ID cards are dead, Long Live The ID Card!

I read with great joy reports that Alan Johnson had scrapped plans to introduce compulsory ID cards, closer reading wasn't so encouraging - the database was still going ahead and would be populated by information gathered by the identity and passports service.

Now I have read further and far from being scrapped, the ID cards project is actually being accelerated.

The only claimed concession is that the cards will not be compulsory, this has not changed - the cards were never intended to be compulsory until a significant number had ben issued, what will happen instead is that this card will not be compulsory, you just won't be able to do anything without it!

Just think, once they take steps so that it will be very difficult to open a bank account without your ID card, claim benefits? visit the doctor? use the library? enter government offices? buy age restricted items? (alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, glue, cutlery...). How long do you imagine being able to refuse an ID card when all these things will be closed to you?

Yes - purely voluntary as in "you're stuffed without one!"


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5700798/Home-Secretary-abandons-compulsory-ID-cards.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/02/editorial-id-cards-register

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jul/02/identity-cards-fraud-cost

http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2009/07/alan-johnson-lies-about-id-cards-and-1-2-billion-a-year-identity-fraud.html

http://www.longrider.co.uk/blog/2009/07/02/well-that-didnt-take-long/