An Irish National ID Card carries “very, very big risks”, a digital expert has warned. 

Concerns have been raised that the Social Welfare and Other Matters Bill will allow people to use their Public Services Card as a form of ID - effectively transforming it into a national ID card. 

On The Hard Shoulder, Digital Rights Ireland Director Antoin Ó Lachtnáin said people should be concerned about what data would be stored on a national database. 

“That's what we're talking about rather than a card anymore,” he said. 

“The plastic card doesn't really matter anymore the way it did 20 or 30 years ago.

“Really what this is about is about building up a database of everyone in the country, a biometric database, using facial recognition technology and by coupling the information with other sources that are linked to your PPS number and so on.” 

Mr Ó Lachtnáin continued that a national ID would not improve border security, which he argued were already heavily policed. 

“It would be wrong to think and to think that anyone has crossed from Stranraer to Northern Ireland without being observed by the PSNI or by the border force,” he said. 

“You may not notice them whenever you're crossing over, but they certainly notice you.

“There is a lot of observation and people, I suppose, should take comfort from that; you don't need a national identity card to have a strong surveillance.” 

A number of EU countries, such as France, operate a system of national identity cards. 

However, Mr Ó Lachtnáin said these nations have a “long tradition of administering these with a great deal of care”. 

Ireland, by contrast, has a recent history of misusing data. 

“We haven't built up the capability, we haven't done the risk management to make sure that we can actually do it,” he said. 

“We have failed to do that today; we can see that from the public services card where the Social Department of Social Protection, who are supposed to be administering the scheme, are in court. 

“They're in court on the back foot appealing a decision of the Data Protection Commission, which basically found that the basis for collection of biometric data was defective.”

Main image: A Public Services Card Ireland. Picture by: Alamy.com