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Safeguards and data
• THE report of NHS paper records lost on Holloway Road reminds us how important it is for the government and state organisations to keep our data safe; and not to collect more information than they really need in the first place (Private files spark street paper chase, July 10).
Yet every week, hardly noticed, the Labour government is extending the database state, at our expense.
MPs have just brought in new regulations to allow the Passport and Information Service to share personal information with a host of other agencies without an individual’s consent. The House of Lords votes on more regulations for putting the ID card scheme into practice.
By forcing through yet more ID card legislation, the government has shown again how out of touch it is.
The government’s position is contradictory and misleading. Last month, Alan Johnson said that ID cards would not be compulsory, then he said the whole scheme would be accelerated.
While spin doctors try to convince us that ID cards have been dropped, the truth is that the government is still pushing them.
Opposition MPs united to table a parliamentary debate calling for the ID card scheme to be scrapped.
Unlike the other parties, every Liberal Democrat MP is pledged to oppose ID cards and the massive database needed to implement them.
The issue has divided Islington Labour Party. Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn voted with the Liberal Democrats to oppose ID cards; but Labour loyalist Emily Thornberry, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, lined up with the government whips and voted in favour of ID cards. I believe that ID cards are expensive, intrusive and do nothing to make us safer. Say no to ID.
Bridget Fox
Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate, Islington South and Finsbury
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Your comments:
IT'S worse even than Ms Fox says. Think of the various cards you carry as keys. Your library card is the key that lets you borrow books. Your bank card is the key to your bank account. You might have a photo ID for use at work ? your key to the building. Your Oyster Card lets you use public transport. The National Identity Register aims to provide a 'gold standard' of 'identity management'. Your ID Card would be the one, indispensable key to everything in your life. That would certainly be amazingly convenient when working smoothly. You might not be bothered by the thought of everything you do and everywhere you go appearing on a database read by everyone in public jobs. You might be unconcerned at the normalisation of such transparency, at officials expecting to see deeply into your life, and taking any resistance on your part as evidence of wrong-doing. (Perhaps Big Brother on TV makes a real-life version seem acceptable.)If you find nothing in that to trouble you, you still have to consider that public bodies are unable to secure and protect the records they keep. The government's own inquiry into the matter recommended public bodies hold as little information as possible for as short a time as possible. Whitehall is taking over management of all our keys. And spending billions of our tax pounds on it. Still happy?
S. Taylor
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