id

i have not been a supporter of the introduction of id cards.
strangely my reluctrance has nothing to do with it being an infringement of my civil liberties. i know that there is a huge amount of information about me already out there in cyberspace that anyone who wanted to could dig up.
in fact i am probably one of the people who would benefit from having an id card: as it would prove who i am. (though this assumes i don't lose it like i have lost passports in the past...)
the main reasons i was against the id card scheme were all practical reasons. firstly the scheme would not have been done "in-house", as it were, but contracted out to the private sector. the winner of the bid would no doubt have placed a bid that was far too low and once they had started down the road to implementing the scheme they would say "sorry we have miscalculated here, if you do not pay us we will have to stop..." and of course the government of the day would end up paying out. (it is one of the joys of the public private initiatives that new labour seem to be so keen on is that the private sector make a lot of profite with very little to lose, while the public sector seem to have to chuck money at these things like there is no tomorrow but not actually get value for money...)
so we have a situation where the government says it will only cost £6 billion while the london school of economics claim it could cost £19 billion, in reality both are wrong and it will end up cost much more.
the other problem is that so far there have not been that many successful major computer system commissioned and implemented in the public sector by the private sector. i beleive the magistrates service computer system is not working, nor is the one for armed forces pay. both over budget and off schedule. it is doubtful that an id card scheme computer system would be any different.
then there is the question of security. i have no qualms about the state having a knowledge about me, i do have issues with the people in charge of that data being linked to private companies. no matter what the checks and balances put in place i would never be confident that the information was not being used for commericial benefit.

then of course there are the political justifications for the id cards that do not seem to make sense (well at least to me..)
that id cards would help stamp out terrorism - how? as most of the current wave of terrorists are likely to be homegrown they will legitimately have id cards. and if they are going to be suicide bombers i am pretty sure they are not going to be dissuaded from walking on to a bus/train or crowded shopping centre because oops they have an id card. assuming the card is not blown to smithereens with then it will make identifying them a bit easier. but it is pretty much after the fact.
id cards will stop illegal immigration. how? by the very nature of them being illegal the majority of illegal immigrants are not going to be working in the regular economy, but are going to be in the black economy. so no social services for them, so no need for id cards. so not really going to help. unless of course the police will be given powers to stop and search anyone they suspect of being illegal. and which group do you suppose will be targeted... oh well there is always the chance they will find a terrorist, but more likely will add to the creation of terrorists.
id cards will stop criminals. yeah criminals have been around since the year dot, they are part of human nature, and they will be here when we have id cards. true id cards may cut down on the number of identity thefts, if might cut down on fradulent claims on the social. id cards are not going to stop robberies, muggings etc. (unless of course the master criminal happens to drop his card at the scene of the crime...)

so you can see i am not for the id card.

if the sunday times (july 9th editiion) is anything to go by then we won't have to worry about the cards coming in, various civil servants emails reveal that they think it is a doomed scheme, that even the much scaled down voluntary version due in 2008 is unlikely. even then if the introduction of the "variant" version card is botched then the whole scheme for birnging in the cards could be set back a generation.

says david foord (the id cardproject director):
"“Just because ministers say do something does not mean we ignore reality — which is what seems to have happened on ID cards until [the contracts were due] to be issued and then reality could not be ignored any longer.”

He adds: “Even if everything went perfectly (which it will not) it is very debatable (given performance of government IT projects) whether whatever [the register] turns out to be (and that is a worry in itself) can be procured, delivered, tested and rolled out in just over two years ....."

mmm seems to be the end of that then.
we wish.

oddly enough there i am reading ann coulter's "how to talk to a liberal..(if you must)" book (mmm anne versus emma - i reckon we could sell out madison square gardens for that bout..) agrees that id cards for stopping terrorism is a stupid idea, she has her own one and that is racial profiling. another dumb idea, but that will be for another night.