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Story: Survey gives thumbs-up to ID cards

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Posted by: Simon Walker (Thursday 29 April 2004, 9:45 AM)

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You are already tracked far more effectively and with far less 'official scrutiny' than may be given to ID cards.

From the milisecond you turn on your mobile phone & it connects your position can be located, depending on the number of masts that could be measured in miles or inches, you have no control over this, yet this sort of info is given to police forces.

Similarly with a credit card, you leave a track of where you have been every time you use it, and what is worse this can then be used to constuct a model of you & your buying habits.

Likewise a store loyalty card only has one use, to keep you comming back to that store, it allows the company providing the card to obtain free info about what goods are being marketed well, and allows them to target discounts at you, for you to buy something that you don't really need, but that 'the discount was just too good!'. All for the discount that they would provide to the staff anyway.

Walking around in a mjor town or city there are camera's these days, in many places these are connected to automatic face matching programs to detect known criminals.

Therefore to stop these infringements on your 'personal freedom' I take it you do not have a mobile phone, credit or debit card or even a bank account as trnsactions through that can be traced, you do not use a phone as it can be bugged and whenever you walk around on the streets, if for some reason you have to enter an area with camera's, you wear a paper bag over your head to hide your ID? No? It must be because you don't really care that that much because of the ease of use and the added safety to your everyday life that these items bring, isn't it possible that an ID card will also provide a similar feeling of safety and ease of use?

As & when an ID card comes into force (as it will do, if Tony & his cronies ever want us to fully enter the EU) for the majority of use, people are going to ask for your ID, look at the picture on it, compare it with your and accept that you are who you say you are, it is only when this card is processed electronically that a trace will be left.

I agree with the many detractors that say ID cards will not decrease the threat of terrorism, it will not in the slightest, however in the current day & age proving your ID is becomming more essential, carrying your passport round with you is bulky and frankly a pain in the proverbial, as for the photo driving licences they are a joke as the vast majority of people still do not have them and they are worthless without their paper counterpart.

The introduction of a national ID card can only do us good in the long term, panicing about a repressive government is frankly ludicrous, when was the last time that the UK has had a repressive governemnt that did the things that you suggest may happen if we introduce ID cards? I also firmly believe that the carrying of the ID card should be mandatory, punishable by fine through to prison for repeat offenders; but that the cards should be free for their initial issue (if one is lost and need replacing then in that case the person responsible should pay)

Putting it in perspective you are afraid of 'Big Brother', but couldn't really give a damn about 'Big Corporations' who hold more data on you, where you go and what you spend your money on, than 'Big Brother' would or could ever know!

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