Slashdot Mirror
UK Compulsory ID Plan Shelved
e9th writes "Despite a bump or two along the way, it seemed that compulsory ID cards were a done deal in the UK. Now, the Financial Times is reporting that the scheme has been shelved. Unfortunately, it seems that this was more a matter of convenience than of concern for citizens' privacy."
The Guardian is reporting:
British citizens who apply for or renew their passport will be automatically registered on the national identity card database under regulations to be approved by MPs in the next few weeks.
The decision to press ahead with the main elements of the national identity card scheme follows a review by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, of the £4.9bn project. Although Johnson said the cards would not be compulsory, critics say the passport measures amount to an attempt to introduce the system by the backdoor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/30/passport-details-id-card-database
I wrote to my local MP, but he's a useless cunt, and didn't even bother writing back.
From further down that article:
He also denied that there were any significant public spending savings to be made by cancelling the project saying: "This scheme pays for itself. If you cancel all you will get is diddly squat."
This is a reference to the self-financing nature of the project under which it is to be paid for through increased charges for passports and the £60 cost of a biometric identity card.
I had hoped that the new Home Sec would at least have a bit of sense not to emulate his predecessors, but it seems that was misguided. Did Labour even look at the last election results? They have no council mandate, little popular support, they've lost Scotland, and are losing the north, yet they still press on with misguided schemes like ID Cards that are universally unpopular. They've lost all touch with reality.
I remember hearing that Jacqui Smith said that people had approached her saying that they couldn't wait to get ID cards. Even worse, in the long term they've brought back unpopular people like Mandelson, in the hope that nobody would notice or remember how insidious he was.
Sad thing is that I have no faith in the Tories to do any better. No wonder people are voting for UKIP and BNP. If Nigel Farage is seen as more honest than Labour, things are grim for them indeed.
I dreamed of Freud: What does this mean?
Anyone applying for a UK passport from 2011 onwards will have their information stored on the National ID database.
If you don't keep your address and personal information up to date you have committed a criminal offence and you can be fined GBP1,000.
80% of the UK population own passports. In essence, anyone who wants to leave the UK must register with the ID database.
The ID database is primarily a scheme that enables the government to identify you, and that is made clear in a dubious little paper called Safeguarding Identity, produced by the Home Office last week, which describes how the ID database and the transformational government scheme mesh together in one glorious structure where data about the individual passes between departments. That is the prize and why they will use any argument and spend any amount to achieve it.