Culled from this post on Jyoti’s blog, have a look at No2ID.net – a site setting out the case against the governments proposed ID card system.
It does sound like a gargantuan waste of money, and just another level of possible fraud for large scale criminal organisations to indulge in.
Given the instability of computer systems the world over, surely storing everyone’s data on some central computer is fraught with the possibility of being hacked, not to mention the hideous Big Brother-ness of the concept.
We already have the provision for checking someone’s ID, without having further ID cards – are passports and driver’s licences not good enough? I know that when I want to or need to demostrate that I am who I say I am, I don’t seem to have any trouble finding enough forms of proof, whether I’m applying for a mortgage or a Blockbuster card.
The whole think comes across like another balls up in the increasingly bogus and flawed notion of ‘the war against terror’, coupled with some nonsense about stopping ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘bogus asylum seekers’. No mention of it clearly penalising anyone who either doesn’t understand the system, or whose english isn’t good enough to grasp what they need to do.
The list of reasons for it is flimsy at best. The list of reasons against it is huge. Sounds like another New Labour screw up to me.