Country cannot afford this ID shambles
Philip Johnston writes in the Daily Telegraph:
From next year anyone requiring a new passport will have their fingerprints taken and entered, along with other personal details, on to the database.
It will not be necessary to have a card because identification can be verified using a fingerprint reader connected directly to the database.
The only way in which this could be said to be a voluntary scheme is if it were possible to opt out of the ID register when obtaining a passport. But Mr Johnson has not said that it will be.
Indeed, within the next few weeks, secondary legislation is coming before MPs to make it an offence punishable by a £1,000 fine to fail to notify the Identity and Passport Service of a change of address once you have been included on the database.
What the Government is trying to do is to build up a national population register of the sort that exists in other countries, like Sweden, but which we have never had here.
