Leo Goodstadt, Regina Connolly and Frank Bannister
times the government’ s estimate and, questions of liberty and personal rights apart, would not deliver value to the citizen. In 2010 the new Conservative government scrapped the project( Travis 2010). In Ireland there has not yet been a proposal to bring in a national smart card although a( non smart) Personal Public Services card is in existence.
From this necessarily brief review, a number of points emerge. First, the evolution of EICs is path dependent and particularly so when it comes to the historical requirement of having to prove your identity at arbitrary times. Secondly, there is a clear distinction between EICs that are forms of identity and those that are simply service access cards( there is much to be said about this distinction, but there is not space here to go into this question). Thirdly, take‐up has been poor except where in cases where it is mandatory. Fourthly, even where take‐up is mandatory, usage has been sporadic. Finally different countries have approached the question of EICs is a variety of ways, notwithstanding EU and other attempts to agree standards for interoperability and consistency. Against this background, the case of Hong Kong where a citizen smart identity card has been successfully implemented and adopted will now be examined and some lessons that result from this examination discussed.
3. The Hong Kong smart card
3.1 Success of the Hong Kong smart card
When the People’ s Republic of China assumed direct rule over the former British Colony of Hong Kong in 1997, it did so amid widespread fears that personal liberties and civil rights would be subject to much the same constraints as prevail across the mainland. Paradoxically, however, for the ordinary residents of Hong Kong, state oversight seemed to diminish after the end of British rule. This improvement was symbolised by a conspicuous reduction in the oversight to which people were subject when entering and leaving Hong Kong. From 2003, increasing numbers of Hong Kong residents were issued with smart identity cards that allowed them to travel in and out of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region( SAR), as it was now called, without presenting any form of passport or official document and without speaking to either an immigration or a police official. In addition, the process of obtaining a card was made far more convenient and consumer‐friendly than getting a credit card( Legislative Council Secretariat 2001). By 2007, in a notable contrast to the pattern in many European countries, the total eligible population of 5,384,164 individuals had obtained a smart identity card( Hong Kong Information Services Department 2008). In an age of constant alert about terrorist threats and identity fraud, the Hong Kong authorities and their constituents felt confident that the identity card was an effective line of defence. This trust is all the more remarkable given the community’ s misgivings about the post‐colonial administration and the commitment of officials to defending Hong Kong’ s special way of life after 1997( Lau Shi‐kai et al 1997). In the light of the muted response of many Europeans to EICs, is it useful to ask why has the Hong Kong card been so successful? To answer this, it is necessary to start with the historical context.
3.2 Historical background
The underlying factors behind Hong Kong citizens’ attitude to identity cards can be traced back to the 19th century when the colony’ s expatriate minority sought to register the Chinese population and restrict its freedom of residence and movement. These measures proved unpopular and impossible to police( Munn 1999; 2001) and this legislation did not survive the century. A Registration of Persons Ordinance was enacted in 1916 but specifically exempted‘ persons of Chinese race’. In 1949, a new Registration of Persons Ordinance was enacted requiring all residents to register for identity cards, regardless of race. Its enforcement provisions were vague and compliance was, in practice, voluntary. This law was part of a wider British colonial strategy to counter communist insurgency in its Asian territories. Identity cards had been hailed as a crucial weapon in the British response to the Malayan Communist Party’ s guerrilla campaign in 1948, and, that year, registration for this purpose started for the entire populations of Malaya( now Malaysia) and Singapore, despite armed attempts to disrupt the exercise 1.
Hong Kong faced no such threat from the Chinese Communist Party. The primary British anxiety was the prospect of unlimited immigration from the mainland. The arrival of an estimated 1.2 million former residents 1
‘ National Registration in Singapore & Malaya’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 December 1948; Anthony Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya 1948‐1960( London: Frederick Muller Ltd, 1975), pp. 142‐3.
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