David Blunkett has written a letter to The Times in which he tries again to defend the unpopular ID Card scheme. His letter suggests that he has still not understood the concerns of objectors like myself.

Blunkett contends that ID Cards will make us safer because even if personal data is lost (as it will be - accidents happen) then we will be safer because biometrics will protect us against identity theft. That shows a touching faith in technology, an apparent assumption that biometrics will never fail or be cracked. They will be, it's only a matter of time. Blunkett also fails to address how biometrics will be of any use when talking to a call centre outsourced to India.

Blunkett also repeats his claim that "The database is simply about identity". Nonsense. The database will contain dozens of pieces of personal information together with an audit trail that will amount to a complete record of our lives. As such it represents a massive invasion of privacy. It is completely unacceptable for any government to demand that much information on the people it is supposed to serve.

All this comes before even considering the governments desire to encourage greater data sharing. Data sharing that will be facilitated by everyone having a unique National Identity Register Number to potentially act as a common key.

The threat comes not from ID Cards but from the National Identity Register (NIR) and the threat this poses to individual privacy and hence freedom. Whatever Blunkett's initial ideas, the database as now planned is about much, much more than identity.

The NIR is dangerous and must be scrapped.

Labels: civil liberties, David Blunkett, David Cameron, privacy, uk politics, ukpolitics