ID cards battle deadlocked
Silicon.com reports:
The ID cards battle remains deadlocked after MPs again overturned a House of Lords amendment that would have prevented people being forced to register for an ID card when applying for a passport.
MPs voted by 292 votes to 241 votes – an increased majority of 51 – in favour of keeping the clause in the bill to make the passport a “designated document” tied in with ID cards and the National Identity Register (NIR) database.
It is the second time this week that MPs have overturned House of Lords’ opposition to the ID cards bill and the parliamentary ping-pong will continue on Monday when peers vote on the legislation for the fourth time.
If the House of Lords continues to oppose what critics call the “compulsion by stealth” element of the bill then the government will be forced to invoke the Parliament Act in the next session in November to get ID cards on the Statute Book.
The same article also carries news of the confirmation by Andy Burnham, speaking at a recent conference, that many (most?) ID card transactions could be verified with a PIN rather than a biometric scan, as previously reported here:
Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of the No2ID campaign, said the Home Office’s ‘gold standard’ of identity has now been reduced to little more than a bog standard chip and PIN card.
He said in a statement: “After all its overblown claims about the infallibility of biometrics and how highly secure its ID system will be, it turns out our identities are to be protected by nothing more than a four digit PIN. The Home Office may as well give away all our personal data to organised criminals and fraudsters, who will always target the weakest point in a system.”
March 17th, 2006 at 13:23
ID Cards compulsory again
As The Register reports, the UK Identity Cards legislation has been bounced around for a third time, with the Commons reinstating the compulsory aspect of the scheme (compelling anyone who takes out a passport also to take an ID card and be entered on…
March 18th, 2006 at 11:23
Doesn’t this little bit of pantomime illustrate what a farce our so-called democracy really is?
The unelected Lords appear to be acting on behalf of the majority of people in this country who do not want an ID card at all let alone a compulsory scheme and here we have the government wheeling out MP’s, our so-called ‘elected representatives’ (who do not represent the will of the people at all), to push through bad law.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Well, it’s the old good guy (Lords), bad guy (Commons) routine, being played out in true pantomime fashion to hoodwink us into believing we live in a democracy where we have some type of representation in Parliament, in this case, through the Lords.
The Lords may very well vote again for a voluntary ID scheme – what good guys! But, in the end the vote will not count for anything when Charles Clarke pushes through his pet project using the Parliament Act.
Bad guys win again, everyone thinks we live in a democracy, curtains close… ‘Encore, encore!’ It works a treat every time. What a farce!