Identity Cards Act 2006

12 Provision of information for verification or otherwise with consent

(1) The Secretary of State may provide a person with information recorded in an individual’s entry in the Register if—

(a) an application for the provision of the information to that person is made by or with the authority of that individual; or

(b) that individual otherwise consents to the provision of that information to that person.

(2) The only information about an individual that may be provided to a person under this section is—

(a) information about the individual falling within paragraph 1, 3 or 4 of Schedule 1 (name, date and place of birth, gender and addresses, residential status, identifying numbers and validity of identifying documents);

(b) the information contained in any photograph of the individual recorded in the Register;

(c) the information about the individual’s signature that is so recorded;

(d) information about whether an ID card issued to the individual is in force and, if not, why not;

(e) information which, by virtue of section 3(3), is recorded in the Register at the individual’s request;

(f) the questions recorded by virtue of paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 for use for the purposes of applications for information about the individual;

(g) information confined to the grant or refusal of confirmation that information falling within subsection (3) that has been submitted to the Secretary of State coincides with information so falling that is recorded in the individual’s entry in the Register; and

(h) information confined to the grant or refusal of confirmation that the individual’s entry in the Register does not contain information of a particular description falling within that subsection.

(3) The information falling within this subsection is—

(a) information comprised in a fingerprint;

(b) other biometric information;

(c) the number to be used for the purposes of applications for information about the individual in question;

(d) the password or other code to be so used; and

(e) the answers to the questions to be so used.

(4) The Secretary of State may—

(a) by order modify subsections (2) and (3); and

(b) by regulations impose restrictions in addition to those contained in this section on the information that may be provided to a person under this section.

(5) The power of the Secretary of State by order to modify subsections (2) and (3) does not include—

(a) power to omit subsection (2); or

(b) power to add information falling within paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 to either of those subsections.

(6) The Secretary of State may also by regulations make provision as to—

(a) how an authority or consent for the purposes of subsection (1) is to be given;

(b) the persons by whom, and the circumstances in which, an application for those purposes may be made; and

(c) how such an application is to be made.

(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations make it a condition of the provision of information under this section—

(a) that the person to whom it is provided has registered prescribed particulars about himself with the Secretary of State;

(b) that that person and the applicant for the information (where different) are for the time being approved by the Secretary of State in the prescribed manner; and

(c) that apparatus used for the purposes of the application, and apparatus that it is proposed to use for the receipt and storage of the information, is for the time being approved in the prescribed manner by the person specified in or determined under the regulations.

(8) The power of the Secretary of State under this section to provide information about an individual to another person is exercisable only where the provision of the information is subject to the satisfaction in relation to that other person of conditions imposed under subsection (7)(a) and (b).

(9) The Secretary of State must not make an order containing (with or without other provision) any provision that he is authorised to make by subsection (4)(a) unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.

(10) The restrictions imposed by or under this section on the information that may be provided to a person do not affect any right apart from this Act for an individual to be provided with information about the contents of his entry in the Register.