Scrap ID cards
I was pleased to see that Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve has kept up the attack on the government's expensive and over-rated ID cards project.
Even before the repeated fiascos in which the government kept losing people's personal data, I had doubts about ID cards because of the risk that innocent people who forgot to carry the damn things would become at best the recipients of police attention better directed at genuine criminals, and at worst would find that having a bad memory or being disorganised had become a criminal offence. Now that the government has proved conclusively that it cannot be trusted with the data in such a system, the prospect of criminals getting hold of the information in the ID card database and doing far more damage should be blindingly obvious.
Dominic Grive said this week that it is “high time” Labour abandon their "ill-fated" ID cards project after Jacqui Smith unveiled the design of ID cards for foreign nationals.
The Shadow Home Secretary stressed, “ID cards are an expensive white elephant that risk making us less - not more - safe.”
And he said the Government were “kidding themselves” if they think ID Cards for foreign nationals will protect against illegal immigration or terrorism - as they don't apply to those coming here for less than three months.
A Conservative Government would abandon the ID cards project, and Dominic said he hoped Labour had taken that into account when they negotiated the contracts.
“If they have not acted on this to protect the British taxpayer, it is reckless in the extreme at a time of heightened economic uncertainty.”
Even before the repeated fiascos in which the government kept losing people's personal data, I had doubts about ID cards because of the risk that innocent people who forgot to carry the damn things would become at best the recipients of police attention better directed at genuine criminals, and at worst would find that having a bad memory or being disorganised had become a criminal offence. Now that the government has proved conclusively that it cannot be trusted with the data in such a system, the prospect of criminals getting hold of the information in the ID card database and doing far more damage should be blindingly obvious.
Dominic Grive said this week that it is “high time” Labour abandon their "ill-fated" ID cards project after Jacqui Smith unveiled the design of ID cards for foreign nationals.
The Shadow Home Secretary stressed, “ID cards are an expensive white elephant that risk making us less - not more - safe.”
And he said the Government were “kidding themselves” if they think ID Cards for foreign nationals will protect against illegal immigration or terrorism - as they don't apply to those coming here for less than three months.
A Conservative Government would abandon the ID cards project, and Dominic said he hoped Labour had taken that into account when they negotiated the contracts.
“If they have not acted on this to protect the British taxpayer, it is reckless in the extreme at a time of heightened economic uncertainty.”
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