ASA Adjudication on NO2ID

Ad

An ad for NO2ID, an anti-identity card campaign group, appeared in The Guardian. The ad showed a close-up photograph of Tony Blair; on his upper lip was a barcode. Text under the photograph stated "id cards have worked well in Europe before. www.no2id.net".

Issue

The complainants thought the barcode on Tony Blair's upper lip made him resemble Hitler and the portrayal of a public figure as Hitler was offensive.

CAP Code

Response

NO2ID said the photograph of Tony Blair was expertly retouched to make it look like a 1930s portrait and the layout was designed to recall the Nazi era.  They said the photograph did not portray Tony Blair as Hitler but was intended to be a comparison of Tony Blair with Hitler based on policy, not personality.  They said people who visited their website during the week the ad was published were directed to text outlining NO2IDs arguments against ID cards and highlighting the other countries that had used the scheme.  They said most discussion about the use of ID cards was on the question of costs. However, the ads intention had been to encourage discussion among the general public, in particular the educated middle or media class, of the civil liberty implications of ID cards; it was designed to provoke thought and to appeal to the politically aware.  They said the ad had appeared only once but they did plan to use it in other press in the future.  They said they had received some complaints but they believed some of those were in reaction to a national press article, which they asserted contained incorrect information, not the ad itself.

NO2ID asserted that the ad contained an implicit claim that identity cards were useful to the implementation of Nazi policies across Europe; they argued that that was beyond doubt.  They asserted that identity cards themselves had been used to control populations in occupied Europe and were very closely associated with the process of sorting victims for the concentration camps.

NO2ID believed free speech was a vital function of advertising and the ad, which made important points about government policy, was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.  They said the ad was intended to be insulting to Tony Blair but argued that insulting a politician was unlikely to offend. They pointed out that the print media they had chosen frequently carried verbal and cartoon attacks on Tony Blair and other politicians in their editorial pages.  They said such attacks on politicians for their policies were a fundamental part of debate in any democratic society as well as a customary one in British society.  They said they had intended to highlight an under-discussed aspect of an important issue and to stimulate debate and believed the message of the ad, that the introduction of ID cards was a policy with shocking implications, would be adequately communicated to, and understood by, the likely readership.

The Guardian believed the ad did not make a serious comparison between Tony Blair and Hitler but sought to highlight a particularly contentious policy.  They said the Guardian was aimed at an adult and educated readership and, as such, they should allow a certain degree of latitude in the advertising they carried that depicted political figures.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the ad had been intended to encourage discussion on a sensitive political issue.  We considered that, although the ad may have been distasteful to some, it was unlikely to be seen as making a serious comparison between Tony Blair and Hitler but instead as highlighting a lobbying groups opinion that ID cards should not be introduced because of the threat to civil liberty they posed.  We concluded that, as such, the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clause 5.1 (Decency) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)