Plans to undermine the "voluntary" nature of ID cards

[Caligula]

Here's a depressing article from the Scotsman. here

I suppose I knew that in practice they eventually wouldn't be voluntary - how useful is a chequebook nowadays without the theoretically unnecessary cheque guarantee card? - but so soon...

Have only skimmed the article, but perhaps these businesses who are in talks with the Government about how easy ID cards would make it for them could subsidise the fecking things.

After all, they're going to cost up to £100 to get And for what? To prove you exist and are legal. Talk about guilty until proven innocent.

I can't understand why they'll be £100. If it becomes an offence not to have one, they ought to be issued free.

I think so too.

I know we pay for passports, driving licences, etc, but we have some choice over whether to go abroad or drive - no say whatsoever in whether we exist!

ID cards make me cross. I should probably parp at myself here. I know you'll understand!

I can't imagine ever having £400 extra to spend on ID cards for the 4 of us. Don't have £400 lying spare ever.

What a load of hooey.

I had one in Europe and it was free to get.

Yet another one of Brown's taxes. Twit.

These things always come down to how many of the workforce are prepared to capitulate though. Depressingly, a lot of people just aren't militant enough to make a stand. I mean, I'm sure there are legal privacy issues - particularly if they intend to hold biometric data - which mean that employers have no automatic right to do this, and the employees no contractual obligation to comply.

My husband's employer recently wanted to introduce a new log on key for Bloomberg terminals which used fingerprint recognition. It wasn't introduced until it had been confirmed that the imprint was not being stored by Bloomberg. One of the arguments was that, if the information were collected by Bloomberg, it would be stored outside the EU, where data protection laws are different.