Well it’s due to be debated in the House anytime now – well once everyone’s finished talking about Blunkett’s rail ticket.
The Guardian’s Newsblog has a good summary of what some of the key supporters are saying in putting forward good reasons for the card and databases’s introduction (incidentally, I’m hearing far too little about the database).
The Charles Clarke piece is in The Times.
I have long been a strong supporter of the benefits of identity cards.
Not according to this piece that I linked to yesterday. Obviously it was inaccurate.
Still, despite the fact that the in today’s press release from the Home Office, Clarke is quoted as saying the reason for the card’s introduction will be…
helping protect against terrorism, organised crime, identity theft, illegal immigration and illegal working.
Clarke prefers to push other benefits in The Times piece. He says that it’ll help us in
opening a bank account, going abroad on holiday, claiming a benefit, buying goods on credit and renting a video.
Opening a bank account? How many people really can’t manage that? Everybody copes claiming benefit, and I find a passport is most useful for getting on holidays. As for things like gaining credit, well that’s more down to the credit agencies than anything. Having a card will neither help nor hinder this. And I don’t understand how it’ll help me rent a video. Does he advocate the 16 year old working part time in my local Blockbuster being able to check my card details via some kind of online terminal? I suggest that Blockbuster will prefer you to present either several pieces of billing information or a credit/debit card as they do at the moment.
Some £50 million a year is claimed illegally from the benefits systems using false identities.
Indeed, I object to so much money being claimed through false identities, although I’d like to see how this was calculated. But isn’t a THREE BILLION POUND scheme just a little over the top for solving a fifty million pound problem. Of course that three billion won’t include any of the machines or the training, or any of the massive IT overspend that’ll undoubtedly accompany a scheme of this size.
Clarke goes on to mention the requirements of the US of us to carry either biometric passports or visas. Well that’s fine, although I note that George Bush has somehow stopped short of requiring his own citizens to carry an ID card.
Meanwhile over in the Telegraph, Michael Howard writes his own defence of ID cards.
As the Guardian points out, he talks in terms of terrorism and September 11, a tragedy where identity of the criminals was not, and never has been in doubt.
ID cards wouldn’t have stopped 9/11. It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.