Facts Everyone Should Know About ID Cards







`What's wrong with being expected to carry an ID card?' ask the naive. `If you've got nothing to hide, why should you care?'

Well, apart from the fact that there is something intrinsically fascist and oppressive about being expected to carry identification with you at all times, one problem is that if it is illegal to leave your house without an ID card then there has to be a punishment for not carrying an ID card.

To begin with the punishment will probably be a search, an arrest, an appearance in court and a fine. But, historically, all the evidence (from Nazi Germany and the USSR) shows that the punishments will become increasingly severe.

Here are some things everyone should know about ID cards:

* The idea for ID cards came from America. George W.Bush told the EU that Europeans should carry them. The EU Commission slavishly and gutlessly agreed to obey the instruction. The British Government did as it was told.

* Spain had ID cards before the Madrid bombings and the alleged September 11th hijackers all travelled on legitimate papers.

* Information the Government intends to put on ID cards includes: previous residential status, address of main home and any second homes, details of how often name has been accessed by others, date and place of birth, physical characteristics, finger prints, nationality, medical details, financial details, criminal record and anything else they think they might be able to sell to data processing companies.

* If thieves manage to steal your fingerprints or iris scan you will lose these very personal bits of biometric data for ever. Unlike your bank details you can't change your iris scan every time it gets stolen.

* The proponents of ID cards seem to ignore the fact that in order to obtain an ID card (and prove our identity) we will be asked to produce some identification. What will we be told to produce? Passport or driving licence. Two easily forgeable pieces of identification.

* The information on ID cards can, of course, be recorded and used without the knowledge or consent of the individual concerned. Information on ID cards will be made widely available to civil servants and Government employees. And information will be sold to private companies.

And here's what Tony Blair said about ID cards before he met George W. Bush and bought a house with a mortgage he couldn't afford: `Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards...let that money provide thousands more police officers.'


Taken from Living In A Fascist Country by Vernon Coleman, published by Blue Books at £15.99. Available from the shop on this site and from all good bookshops, wherever they are.


Copyright Vernon Coleman 2006 Home