See this paper by the Director of Registration of Services at the GRO to the
Chief Secretary of the Treasury
"Making more effective use of personal reference numbers"
http://www.gro.gov.uk/cip/Download.asp?PPSN%20sub%20to%20CST%20140105_tcm95-26311.pdf
See para 16, in particular.
Para 18 simply refers to "DWP and IR, the joint stewards of the NINO".
"14. Our investigations indicate that the NINO has the greatest potential to
operate as
the presumed personal reference number in the short term. NINOs are issued
to
almost all UK citizens, including the Child Reference Number version of it
for
under 16 year olds, and are also issued to many of the foreign workers
within the
UK. In addition to their prime purpose they are used extensively - eg within
in the
financial services area, to help with identification under Money Laundering
Regulations, to manage Child Trust Funds, and for free TV licences for
senior
citizens - without raising any public concerns. Moreover Home Office has
already
accepted that ID Cards should wherever possible holding and maintaining a
link to
the NINO thereby providing a clear path to the longer term option of using
ID
card numbers as the PPSN."
"16. There is nothing that in principle prevents using NINOs for purposes
other than
National Insurance, as shown by the existing uses, although this would
represent a
fundamental change in the declared purpose of the NINO. If there is to be a
general presumption that the NINO should be used even more widely as a
personal numbering system then there would be advantages in establishing
this in
legislation. Initial indications are that this would require primary
legislation but
should not amount to more than a few clauses and might be included within
forthcoming DWP or HMRC legislation. We are exploring these issues further
with legal advisers. We would also need to ensure that extension did not
reduce
the NINO's effectiveness as the core identifier for two major Departments.
17. The Data Protection Act provides for the registration of numbers as
"general
identifiers" for specified purposes. Wider use of the NINO would at some
point
require its registration as a general identifier. Indeed, the anticipated
use (subject
to legal advice) for the ISA children's databases may be sufficient to
trigger the
registration requirement. If so, this is likely to mean a consultation
within and
outside Whitehall on the boundaries of use of the NINO. That consultation
process would fit well with a short to medium-term vision of the NINO as the
preferred identifier for new applications. Designating NINO as a general
identifier
would still require scrutiny of each further application to use it.
18. The operational impacts of measures to make wider use of NINO are still
being
explored with DWP and IR, the joint stewards of the NINO. Although
sympathetic to the basic premise that the rationalisation of personal
reference
numbers would facilitate more efficient government, DWP and IR still have
misgivings about the approach that CIP is recommending. We are continuing to
work to address these issues."
Nick Landau
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brenda Scourfield" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 2:34 PM
Subject: [data-protection] NINO
An old chestnut I'm afraid. Can anyone point me to the Act, whatever, that
states that a National Insurance number can only be used for the purpose
of collecting National Insurance or issuing benefits.
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