"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
This will be a criminal offence if ID cards become mandatory. Basic
concepts seems to be alien to some.


I *really* don't see the problem. We already have to carry works ID
cards, etc, so one other shouldn't be a problem. For honest folk at
least.

It's not the ID that is the issue so much as the monster all
encompassing database that goes with it...

All that information will be on a database somewhere anyway. Can't see the
problem with centralising it.


Many years ago I read a Science Fiction story set in the far
future where; #1 everybody carried a computer-readable ID card
and ... ; #2 At the age of nn? years folks were compulsorily
euthanised. The story centred on a person who wakes up one morning to
find that his ID card has been rescinded - no cash, no capability
to obtain food, re-enter his housing unit, purchase a transport
ticket, etc. etc. ... As I see it, the 'problem with centralising
it (ID cards cum database)' is more the cock-up than conspiracy
power that the government (of any political colour) would have.
How do you feel about the Dept of Pensions, NHS, bus-company,
Bank, Tesco/Sainsburys; local Take-Away; suddenly being told you'd
become a non-person because (fr'instance) David Blunkett had decided
that he fancied your wife? At this point, readers are invited to
shout out the name and provenance of _every_ government IT project
that has run to budget, and met the full spec within the original
time-frame ... [Opens window, listens ... deafening silence ] ...
and that's before we introduce the concept of the 'Law of Unintended
Consequences' let alone Murphy's Law.

--

Brian