ID Cards Trial

Blunkett continues to push for these stupid ID cards, and now has a trial underway with 10,000 volunteers. Exactly what a trial with volunteers is going to prove I don’t know? I daresay that there won’t be too many terrorists or illegal immigrants rushing to queue up for this.
So what can we expect? Well the cost of passports and driving licences are going to rise rapidly. This page on the Home Office website suggests costs of around £77 for a combined passport/ID card, and £73 for a combined driving licence/ID card.
But it’ll combat terrorism. Well ID cards did the trick in Spain didn’t they? OK, so Spanish ones don’t carry biometric data. Well so what? How would it have stopped them. And there’s the small point that we won’t be scanning everyone who enters the country, particularly our friends in the EU (very shortly to include lots more people from lots more countries). Or our American cousins from across the water who will most certainly be scanning all of us.
But it’s not just terrorism. Oh no. It’s to stop health tourism. And in particualr all those illegal workers doing the jobs that no-one with the legal right to work wants to do. Of course, whenever I’ve started a new job, I’ve been asked for my National Insurance number, and one would think that this might be the way to go for illegal working. Still, I expect that once all the cards have been introduced, those dodgy employers who are paying below-subsistence levels of wages to illegal workers will immediately clean up their acts.
Incidentally, some seem to think that it’s not terrorism that the introduction is mainly being sold on. Just go back and read Blunkett’s comments on that Home Office press release. What does it say to you?
This also sounds like it’ll be an enormous government IT contracts to be put out to tender. Which IT company will win it? EDS perhaps? You feel certain that the whole thing will be completed on time and under budget.
Keep up to speed at Stand and Liberty.


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