Why ID cards are a bad idea! Details lost for 25 million+ people in the UK by Creative

There has been great debate in the UK about ID cards and no doubt other parts of the world, which do not yet have them. The Uk is under increasing pressure to have them from various political forces.

Those who are pro ID cards think of the obvious benefits of having easy access to data for car crash victims etc. while those anti ID cards are worried about the abuse of the system and the ever-increasing 'Big Brother is watching you' mentality.

Those who are Pro ID cards tell those who are against them: 'if you have nothing to hide, why are you worried?' Here I present the reasons why I am worried about the introduction of ID cards to the UK.

In the UK we have recently experienced an identity disaster of monumental proportions. The personal details of 25+million people have been 'lost' or 'taken' and no one knows which for certain.

"Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing.

The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people. "

In an emergency statement to MPs, Mr Darling apologised for what he described as an "extremely serious failure on the part of HMRC to protect sensitive personal data entrusted to it in breach of its own guidelines".

MPs gasped as Mr Darling told them: "The missing information contains details of all Child Benefit recipients: records for 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families. "

The chancellor blamed mistakes by junior officials at HMRC, who he said had ignored security procedures when they sent information to the National Audit Office (NAO) for auditing.

Mr Darling told MPs: "Two password protected discs containing a full copy of HMRC's entire data in relation to the payment of child benefit was sent to the NAO, by HMRC's internal post system operated by the courier TNT.

The package was not recorded or registered. It appears the data has failed to reach the addressee in the NAO."

This is as good a reason as any as to why ID cards are a bad idea. Quite simply there is no guarantee that the information will be safe and secure and free from corruption from thieves, neglectful personnel, and worse hackers.

If the government or a criminal wanted to frame someone, amending their details would be a sure fire way to do it and that is the least that could happen when 'all' our information becomes stored on a single device.

Medical records, employment details, criminal details could be erased, amended, added to by those corrupt enough to do so.

I have nothing to hide except myself from those who wish to corrupt and abuse the system.

Anyone who considers there is a fool/theif proof system for protecting this data is only fooling themselves.

The US administration was against ID cards for the same reasons I state above. See HERE article written 2001!

The article says:

"Moreover, bureaucrats could also be bribed or forcibly coerced into divulging information or producing fake ID cards. More realistically, hackers could invade centralized databases and distort or steal personal information. In any event, human error is a real possibility. As Jonathan S. Shapiro, an assistant professor in the Johns Hopkins University Department of Computer Science, has pointed out, airport security guards and other officials, "think they are relying on the cards when in fact they are relying on the integrity of the human process by which the cards are issued." In other words, an over-reliance on technology might end up giving us a false sense of security.

The bottom line is that mandatory national ID cards aren't going to help us catch many bad guys. While the first responsibility of government is to protect our lives and property, we shouldn't rush into giving up some of our freedoms unnecessarily. We need things that actually matter, not just symbolic gestures. Instead of providing such a meaningful solution, national ID cards will become, at a minimum, an unnecessary nuisance for most citizens. Worse yet, in extreme cases, it could produce massive breaches of individual privacy. "

Despite the huge blunder and loss of millions of people's personal data in the UK, the governement still appear to think ID cards are the way forward in combatting identity fraud. Read the latest HERE.

It defies belief that the very thing that makes us vulnerable to this type of crime could be used as a persuasive reason to have it! Before technology was used as it is today, identity theft was NOT something we worried too much about. That is all the proof you need.