ID cards back again

Yes, it's back in the news. Now the Gov. is trying to sell it as being the best protection yet against the growing problem of Identity Theft (can't they just arrest that comedian doing that bank card advert McGowen). Remember when it was an 'entitlement card' to make sure Miss Single-parent couldn't claim for one more free bottle of milk for her child than she was entitled to, or that Johnny Foreigner wouldn't get any free medical treatment on the NHS or substandard council housing -etc. Then it was going to stop international terrorists in their tracks and put a stop to all those bombs and aeroplanes crashing into buildings that have been happening in the UK ever since er... er... (quickly changes the subject.) Now it's going to stop all this terrible, terrible Identity theft business that's costing the country 1.3 billion pounds a year.
Whooooo!
Except it isn't. Well, because they've pretty much as good as made those figures up.

So remember that little fact, They have all that data to hand - then twist it and mangle it and then ignore it in order to push through whatever it is they wanted to do in the first place. So ask yourself how then can they be ever trusted with the personal data of all the inhabitants of this country in this proposed massive new database? Can they be trusted with your own individual personal information? If they can get it into the database correctly in the first place - discounting the typos, the inevitable human error, the inevitable computer crashes and lock-ups... etc.

Once again they keep skirting over how much the whole scheme is going to cost to set up, and once in place keep running - they're always very hazy on that particular piece of information have you noticed? I wouldn't be surprised if it's easily over 1.3 billion before they've finished, (not that it will ever be finished). This will be real proper taxpayers money, not imaginary figures they've pulled out of a hat one year. Money that could be better put into investigating and policing and so actually stopping the real non-imaginary money that is being lost.

Notice also how the proposed cost of actually owning a card keep on creeping up and up - first a basic card was going to cost around £35, then last year that had suddenly jumped to £85 to £88, now it transpires it's likely to be maybe closer to £98 or maybe a tad over £100. Seems a lot to spend on something that has already been proven not to work very well, which surely negates the whole point of having an ID card. What's the use of an ID card that only somewhat, nearly proves your ID? All this expense on something the whole Country has been managing quite well totally without since the 1950s.

(Oh, and I don't know about you, but I certainly haven't got a spare £100 floating around that I don't know what to do with. If you have maybe you'd like to send it to me. I'm sure to make far better use of it than this Gov. ever would.)

The 'No ID' petition.