ID Cards and A Very Important Election

There's a by-election on today in Glenrothes and if you live here and haven't voted already, I'd recommend you pop down the now. A little X next to the SNP box should save your country from total destruction at the hands of the Labour party. It will also likely save the countries of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

On the note of the end of the British Empire, I see Jacqui Smith is eagerly plotting another excuse to keep everyone tied together. "People can't wait for ID Cards" she said. 

From BBC News:

In a speech to the Social Market Foundation Ms Smith said cards would be issued on a voluntary basis to young people from 2010 and for everyone else from 2012. [C'mon kids, it's a really cool card. Look- it has your picture and everything!]

She added: "But I believe there is a demand, now, for cards - and as I go round the country I regularly have people coming up to me and saying they don't want to wait that long. [We demand some KGB-esque state now! Now!]

Jacqui Smith: "I now want to put that to the test and find a way to allow those people who want a card sooner to be able to pre-register their interest as early as the first few months of next year."

Biometric cards are being issued to some foreign nationals from this month.

She told the BBC: "We'll see where that interest is, and then we'll see if we can issue some cards to those who've expressed an interest by the end of next year."

People applying for cards and passports from 2012 will have to provide fingerprints, photographs and a signature, which Ms Smith believes will create a market worth about £200m a year. [Apparently it takes some dystopian vision of a communist state to beat the credit crunch.]

And in changes to earlier plans the Home Office is talking to retailers and the Post Office about setting up booths to gather biometric data.

'Trusted environment'

The government believes it would be "more convenient" for people and cheaper than setting up its previously planned enrolment centres in large population centres.
In her speech Ms Smith rejected claims handing enrolment over to private firms would compromise security. [Because privatisation hasn't hurt, say, the NHS or education has it? And if the government loses our data all over again, I want to know somebody else is getting paid for it.]

"Provided that it is conducted in a secure and trusted environment, by service providers accredited and verified by the IPS and to high and rigorously enforced standards, enrolment should be able to happen at the convenience of the customer - on the high street, at the nearest post office, or at the local shopping centre." [Customer? Supermarket signups? Apparently the vision of George Orwell will come in a more capitalist package. With a Tesco bow.]

Phil Booth, NO2ID Campaign-"What company is going embarrass itself to the tune of millions for a contract that everyone outside the Home Office itself knows will be cancelled by a new administration?" [Very true, but I find it hard to take a bunch of sandal wearing, tofu munchers seriously as a resistance campaign.]

The overall cost of the ID card scheme over the next 10 years has risen by £50m to £5.1bn in the past six months, according to the government's latest cost report. [Ah, yes. That little matter too. Slap that on the same credit card that bought Trident shall we?]


So overall, I'm very angry. So angry I can't even articulate in an intelligent and informed way how angry I am. Argh.

I'm off, I promise, no more ranting till Xmas. Unless I'm feeling particularly tetchy.

Ciao,

Mark