There are times when politicians can get things out of perspective and I think this may well be one of those times.
It is clear the public want these cards (80% approval rating apparently!) and the Government is determined to give them. I accept that having cards will never make it impossible for terrorists to strike but it will act as another barrier they would have to pass through. But there are other aspects of this policy that many of us already use. All teenagers, when reaching sixteen, are issued with a plastric ID card that bears their National Insurance number. It is not an enormous step away from that to a full ID card.
However, more importantly, I believe that a large number of people believe that it is right that you should have a card to present when you want to access public services, such as health and benefits. People I speak to on door steps tell me they are fed up with hearing about people who gain benefits when they are not entitled to residency or are the supposed "health tourists" coming here for emergency treatement because it is free. I do not know whether these tales are true or not but I guess an ID card will give them some security that it is being made a lot more difficult.
But there is the problem? The card is being used for two purposes; security and access to services. Each of the uses probably gets a different response from different people.
Still, how much a step away from "chip and pin" credit cards, and all their apprent problems. will an ID card be?
2 comments:
Bit early for Brandy methinks.
I actually think one of the more authoritarian pieces of plastic we carry is the "Oyster" travel card. You have to have one because you pay exorbitant metro fares without one and yet it records every single movement you might make during your working day; where you have been and when you went there. Add that to the data from credit cards on what I spent and where I spent it and speed cameras, CCTV, bank ATM's, mobile telephone calls, internet access etc and you quickly can build a picture of everything any person does during their daily lives..... or am I just getting paranoid?
Compulsory ID cards won't stop terrorists, anymore than they did in Spain.
Compulsory ID cards will not stop Asylum Seekers, anymore than passports do now.
Compulsory ID cards will not stop Benefit fraud, anymore than National Insurance numbers do now.
Compulsory ID cards will not stop health Tourism. The system is free to anyone at the point of use. Doesn't matter who you are.
Yes Credit cards can track your purchases. Yes Oysters can track your movements. Yes Driving licences now have photo's and the police can force you to produce one.
If all this is true, Why do we need to spend £3billion on a new Government IT project for VOLUNTARY ID cards that won't be in place until 2011?
There is no pressing need, except the need of the state to gain the upper hand in it's relations with the citizens who allow it to exist.
We currently have a plurality of ID systems as mentioned above for specific purposes. We should not replace this with a statutory, centralised, state-run database.
After some in-depth thought - I can see no practical advantage in ID cards, and therefore I oppose Statutory State ID cards on principle.
I back Churchill who, in 1951, promised to abolish the war-time ID Cards, and "set the people free". Add that to the list of things we owe him...
We are moving slowly, yet ever further away from our pluralistic, liberal and democratic traditions in this country. ID cards would be another rivet in the Iron Coffin.
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