Identity Cards – Another Puppy?
You would think that our prime minister would learn from his mistakes – but no, he just keeps making them, firstly Europe, then the war and now this… The idea of a national identity card in itself is something we could discuss endlessly, some see it as a great anti-terrorist measure, others see the combination of the new intelligent road cameras, the identity card and other separately innocent measures as the combined tools of a control-freak mentality that makes even the original USSR communist party look like amateurs by comparison. Personally I firmly believe that whatever electronic measures the government puts in place will be sheepishly adopted by the mass of law-abiding public – while genuine terrorists will simply come up with ways to circumvent the cards. There is hardly an electronic security measure in the world that can’t be bypassed or broken if you’re clever enough or you know someone who’s clever enough – it takes one virus writer to bring down thousands or millions of computers – if we adopt this technology nationally it would just take one clever anarchistic type to publish information that would make the cards completely redundant. If a medium level of security is needed – most of us have that already – drivers licences and passports, together with our national insurance numbers.
What can’t be argued is that a cost of £399 or even £93 is utterly and completely unacceptable. Either this is another tax-collection device in thin disguise or there is something very sadly wrong with governmental procurement. We already have medical systems that a are propped up by the middle classes – will the same happen with these cards – free supply to the under-privileged while the rest of us pay not only for the cards but in higher taxes to cover those who don’t or can’t pay?
Much smaller organisations routinely use security cards with a cost-per-person WAY below these figures – and we all know how the cost of electronics benefits from scale – all of use except, it seems, the government.