With the new bill going through parliment yesterday I thought it was time we had a chat about this issue. Do you think ID cards are a good idea, will they help protect us against terrorism , or benefit fraud, or are they just another way of the state asserting its control over the freedoms of individual citizens?

OMG T3H 1984/Brave New World!!1!

t3h big bugger is watching and controlling me!!1!!

i don;t especially care, as long as i don't have to pay for it, as i'd always end up losing it and wouldnt wanna keep paying to replace something like that.

Seems a completely pointless exercise to me, if they push it through the amount of criticism it will come under in the press will be unbelievable.
An utterly worthless plan in my opinion, offering no real practical benifits at all.

I must admit, I havent been following the ID card stuff that much recently, but given the public outcry and the imminent backbench rebellion the government must really really see a need for them, they wouldnt but themselves through this otherwise.

I agree with Richey (if that was his point) that a lot of the "big brother" fears are a childish and probably misinformed.

My only reservations are a possible increase in the victimisation of assylum seekers, and the fact that people are going to have to pay for the things. Theres also a slightly troubling patronising attitude on behalf of the government, forcing ID cards on a reluctant population because its "in our interest". So yeah I'm a bit mixed.

yes it was. i thought it was obvious.

to be fair to him, it's not often your posts have a point.


Also though, I don't think 'misinformed' is even a worthy description of those wrong opinions - it's not exactly tagging or hidden cameras or something is it? In all actuality, what's the difference between ID Cards and driving licences, bar the obvious age restriction on the latter?

At one stage the government was thinking about passing on people's details to private companies in order to finance it. At least that's ruled out now.

I'm naturally libertarian but don't really see that this is an enormous infringement of rights. Seems a waste of money, however.

i doubt an id card would make any real impact in stopping terrorism, fraud or anything else.

People always find ways around things.

I'm 20 and i don't even have any official id. (Since the only things people accept these days are passports and driving licenses, when i dont drive, and i've never been abroad, sadly)

I seem to get by without.

I liked Stephen Fry and John Bird's take on it in Absolute Power last week, introducing a lottery to pay for it. It's just a shame the real world isn't as civilised.

CD

I'm not carrying one, why should I?

I'm a bit of a fence-sitter on the subject of ID cards. I don't really believe the scare stories about how it'll turn us into a Big Brother state, but I do worry about the cost of it. I don't have huge objections to ID cards, but I don't particularly want to pay for one.

I do think the general consensus, at least in here, is 'waste of money, not going to make much difference'. I laugh in the direction of people who think it's all part of some new privacy infringement thing or whatever paranoid ideas they have.

And, on the subject of Absolute Power, the 2 ideas they had (the bin Laden look alike ) and the Alan Hansen lottery ("You know who you are; isn't it about time we did, too?" ) were brilliant. Thursday nights are the creme de la creme of comedy TV at the moment.