ID Cards

I've been following the story of ID cards for the last year or so. I always believed that the reasons the government were pushing them for was a complete waste of time. They keep mentioning that they would help in the fight against terrorism, bollocks. They would be as much use a chocolate fire guard to stop terrorists coming in to the UK.

The government seams to think they can get the public to agree to anything if they mention its to help in the fight against terrorism but I think after some of the rubbish the government has said the last couple of years, people are no longer believing it.

I can't see how the ID cards would help against terrorism, the stuff Mr Blunkett was saying just wouldn't work. I do believe there could be some benefits to them, possibly cutting down on benefit fraud but still not convinced and can't see how the government can justify spending the billions of pounds needed to implement it.

Also some of the stuff they have mentioned just isn't realistically technically possible yet.

Maybe the government would like every shop in the country to have a biometric scanner (fingerprint or retina) and whenever you buy something you have to prove who you are. At the moment this technically isn't possible or cost effective but who knows in 30 years time this may happen. There could be a database with every purchase you have ever made sat there from the Mars bar at your local shop to some flowers for your partner. With this you could effectively track where any person in the country is by the things they have purchased. This is science fiction but not too far away.

As with most things like ID cards the only people who are impeded are the normal law abiding citizens who do nothing wrong and the criminals/terrorists still carry on as before and in someways more easily due to everyone expecting the ID card to genuinely prove who someone is. To see an example of just how insecure ID cards are, read this article on how the Madrid bomber from last year used a genuine ID card.

As you can tell I don't like it and think it goes against our right to live in a free country and remain anonymous. Why not just go the whole way and implant a microchip in me and it could then tell everyone when I'd had a dump!!