Why not just scrap ID cards, then?

oldtimer

"Why not just scrap ID cards then?" you ask.

Answer: because this government does not know if it is supposed to be sitting on its arse or its elbow.

PS: this answer will usually serve as an adequate response to most questions about government policy.

Westmarian

We should remember, however, that stopping ID cards won't stop the government creating a huge biometric database. What do people think that "biometric passports" are?

John Bailey

Why?, because Broon and Labour are working directly for the EU, who have ordered and instructed Labour to introduce these "EU" ID cards, and Broon and Labour are not about to disobey their masters in Brussels.

Liz Brown

Are there any figures for the "voluntary" uptake of ID cards in Manchester? Having seen no boastful data I suspect that there has not been a huge rush?
and Yup, the government should have the balls to say that the idea is to be binned

Dennis Churchill

Could it be because it is intended to be a European Union wide process? Normally when “our” local politicians squirm around trying to justify something that seems flawed--Energy Performance Certificates—reduced alcohol limits for drivers etc, —the EU bureaucracy is somewhere in the background.

Ian

Having lived on the Continent (note I don't say Europe) for the last 30 years, I would welcome an ID card which could be used as a passport substitute. Anyone who lives in an area which can involve frequent border crossing appreciates a convenient sized ID solution rather than the larger passport. Many other countries around the Mediterranean basin will also accept entry based on national ID cards as an alternative to passports.

Kevyn Bodman

I'm afraid that Ian at 12.13pm has misunderstood the issue.
The ID card is only partly about people being able to show their identity for their own convenience.
It is more about the database that it will be linked to.
This will track you by recording each time,place and reason for use that you utilize the card.

You will be monitored.

From there a subsequent step is the granting or witholding of permission to carry out various actions in your life:travel,banking,purchase of alcohol,tobacco and books,attendance at political conferences are areas that immediately spring to mind for monitoring and then control.There will be others too.

ID cards are not to help you.
They are a manifestation of over-ambitious politicians and officials and should be rejected by all free people.

anne allan

As a side issue, what about store loyalty cards? Given the keenness of the big retailers to low-tow to those in power, how long will it be before an act is nodded through obliging stores to pass the information on to a government data base?
Scenario; a wheezing Mrs. Bloggs visits her GP. As he taps into his computer she will be told that she bought a packet of cigarettes in 2003 and seems to enjoy her butter. Kerching - no treatment for Mrs.B.

Jeremy

"Most of the expenditure is on biometric passports which you and I are going to require shortly to get into the US."

I have no plans to "get into" the US. Or is this a tacit admission that half of the Labour cabinet are going to do a Blair - i.e. clear off to the US the moment they have been kicked out of office in order to pick up their payback for taking us into this ridiculous war (and keeping us there), leaving the rest of us to stew in the gaping financial hole they leave behind?

Nicholas

Ian; and further to Kevyn's reply the onus is on the individual to keep the data on their database up to date with criminal penalties for failure. IIRC this involves at least 50 pieces of information including addresses and past addresses.

Have a look here at the intrusive and draconian law behind the ID card, including making the provision of public services conditional on ID checks.

http://tinyurl.com/5nntvj

You may be happy to live with all that just for the "convenience" of your travel habits. As an Englishman I am not. I have not been asked whether I consented to this and as far as I know it was not in New Labour's manifesto.

They have changed the face and feel of this country, created paranoia, intensified the fear of crime ironically at a time when their police services are least effective at dealing with it, stirred up racial and religious tensions witrh their stupid hate laws and thought crimes, and reversed the default presumption of innocence to presumption of guilt until one can "verify" by buying into their coercive, surveillance bureaucracy that one is "innocent". The whole thing stinks. And the Conservatives lukewarm response to tackling it all stinks almost as much.

gordon-bennett

I think the huge cost of the ID card project arises from the mistaken concept of putting data onto the card itself. This data has to be aggregated from various sources and that is expensive to do.

I suggest that the card should contain only your biometric information and a unique key code (perhaps your NI number, if that concept is still secure). This data would be compiled when you registered your card on first use.

Each Agency which was allowed to request your card for ID purposes would use the key code to interrogate their own database. This would spread software development over many simple projects rather than one almighty, fully integrated project of the type that government regularly fails at.

Snowman

calm down, we will be forced to

Number7

Maybe I should change my Nom de plume to Number 6

Chuck Unsworth

@ Number 7

Far better to have a Nom de Guerre. Because that is where we are.....

In2minds

John Bailey @ 11.58am and Dennis Churchill @ 12.07pm mention the EU. ID cards are not some Nulabour idea this is an EU threat to us here in the UK.

It's all very well Cameron and Clegg saying they will do away with the ID card scheme but can they be trusted? Clegg is like any LibDem, signed up to an ever closer union regardless of the damage this will do to the UK.

And Cameron is the same, it was Cameron who invited that pot-bellied EU fanatic horror story Ken Clarke into his shadow cabinet. With 'help' like that Herman Van Rompuy will have it easy to get his way.

Derek

I have seen the future, and it works. I was talking recently to a fifteen year old boy who is in High School in China. At the beginning of the academic year, he transferred to a weekday boarding school. There the orderlies responsible for discpline and tidiness in the dormitories are empowered to issue notes for infractions of the rules which must be delivered to the school's higher authorities by the boys who receive them.

Early in the current semester, the boys were strongly advised to avoid receiving these or similar notes. The notes will be recorded in the children's files. The files will be reviewed by universities considering applications; infractions of discipline will be weighed against academic merit.

The boys were then informed, and I think we can take it that the same speech is given across China at this point in a child's career,that the file in which these matters are set down is opened when the child enters kindergarten. It follows the child as he works his way through the education system, at first unknown to him; becomes a lowering presence in and following 10th grade; is not left behind at university; is required by any state organization proposing to employ him and can be reviewed by numerous state authorities under various pretexts. It can perhaps be imagined what other information is considered appropriate for entry in the dossier.

Neither the child nor the man has a right to view his file.

It is of course linked to his ID card.

Is this what the Labour Party wants for you? Is this what you want for England?

Time to open the files on the Labour Party.

Peter Oborne in the Spectator (7th November - arrived here 12th December)notes that Jack Jones was "a KGB asset and a long-term traitor" and that one of "his brightest protégés was Gordon Brown".In the same issue, it is noted that "The decision to give Gordon Brown his first and only safe seat, Dunfermline East, was made by two T&G officials: Hugh Wyper, the regional boss and a Communist Party member, and Alec Kitson", "Jones's unelected deputy".

I hope this information is in the powder keg that Mr. Cameron is keeping dry.

Nicholas

Derek, did you register with the Authorities and get yourself vetted before talking to this fifteen year old boy?

"You can't be too careful" as some chump commented recently.

Jeremy Hower

I'd advise people to be wary of any 'death of ID cards' type articles. Whether you have a plastic card or a passport as a front-end the gov has always intended to create biometric profiles on us.