Millions of children as young as 11 are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a Government database, according to leaked Whitehall plans. The Home Office wants to include children in its biometric passport scheme in three years’ time, and automatically transfer their details and fingerprints to the controversial new national identity database when they turn 16. This is London Website 4 March 2007

• The Home Office Identity Fraud Steering Committee has completed a one-off exercise to update the Cabinet Office estimate for the purpose of establishing trends in the cost of identity fraud over the past three years. The latest estimate is that identity fraud costs the UK economy £1.7 billion. Home Office Identity Theft Website

• “The British way of doing it is to be both tough on security measures and to build in proper systems of accountability to parliament that can give protections to people's individual civil liberties.” Gordon Brown’s interview with Andrew Marr on BBC Sunday AM, 12 February 2006

• The Identity Cards Act makes provision for the establishment of a national identity scheme commissioner to monitor the whole thing. But it also provides for the sharing of your data – without your content – with the director general of the security service, the chief of the intelligence service, the director of communications as GCHQ, the director general of the Serious Organised Crime Agency and chief police officers up and down the country. The Guardian, 27 February 2007

• 21 of the 25 EU Member States have already introduced ID cards. Home Office Website

• The costs of the identity cards project were revealed to have risen by £840m in the last six months to £5.75 billion. The Guardian, May 2007

• Bidding for identity-card contracts valued at £2 billion have been opened, as the Home Office confirmed that the document could be used instead of a passport for travel in the EU. The announcement confirms that Gordon Brown intends to press ahead with the scheme. The Times, 10 August 2007

• 90,000 travellers have enrolled in an iris recognition system at ports and airports. Daily Telegraph, 27 June 2007

• British citizens will be quizzed on up to 200 different pieces of personal information in a 30 minute grilling if they want a passport … Those who fail to convince the bureaucrats they are who they say will be denied a travel document or face a full investigation by anti-fraud experts. There is no formal appeal process. Daily Mail, 21 March 2007

• All job applicants will have to produce a passport or birth certificate from next year to prove that they are not illegal immigrants. Daily Mail, 16 March 2007

• Britain has about five million CCTV cameras, one for every 12 people. More cameras than any other country. The Times, 27 March 2007

• Advances in surveillance technology could seriously damage individual privacy unless drastic measures are taken to protect personal data, scientists have said. The report by the Royal Academy of Engineering said that travel passes, supermarket loyalty cards and mobile phones could be used to track individuals’ every move. They also predicted that CCTV footage could available for public consumption and that terrorists could hijack the biometric chips in passports and rig them up as a trigger for explosives. The Times, 27 March 2007

• Another senior police officer joined the growing clamour against the proliferation of CCTV cameras around the country. Ian Redhead, the deputy chief constable of Hampshire, said Britain risked moving toward an “Orwellian” society. Daily Telegraph, 22 May 2007

• The world’s smallest radio frequency identification tags have been unveiled by Japanese electronics firm Hitachi. The minute devices measure just 0.05mm by 0.05mm and to the naked eye look like spots of powder. BBC News Website, 23 February 2007

• Stores use RFID to track stock in warehouses and shops. Some countries are using the tags to hold passport data or for payment in transport systems, and they are even being used for animal identification. However, some have raised concerns that the technology poses a threat to privacy, and that it could be used in covert monitoring schemes. BBC News Website, 23 February 2007