Nick Heath writes on the Silicon.com web site:
While the Home Office is hoping ID cards will one day be used for everything from claiming benefits to opening bank accounts, the UK financial services industry has its doubts over how useful the cards will prove.
The UK payments association Apacs – whose members includes the UK’s major [...]

David Ottewell writes in the Manchester Evening News:
Manchester could become one of the first areas in Britain to have identity cards, it emerged today.
Home secretary Jacqui Smith said the city was a ’strong contender’ to be a pilot area when the government starts rolling out the cards across Britain in 2011.
Ms Smith said during a [...]

Alice Miles, writing in the Times, defends ContactPoint:
The new ContactPoint system, which will hold the details of 11million children, is one way to help professionals to protect Kelly and Tom, not a way to attack Laura and Eleanor. It would be better to ask whether there will be enough information on the system to make [...]

Ben Russell, writing in the Independent, reports the parliamnetary debate on the data sharing clauses in the Coroners and Justice Bill:
But Dominic Grieve, the shadow Justice Secretary, said the plans would “drive a coach and horses through the traditional relationship between the state and individuals” to serve a “nebulous case of public good”. He warned [...]

Rosemary Bennett, writing in the Times, comments on the advisability of the ContactPoint database:
But big databases are now distinctly out of fashion. The loss of many big data sets has destroyed public confidence that vast amounts of information should be held together.
Five million child benefit records, unencrypted data sticks containing details of 84,000 prisoners and [...]