And the slippery slope begins:

ID database will become national population register
Government also calls for national register of under-16s...
http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39158183,00.htm

This was never going to be a the simple read only database which would purely verify ID card data, as the Government claimed, nor is it going to be voluntary.

My view is that Labour are going to try and embed the ID card and the associated database so far into the running of the tax and benefit system that there will be no way that, should one of the opposition parties come into power, the legislation be repealed and the ID cards be stopped.

What is the betting that the government are paving the way for linking in the police computer system to the fingerprint part of the ID Card system by removing compensation for misscarriages of justice.

Conviction pay-outs plan attacked
Government plans to limit compensation payments for wrongful convictions ignore their devastating impact on people's lives, campaigners say.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4924196.stm

It will then be a case of the police matching any fingerpints found to those on the National ID database, tracking the movements of your ID card, arresting you and locking you up.

Or am I just being a paranoid cynic.

Privacy is a pimary issue, part of the problem is the complexity of our constitution, though the European Convention on Human Rights may help.

However my three big concerns are:

• The compulsory cost of purchasing the ID card
• The security of the data held - Not something the State has proven itself to be particulary good at and not just the central ID system but all the other systems that the Government are talking about gatewaying off of it.
• What happens when the technology does not work

Research has shown that there are large groups for which one of the identification technologies (fingerprint, Iris Scan, Facial Recognition etc) will not work and about 160k for whom none of the technologies will work. The Government harps on about how the cards will work and how much easier things will be, but what they never talk about is the provision for those for whom the card will not work, or what will happen is the organisation reading the card only has the one technology which does not work for you.

For instance my wife and daughter have dark eyes and the iris is almost indistinguishable from the pupil. These the very type of eyes which are known to cause scanning problems. My wife used to work as a sample machinist, sewing new designs of garments. As a result her fingers were worn smooth in some places and calloused in others, thus causing finger print recognition issues. Thus potentially my wife would for ever be getting false negatives (The scans not matching the card and the database), what will happen when this occurs? Nobody seems willing to give me an answer.

Or Gattaca style pin prick blood test machines.

I see the numbers involved in serious crimes just went up today.

I have been puzzling over the expressed opinion on the radio last week: "The crime would not have happended if the person had not been in the country". This brought back memories of a "foreigner" being detained in Turkey after being invoved a traffic accident a few years back & held responsible for the accident using the same justification, same flawed logic.

So I have been trying to identify the flaw in this superficially attractive line of reasoning without falling into the "racist!" line of argument. Society tacitly accepts the risk of releasing its crims, even if a portion of its members would vote for throwing away the key for dog fouling offences. There is a finite chance that the crims will reoffend (even if its high). So what's society's benefit in letting them out at all? A belief in redemption: that the punishment will reform?

Why single out any group for harsher treatment than another in preference to accepting that the reason for letting them out at all is wrong?

Germaine Greer once pointed out in a radio debate that over 95%of all crime is committed by men - so clearly the logic of crime prevention is to lock up all people bearing a Y-chromosome. (She gave this as a deliberately absurd conclusion)

At which point I go to bed...inviting the sharper wits of Batchoy and julied to help me out. (I have reviewed your history: Some well measured & well-argued positions sharing the different cutural viewpoints. A pity you don't write for the newspapers (perhaps you do!))

While this may not be the best solution to the price of petrol problem, this article does highlight the need for the exploration of creative, non-traditional solutions that are necessary to resolve this issue.

http://tinyurl.com/rvozm

Why a Gas Tax Is Good for You
By Marianne Lavelle Sat Apr 29, 4:02 PM ET

Twenty months ago, when plenty of folks were reeling at $48-per-barrel oil, energy economist Philip Verleger predicted that the price was headed for $60. A prolific author, Verleger served in the Treasury Department under President Carter. He now runs a consulting business out of Aspen, Colo., and is a visiting fellow with the Institute for International Economics. Verleger explains why more pain could be ahead at the pump.

President Bush is going to stop adding crude oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. What impact will that have?

Since we don't have any refining capacity now, none. The tanks are full. This is like offering somebody who just had a seven-course fancy meal a prime rib dinner.

How about the proposed waivers of environmental regulations?

We could knock a dollar a gallon off the retail price of gasoline if we did a couple of things on environmental rules. My environmental friends look at me and say, "Phil, why are you saying this?" I propose a trade-off. Bush has called for construction of new refineries. It takes years to build a refinery. It takes one year to build an ethanol plant. Let's move toward ethanol more rapidly. We'll suffer the cost of higher pollution this year, and then next year, we're going to insist that people use more ethanol ... . Insist all gasoline has to have 10 percent ethanol.

You frequently advocate a gasoline tax, while acknowledging it's a political nonstarter. What good would it do?

First--global warming. We're burning too much. I think everybody but George Bush and Dick Cheney understands the problem. You have to find a way to force people to use less. Second, were we to adopt a gasoline tax of say $2 or $3 a gallon, offset by a reduction in Social Security [payroll taxes] and some other things to minimize the effects [on working Americans], our consumption would be significantly lower. World oil prices would be significantly lower. And the income that's flowing to [Iranian President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez, and a lot of the other people we don't like would be drastically reduced. Right now, we're paying twice--first for the oil that flows into the hands of our enemies, and then [to fight] a war in Iraq. It's important for the nation as a whole to do something like this.