Stephen Taylor (London, 5jt): NO2ID has posted a leaked government document at WikiLeaks.
It's interesting in various ways. First, as an insight into some high-level shuffling around a dangerous and expensive political football. Second, what a great way to expose a leaked document: original text with annotations. Third, what comes through from reading the annotated text is that the mandarin dream of the database state is unquestioned; what is up for negotiation is its avowed objectives. Bluntly, this discusses how the government should market Sir Humphrey's fantasy.
Most important, it is clear from this damning document that the central feature of the scheme is getting us all on a single database. Never mind all that guff about the integrity of the information, guaranteed by interviews, fingerprinting and the appeals (in the face of reason and industry experts) to the magic bullet of biometrics. All of that is dispensable if they can just get us registered.
It's not the card, it's not terrorism, it's not immigration. It's the database, stupid.
Lastly — wikileaks.org. Brilliant. Who knew?
