I'm not sure that there's a big problem with ID cards - it's the database behind it that's causing the concern. What's its purpose?

Nathan --- The police have to destroy your DNA record after as set time if you are not charged with an offence. Also the amount of rapes and murders that have been solved thanks to the DNA databases proves it is needed and should be expanded. Thirty year old crimes that would have gone unsolved can now be resolved and justice can be done. Do you really have a problem with that? Think if your daughter or wife was raped and there was only DNA evidence and no suspect, would you rather the police threw this away or waited till one day the attacker slipped up and was arrested or had been a arrested in the past and thus caught via the DNA database. In elections you are meant to vote for the party not the man. The labour party was elected and have since changed their leader; they are still the rightfully elected party until the next general election whoever leads them. This has happened in the past and will no doubt happen again. ---- ID cards will hold no more information than what is already out there. If you have ever applied for a loan, insurance, filled in an online survey / form or even entered a competition your details are out there already. Unless you have provided a company with your data and stated that you do not wish them to pass your information on, they have done. This includes banks, which are more than happy to sell customer information on. If your not a criminal or planning on committing a crime or perhaps are living in this country legally you have nothing to worry about from ID Cards.

Thanks, David, for a balanced argument. This is one of the few issues that I can actually agree with politicians. Although I am suspicious of their motivations. You can speak on the matter as a front line police officer (traffic cop) and I can see a real benefit if it were made compulsory to carry them whenever in public. We don't do too badly in terms of the possession of powers to deal with offenders but this only applies when we can be satisfied who the person is. When we think that the offender is lying about their name and address we can arrest them (even for something quite minor like speeding) in order to confirm who they really are. We waste an immense amount of time just proving someone's identity. Clearly, this can be easily negated by ID cards. Another point I wish to make is that, as far as an officer is concerned, they would be pointless if carrying them in public were not made compulsory. It would only need to be a summary offence. That way, we would always have a tool to arrest the person in order to establish their identity, even if only for intelligence gathering. The laughable counter-argument I hear often is that this would mean that granny could be arrested and taken into custody for forgetting to put her ID card in her purse. Well, I can assure you, our time-strapped officers have a nose for who really needs dealing with and they have far better things to do than that. So, as long as the tab for ID cards is picked up by the government (I would be wholly opposed to the public paying for their own cards) then I support them. I appreciate though that the issues extend far beyond the law enforcement angle and I also have grave concerns about the government's ability to deliver such a massive project.

The real issue about ID cards is about the relationship between the state and the people I hesitate to say citizens because the British are still subjects of the Crown. The strongest argument for ID cards you could muster was a reference to crime prevention or detection. When people commit crimes they lose some of their rights to privacy. In this perverse world, they can even lose their freedom but that is another subject. ID cards and the database behind them are being forced on to the moral majority of the population - not the same thing at all. If the Government believes that ID cards and the database are good, then the data should be explained and published so that we know exactly what is to be captured - we can then work out how it can be used. By covering this up, the Government is not helping its case. Also, by making them mandatory (and not even free or tax deductible - remember I don't have to pay to get on the Police National Computer), it is also changing the relationship between the people and the state. My rights exist because of my humanity, not because (as the European Directives under Roman Law contend) the state allows me to have them. The security designs are a separate issue from the data content - the BCS response you mentioned makes a good point about improving that in the public domain, but that argument is far too complex for the ministers or their civil servants to understand. Remember these are the same people who cannot understand that OGC Gateway Reviews should be disclosed because open government is better government. I think, at the end of the Second World War (the last time the British had compulsory ID cards), civil servants came up with 39 reasons for keeping them - they had started with three - but the Government of the day abolished them out of principle. This Government should relearn the lessons of history.

10 arguments FOR ID cards: 1. It will stop terrorism at source. 2. It will stop illegal immigration at source. 3. It will prevent underage drinking and smoking. 4. Credit & debit card will be eliminated at a stroke. 5. It will allow unfettered instant access to a wide range of wonderful government services for those entitled to them. 6. Poverty will be eliminated. 7. World peace will be achieved. 8. Global warming will be stopped. 9. er... 10. That's all. M

Thanks for all the comments - really interesting. I'm going cross-eyed thinking about all the myriad implications! I'm not sure it's that useful for me to pursue the democracy thread; my intention was to highlight the importance of making use of our democratic processes - we may or may not like the outcomes, but we are collectively responsible for them. Back to ID cards - it is so hard to know in practice how such a system will affect the balance of power between citizens and various arms of the state. I think we should all be sympathetic towards police who do a tough job for us. Garry - thanks for your insight; I'm right with you on the frustration over the time wasted by establishing identity...and that 99.9% of the time officers use good judgement in these circumstances. However, I'm also cognisant of the implications for our constitution and legal paradigm if police have the ability to summarily arrest someone for nothing more than failing to identify themselves or carry a card. In our system the basic principle is that the police cannot interfere with you unless you do something that is ultimately connected to a moral wrong - and failing to carry an ID card would be a pragmatic rather than moral offence. How we reconcile these competing concerns is extremely difficult, and that's what politics is ultimately all about! Shaun, I can only agree that it is important that the government provide some more detailed explanations of what they are trying to achieve with ID cards - I guess that's been my theme throughout.

Lots of interwoven conversations here but let me pick up on two. 1) It is most definitely misleading to bang on about the ID Cards themselves. My understanding is that the database behind them will be required to hold the second biometric required for passports from 2011/12 so "scrapping ID Cards" would not address database/security questions, a big chunk of the costs to be incurred, or the many of the complexities involved in a huge project and the govt's ability to deliver this. Best shorthand description of what most people comment on is the ID Scheme. 2) Keeping gateway review reports is not some sort of conspiracy against democracy. They are snapshots which typically take only six days which is light-touch compared with many other forms of scrutiny (Audit commission, NAO, PAC, etc). The confidentiality inherent in the interview process and restricted report distribution are fundamental to the effectiveness of the whole concept and process - people tell it how it is on this basis which allows candid recommendations etc to be made. Anything going into the public domain would need twice the time to craft the report so that particular phrases could not be taken out of context, quotes for evidence, etc. Why? Because govt bodies are like any other organisation when communicating to public and shareholders - name me a PLC which assigns a team of three people for six days to produce its annual report... I would argue that it is actually in the public interest NOT to publish these reports as they make pragmatic recommendations at key decision points in order to improve the chances of success and avoid resources (time and public money) being wasted; they focus on what needs to change but you can bet if they were made public the focus of the press etc would be on what was wrong in the first place - hardly helpful.

Sorry I didn't make it to Manchester things have been a bit "busy" recently. ID cards, Phorm, DNA databases, NHS systems, personally I wouldn't look at these systems seperately. If you look at them together then give yourself a five year development plan. What can you make of these systems interlinked? Ideas on a postcard please!

ID Scheme, not ID cards. Good tip Nigel. I'm not going to go into OGC gateway review publication just now, but maybe that will be a future topic. J, you're a cynic! Maybe some people will make money out of ID cards, but I won't see any of it! Thanks again to all for your comments and interest! Just as an aside, I will be in a position where I may not be able to comment over the next week, so please don't take any ensuing silence the wrong way!

Some interesting discussion here, but as often typifies the ID card debate, a bewildering number of linked abstract, pragmatic, and ideological points. Here's some more: 1. "the problem it seems is finding anyone knowledgeable about the subject who is in favour of the project." - This is interesting, and very much tallies with my personal experience. People who know what a primary key is tend to not like the idea of the National Register of Identity (NIR) very much. A massively cross-linked monolithic database is an altogether different proposition to disparate databases that may already exist and store similar information. Record linkage is not trivial, and to obtain the same information will likely involve at least some degree of non-automated traditional investigation. This involves man-hours, money and is some measure of inherent safety mechanism. A queriable database reliably stocked with unique records for the entire population enables large-scale, automated application of policies that is fundamentally new. Government can interfere with your life without engaging in a human dialogue to do so via one of its agents: civil servants, police, social workers, etc. Differentially tax fatty foods when purchased by those at risk of coronary heart disease? No problem. 2. With reference to comment #13 "... the Nazi comparison can actually undermine the argument because it does not sound credible..." The Nazi rise to power did not seem credible to many in 1920s Germany, perhaps the rise to power of the BNP seems unlikely today, and whilst it is hard to predict a specific route to despotism, once the mechanism of a police state are in place they are there for future Governments, benign or otherwise. I do not advocate abandoning improvements to bureaucratic efficiency justified by a vague fear of totalitarianism, but I certainly place optimising government efficiency below principles that defend my autonomy. Perversely, some types of systemic inefficiency are inherently protective. 3. With reference to comment #7 "our time-strapped officers have a nose for who really needs dealing with" - I can understand the desire for systems that make police-work easier for those who are operationally involved, but relying on the good instincts of individual police officers in avoiding abuse is far too fragile a mechanism for protecting liberty. 4. As general point, and in the spirit of not ascribing malice to that which is easily explained by incompetence, I do not generally suspect malicious intent from particular individuals that would be interacting with or who are in favour of the NIR. I rather worry that the general effect of having such a system would lead to an increase in harassment, and a society in which I am frequently required to explain myself to my government servants.

ALl major recent terrorist events in the UK and US were perpetrated by people that had ID or would have had if it was required. the 9/11 bombers had passports -the 7/7 bombers would have had - the guys in madrid, ditto. the only way the ID card and database would help would be if the agencies that do these things used them to track a LOT of suspects (including, say, random brazillians) in the hope of spotting patterns that lead up to terrorist activity. All the evidence is that such technology removes the incetives for those agencies (viz CIA in Middle east) to fail to have agents "on the ground" that actually have accurate, timely, and human-level intelligence. Thus reducing the effectiveness of anti-terrorism. THe same argument apply to the database (and cards) concerning the police, only more so since the entire population would be under large scale surveillance. All other needs of ID (banking, travel, etc) are already catered for in existing mechanisms and databases (obviously, by existence proof). Finally, if it was so useful, why didn't the banks do similar instead of their simple mechanisms? Government IT top-down projects like this are frequently misguided - this one starts from no requirements capture, and goes on to no operational or training planning, and ends up with no point.

If we as BCS members are Luddites what hope is there for the rest? We should be discussing the setting up of proper controls rather than throwing out the idea altogether. Picture a world where you don't need a wallet, you don't need to carry change for parking meters, you don't need separate credit and debit cards, cheque book, membership cards, store loyalty cards, organ donor card, passport, driving licence, etc. All this information could be on one card, with readers in just about every place you would use these things. Stealing yor card would not be of much use due to safeguards such as iris recognition. In fact, why carry a card at all? Bring it on!

Correspondent j was not being cynical but practical. Take the case of Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks on people working with children and vulnerable adults. These have become a huge money spinner for the private company engaged in the task. Very quickly the 'fee' for a CRB check doubled and then doubled again. Why? Because the company was gathering data irrelevant to the process for other purposes and was then stopped from doing so when many applicants refused to supply the information. A CRB check becomes invalid the moment it is issued so every applicant for certain types of job or voluntary activity needs to reapply and pay or have paid for them the 'fee'. This is a tax collected for the shareholders of the company fortunate to have been awarded the contract as a government agency. Questions which need to be asked again and again until the truth emerges are: what are the projected costs of the unproven technology proposed for parts of the ID card system, who is to collect the 'fees' from the applicants (the whole population), how often are the data to be renewed (that is how often can the whole population be taxed again), who is to share in the profits to be made out of the system and who, therefore, is it who is taking the trouble to convince the politicians that this thing is going to work? Until we know, we should be cautious about being too positive that our part in the technological solution is in the public interest.

Regarding your statement that: "Either that's because we've got into a situation where nobody really thinks they are a good idea, and they need to die, or because the real and valid argument just isn't being made." There is another possibility, i.e. that there is no real and valid argument to make. Might this not just be some ill thought out politician's nostrum, which they thought would gain them support for being "tough on crime" or some such, and which is basically back firing? By the way I wouldn't rely on ID to stop you being confused with other David Evans's. This might just be another way to create even more confusion! Personally I am terrified at the prospect of ID cards and "the Database State". Once the Police think that you are not who you say you are and have putative (but false) ID Card/Database evidence to back them up you could be in a real fix trying to prove who you are. I find the whole concept oppressive.

I agree with Derek: the 'security' of a database has nothing to do with its size, and it's sad that a No2ID speaker said such a thing (I'd be interested in hearing transcripts). And I hear the point that the government comprises ordinary people, and there is no pet-stroking mastermind. But I concur with the point raised by Silas Davis, that a massive monolithic database is altogether a different proposition to disparate databases, especially as these different databases are currently owned by different stakeholders: business, health service, police force, education sector - and at different levels: county, national. No, there may not be an evil pet-stroking mastermind, but there may be a chief architect who suggests to government that we could perform analytics on the data, cross-link it with other, illegally collected data (phorm), and come up with some staggeringly powerful results. It's the endless possibilities for data mining that can be presented to government and thoughtless politicians that I am concerned about. Tracking demographics, working out the chances of an individual committing a crime. We have already seen top politicians state rather scary things about taking pre-emptive action on people more likely to commit crime. I personally couldn't care less about the debate on the operational aspects of an ID Card system and national database, and I've no doubt that a new data structure for the various government services would be a good idea for the services involved; securing various agencies' accesses to different data in the database is not the issue - that's just a technical question. David writes that "the Nazi comparison can actually undermine the argument"... sadly this is true but it shouldn't be. It was less than 100 years ago humans were behaving in this way, less than 60 years ago George Orwell penned 1984. I'm sorry if people feel these are irrelevant points to make, but I am a young person in my 20s, and I think that's tantamount to saying that wearing a poppy on November 11th is irrelevant. I am shocked that people forget how corrupt it's possible to become in a short period of time. If our current global economic crisis has taught us anything, surely it's about how quickly man-made efforts can fall apart, and in such an unprecedented unforeseeable way?

David, you say, "the 'database state' is a red herring - if you're seriously worried about the rise of facism, then I urge you to take part in the political process". Many of us are doing that and campaigning against the 'database state' is a part of that. You also say, "my point was not that I feel citing the Nazi party loses the argument, but that people working inside government see it as a ridiculous suggestion". THEY may FEEL like that but that does not make it a non-issue. How many of them will be working in the same position in 5, 10, 20 years time anyway? As a previous correspondent said, history has shown us that corrupt authoritarian states arise very quickly. If we aren't thinking ahead when we make decisions like this (at least 30 years in my opinion) we aren't doing our children and grandchildren justice. Let the near-sighted mock or dismiss as much as they like - there were many regrets in Germany post-1940 that are still being felt by some even now. It may not help to go about crying "Nazis!" to every civil servant and politician but surely crying "civil liberties!" should never be reason for scoffing (as some seem to want it).