One cheer for Blunkett on ID cards
David Blunkett has said that “people do worry” about the ID card database. Shami Chakrabarti writes in The Independent about why they should:
My “worries” lie in the huge threats to privacy, race relations and liberty more generally, posed by this grandiose ambition. Databases are a fact of modern life, but being specific about purpose is vital to protecting privacy. There is no need for GPs to see my tax information, immigration officers to see my shopping habits and so on.
As the “national identity register” had been justified in such fickle ways (immigration control, benefit fraud, terrorism, etc.), the amount of information on it and access to it, would inevitably escalate over time. Despite biometric passports for international travel, the repeated use of an immigration justification for ID cards provided a clear indication that border control would move to our city streets and ethnic minorities in particular, would be hassled for their “papers”. Then the small matter of the multi-billion pound cost of the project. In the boom years it seemed extravagant for something that wasn’t going to cure cancer or conquer Al-Qua’ida. In the current climate the figures seem positively obscene.
