UK Government Passes ID Card Bill

cowbutt writes "The two houses of the UK government, the elected House of Commons and the House of Lords have agreed a compromise on Labour's ID cards bill, after Conservative peers accepted a Labour amendment. Under the new amendment, anyone renewing a designated document (e.g. passport) will be able to opt-out of getting a card until 2010, but will still have their details put on the National ID Register immediately."

Comments

Re:Another one bites the dust.

[techno-vampire]

So much so that in the US you can get a driving license that doesn't allow you to drive - making it clear that a license is in fact an ID card. I never had anything like this when I lived in the UK.

In California, there's a "non-driver's ID card" that you can get if you don't drive. The state started issuing them several decades ago so that non-drivers had some sort of state issued ID to use. Before that, people who didn't drive had a very hard time with things like credit cards because of shops requiring a photo-ID. Now, it's simple. If that's what you're referring to, I can't see what the big deal is. It's there for your convenience, nothing else, and nobody is required to have one if they don't want it.