People ave fallen for the age old trap when they say "People shouldn't fear CCTV if they have nothing to hide". The same reasoning could be extended to allow the police to come into your home whenever they fancied to search your belongings and scrutinise whats on your computer to randomly stop you in the street and demand where you are going, to check all our emails and correspondence, the list goes on. People should be allowed to go about their dayly lives without interference should be the norm.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8037085.stm
"Halt. Papers please".
Fingerprinting is permanent
The reason this is different from other forms of ID is that it contains your bio-information (fingerprint) Giving this to the government will give them the new ability know anywhere you've been - and you can't take that ability away from them.
You may say that you have nothing to hide, and trust this government not to misuse that power, but are you going to say that you will trust all future governments, without having had a look at them? Also are you going to trust every minor civil servant who has access to this, not to let it fall into the hands of just anybody who is willing to bribe them?
You have a right to privacy.
ID cards
- Driving licences
- passports
- Wok passes
- Birth certificates
ID cards are a complete waste of money and effort by a government that I'm convinced has more sinister reasons for wanting them.
There is only one reason to introduce ID cards and that is to require people to carry them. Once that happens it follows that the police can then stop anyone they like with no reasonable suspicion other than that the card is not being carried.
Quite apart from the distasteful return by the back door of the suss laws this fundamentally changes the relationship between the public and the police and, by extension, the state.
Spain has ID cards, does that mean they have no crime or terrorists. The same must be true of France too.
Imagine in twenty years time going to the supermarket checkout and being prevented from buying pizza because your medical records indicate your cholesterol is too high or you having the bottle of wine removed from your bag because you've had your 21 units for this week. Just because we are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get us.
