The Lord have caved in with a compromise that makes it worse, not better. You'll still be stamped and categorised, they'll still put your data on a centralised "secure" register, but you can have the sop of believing that you don't need a card.
Central pledge required from all candidates at the next General Election:
I will vote to abolish the National Identity Register
If they don't sign up to it, campaign against them. Regardless of party affiliation. I refuse to be 'registered'.Henry Porter at Comment is Free:
The failure to register will be punished by a maximum fine of £2,500. The failure to apply in a manner prescribed (whatever that means) to renew your ID, or to inform the national identity register of a change of your details, or to surrender the ID card, or to notify the register of an invalid card, will all incur a maximum fine of £1,000.Read that through again. £2,500 fine if you forget to tell them you've changed your details?
£2,500 fine?
As someone who perpetually forgets to file paperwork, whose drivers licence is still the one I was first issued 13 years ago registered at my parents address (perfectly legally I add), this scares the shit out of me. Why do they need a £2,500 fine for what they're selling as an 'entitlement' card?The Lords have fallen for it. After a heroic, drawn-out defence they've been conned into believing it's the cards, rather than the database that backs up the cards, that's the problem.
- Bookdrunk on Burnham:
To describe any part of the ID card mess as 'absolutely clear' is either laughably delusional or grossly dishonest. The problem with Burnham is that it's hard to decide which applies.
More able to control access to my identity? What is this rubbish? How does an identity database protect my fingerprints, date of birth, iris pattern etc. etc. from being stolen? Doesn't it store all of those things in one handy central place? How does this stop my credit card or name being used? Answer: it doesn't and it won't.
Most Conservatives abstained, but 24 of them including their Home Affairs front bench spokesmen David Davis, Edward Garnier and Patrick Mercer voted with the Labour Government. Only 8 Conservatives voted against the motion with the Liberal Democrats.
It seems that David Cameron's NuTories cannot be trusted on civil liberties issues any more than Michael Howard's Tories could be.
- Porter (again):
People are beginning to see that ID cards are not being introduced so that they can identify themselves but rather so that the government can identify them and keep track of every important transaction in their lives.
3 comments:
Renew your passport now before you are forced to register. That will give you until the compulsory phase in 201.
Is any party making a manifesto pledge to throw this authoritarian rubbish out ?
Working in the IT industry the idea that this database will be secure is simply laughable. For it to be of any use it will have to be able to be accessed by practically every Govt or local official that needs to check a record. And then banks, building societies, utility providers etc etc. All of whom I'm sure you'll agree are incapable of corruption.
Future generations will look back on this, shake their heads and wondered how we consented to this madness. We won't be able to say "it was less than a 1000 lunatics in parliamnet who voted for it". They will simply say "You let them do it to you"
Lareinagal, according to Andrew in comments to Paul's post and on his blog here, it's Tory policy to do so, but he's a Tory and doesn't trust them to do it.
The LibDems are sound on the issue though. That's one of the key reasons I put my money up and joined them last month.
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