Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Very striking article in the Sunday Times by David Davis setting out a Conservative case against ID cards, which I've just seen. He makes a coherent case, this is not just knee-jerk opposition, including:
A government that refuses to learn from past failures is destined to repeat them. But Brown continues his mission to find the IT panacea of public sector reform. And nothing can be allowed to detract from his quest to find the ultimate elixir – a national identity register coupled with compulsory ID cards.
The prime minister ignores categorical advice from experts. Microsoft’s UK technology officer warns that ID cards risk the “honeypot” effect of clustering masses of personal data in one place, presenting what one chief constable called the “gold standard” target for criminal hackers. Biometric passports can be cloned with a gadget costing £100 and the market in stolen identities is flourishing – a BBC investigation found forged documents being sold online to underage drinkers for £10.
If the government gives away your bank account details, it is a disaster, but at least you can change your bank account. What do you do if the government gives away your fingerprints?
Any countervailing security dividend, from the billions of pounds wasted, is negligible at best. Ministers have openly conceded that ID cards will do little to prevent terrorism or crime. The Home Office website lists, as popular myth, that “ID cards can stop global terrorism and crime”. Yet Brown continues to pretend to parliament that “an identity scheme will help prevent people already in the country from using multiple identities for terrorist, criminal or other purposes”.
Read the full piece.
