When a world class university, LSE, has it's research on ID cards being rubbished because it is not PC it nicely illustrates that the Blair government is running scared. Dr. Davis has said he will sue the PM and / or ministers who criticize his research motives outside the House. But they won't will they? As Patience Wheatcroft says, this collection of goons ain't doing the business and are now exposed for what they are,political opportunists who have never met a pay-roll in their life. There is a contrarian view - they have the pursuit of self interest down to a fine art which is what everyone in the world is attempting to do. So... congratulations to them all.
Sir Peter Crombie, PrestonThe government plan for identity cards is absolutely flawed from the onset. I absolutely will not sign away my privacy and personality to a organisation that is more than ever pandering to business needs rather that the good of the country. I will go to prison before I ever give my details up for an ID card. Tony Matthews, Derbyshire
I have lived in Brazil for almost 30 years and here we have 2 not 1 ID cards, with different numbers. 1 is an ID card itself, with photo, signature, numbers etc. for personal identification. The other is Very Big Brother called a CPF which is a number which has to be used for all financial transactions, and appearing on your cheques. All Banks have to pass your annual total of money transactions to the Inland Revenue so they can check your annual tax and capital declaration. BUT ... it´s so easy for smart people to get several versions of each ID in different names etc. Pop along to the cemetery and see who´s dead and get one for yourself in their name, as just one example. Or pay a poor person to lend you theirs and get a second copy with your own photo, signature etc. Thank God I personally have never done this but it´s common and easy, especially for rich people wanting to hide undeclared wealth and illegal earnings. John Jagger, Rio de Janiero, Brazil
I have lived for almost 40 years overseas in many different countries, all of which insisted on identity cards. I have only been stopped twice in 40 years. My conclusion - don't bother to carry an identity card, the statistical probability of being stopped is negligible. Just apologise. There is also the probability of bureaucratic chaos - recently I was given an ID card valid to March 2006 and then was told that my visa was out-of-date. How would a policeman know that I did not have a visa if my ID was still valid? Brian Lewis, Manila, Philippines
The whole idea of ID cards is to push for closer EU ties. Britain is aping the rest of Europe. Where there are ID cards there are crooks busy churning up thousands of cards. Another disadvantage is the potential to raise racial tension. The notorious Stop and Search will hit ethnic minorities and the police will soon start asking for IDs. To carry IDs is alien to British culture. Elderly white people will never be asked by the police to show their IDs but young black will. Momadou Ceesay, London
No. The proposed ID cards rely on biometrics to identify people. But the proposed biometrics are unreliable. In trials conducted on behalf of the United Kingdom Passport Service (UKPS), facial geometry successfully verified identity a few minutes after registration only 69 per cent of the time for able-bodied people and only 48 per cent of the time for disabled people. Fingerprints verified identity successfully only 80 per cent of the time. Irisprints were successful 96 per cent of the time for able-bodied people and 91% of the time for disabled people but only 90 per cent of able-bodied people could be registered in the first place – as far as irisprints are concerned, 10% of able-bodied people do not exist and that figure rises to 39 per cent for disabled people. Suppose that 330 able-bodied people buy tickets for a long haul flight. Using the statistics above, 33 of them will not get as far as the Departures lounge, having been unable to register their irisprints. And what is going to happen at the Arrivals desk? Facial geometry will wrongly require 93 of them to be sent home, fingerprints will wrongly require 60 of them to be sent home and irisprints 12. Up to 198 of the original 330 ticket-holders – 60 per cent of them – will look as though they are committing identity fraud. It will appear to airport officials that they are pretending to be someone they aren’t. The government argue that the UKPS trials were not meant to test the reliability of biometrics. Perhaps, but unintended consequences are still consequences. Biometrics are not ready to be relied on. David Moss, London
Of course ID cards will never be 100% safe. There is only one method which would be 99.9% safe and that is to tattoo a persons ID number on their body somewhere. This would not of course be readily acceptable, but the way the world is heading it is important to know who is your neighbour. This method will surely come. George Harris, Millom
Identity cards will cause more fraud not less. Fake identity cards will give the fraudsters security so that it will make it easier for them to commit their crimes. Security forces will fall into the trap that anybody who has such a card is legitimate and would allow the suspect on their way. At the present anybody deemed suspicious gets the full works. If I were a crook I would want an identity card so that I could do my bad-deeds with anonymity (or almost). Identity cards in Europe have not stopped the crooks. In fact, according to some accounts, crime has increased with fewer convictions. Glenn Renshaw, Newbury
I really can't understand the hysteria that is surrounding this subject. ID cards have been around for decades on the Continent and no one is scaremongering about ID theft. I had one myself until it became redundant, and it was a useful alternative to my passport which I do not necessarily want to keep with me at all times. Anyone would think the Government wanted to insert everyone with a chip at birth the way people are wittering on about it. Go abroad, folks, get out and see what the effects are in reality. Sarah Hague, Montpellier, France
ID cards will not reduce identity fraud. The majority of identity fraud would disappear if banks required customers to pick up new debit/card cards and cheque books from branches rather than posting them (as is required in the majority of European countries already), and if unsolicited junk mail (pre-approved loan/credit card applications and the like) were banned. However, it is the idea of a central government database of personal information that really unnerves me. In 2005, I spent several months at a London hospital inputting patient data onto the new IT system. I was employed by an agency and no checks were made as to my character or reliability, a fellow agency employee was only sacked after we reported numerous instances of him writing down patient details. Over 60 people at the hospital had the power to amend or create details, and the majority of entries contained inaccuracies (spelling mistakes, wrong dob, address and duplicate entries etc) that once entered were impossible to remove (FOI rules I think). A central database of personal information of 60 million people would be paydirt for hackers. It would be easy to bribe a lowly clerk to retrieve data, or even add whatever profile you wanted onto the database. Add human error into the equation and it would only be a matter of time before people are refused services because "the database says they don't exist". Scary. Darla Danya, London
Over the last eight years 100s of millions of pounds have been spent on computer systems for Government departments and all cost far more than was budgeted for and most failed to deliver. Having worked in computers for 40 years, problems like these are nearly always down to the customers who are unable to specify exactly what they want at the beginning but then add extra requirements during the project. Customers in the private sector are not perfect but at least they don't have political interference that the civil service suffers and they don't have tax payers' money to play around with. As far as ID fraud is concerned, NO computer system is immune to hacking and for a government to suggest otherwise is a lie. ID fraud already happens to some extent and putting every personal detail in one data bank offers hackers a one stop shop to plunder with even less effort. Even the data protection act is a joke when bodies like the DVLA willingly hand over personal information to any Tom, Dick or Harry for a modest fee. The government has demonstrably failed to be honest about the real costs of ID cards and to show any significant benefit to the public. If it goes ahead, it will enable "big brother" at a personal cost of around £300. Mike Godfrey, Denia, Spain
Identity fraud is, and will continue to be, a significant problem for some time yet. The point is, however, that there is no technological solution to the problem - just as identity thieves have upgraded to match every increase in security measures so far, they will continue to do so indefinitely. At best, these ID cards will have a slight temporary benefit until the system has been hacked. There is no fool-proof security system, and there never will be one - particularly not on such a large scale, and with such attractive potential to a hacker. The ID card proposal is first and foremost a waste of our money, as in practice it will not solve a single problem - least of all those the government is claiming it will - and secondly, it is an unwanted intrusion into our personal lives, quite clearly territory in which I do not consider the government welcome. Dominic Graham de Montrose, London
Of course ID cards won't prevent fraud. Of course they will make it worse. The Government's obsession with classifying everyone in neat little boxes, all to be held on a computer somewhere, made available at the drop of a hat to anyone who asks (and has the appropriate amount of cash too); and somehow we are supposed to believe that our personal information and identities will be safe. Oh, please! Where there is a document, there is a forger who will make money out of that document. I can see a huge industry growing out of this, and a rise in stolen passports to match. Sarah Jane Marquis, London
The simple answer is no. But the Government is determined to make us all have one. What's more, it is introducing all manner of privacy reductions to gently immerse us in their Big Brother world. All children will need to be registered, for their own protection of course. We will have a generation of children in 18 year's time who think nothing of being monitored constantly. This Government has tried many different ways to get us to accept ID cards. Every single one is specious. Geoff Bell, West Byfleet
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