(1)It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to establish and maintain a register of individuals (to be known as “the National Identity Register”).
(2)The purposes for which the Register is to be established and maintained are confined to the statutory purposes.
(3)The statutory purposes are to facilitate, by the maintenance of a secure and reliable record of registrable facts about individuals in the United Kingdom—
(a)the provision of a convenient method for such individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves to others who reasonably require proof; and
(b)the provision of a secure and reliable method for registrable facts about such individuals to be ascertained or verified wherever that is necessary in the public interest.
(4)For the purposes of this Act something is necessary in the public interest if, and only if, it is—
(a)in the interests of national security;
(b)for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime;
(c)for the purposes of the enforcement of immigration controls;
(d)for the purposes of the enforcement of prohibitions on unauthorised working or employment; or
(e)for the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services.
(5)In this Act “registrable fact”, in relation to an individual, means—
(a)his identity;
(b)the address of his principal place of residence in the United Kingdom;
(c)the address of every other place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere where he has a place of residence;
(d)where in the United Kingdom and elsewhere he has previously been resident;
(e)the times at which he was resident at different places in the United Kingdom or elsewhere;
(f)his current residential status;
(g)residential statuses previously held by him;
(h)information about numbers allocated to him for identification purposes and about the documents to which they relate;
(i)information about occasions on which information recorded about him in the Register has been provided to any person; and
(j)information recorded in the Register at his request.
(6)But the registrable facts falling within subsection (5)(h) do not include any sensitive personal data (within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29)) or anything the disclosure of which would tend to reveal such data.
(7)In this section references to an individual's identity are references to—
(a)his full name;
(b)other names by which he is or has previously been known;
(c)his gender;
(d)his date and place of birth and, if he has died, the date of his death; and
(e)external characteristics of his that are capable of being used for identifying him.
(8)In this section “residential status”, in relation to an individual, means—
(a)his nationality;
(b)his entitlement to remain in the United Kingdom; and
(c)where that entitlement derives from a grant of leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, the terms and conditions of that leave.
Commencement Information
I1S. 1 wholly in force at 20.10.2009; s. 1 not in force at Royal Assent see s. 44(3), s. 1(5)-(8) in force for certain purposes at 7.6.2006 by S.I. 2006/1439, art. 2(f); s. 1 in force so far as not already in force at 20.10.2009 by S.I. 2009/2565, art. 2(7)(a)