The ID Cards Debated
THE ID Cards Debated:
THE HERALD: “Will the PM listen to the Home Office or to the experts?
The Scottish Government must be heartily commended for its decision to resist the imposition of compulsory national ID cards on Scottish airport workers and students. In doing so, it serves well the clearly and repeatedly expressed will of the Scottish Parliament. Compulsory ID cards and the associated database are not welcome here.
THE TIMES: “High-flown nonsense over terror – US has a right to airline information.”
When was the last time you let a bunch of potential terrorists into your house? Indeed, when was the last time you let any group of strangers walk around your house without asking them what they wanted or where they were from?
You haven’t done either of these, of course. You’d be mad not to want to know who they were before you let them in. And you’d have to be especially mad if you had recent experience of people blowing your house up.
Yet for some reason most of Europe seems to be up in arms that Michael Chertoff, the US Homeland Security Secretary, is demanding that some basic background information about air passengers – passport details, travel plans and details of the credit cards that paid for flights – be handed over by airlines before they land in or fly over the US.
SILCON: “ID cards chief defends u-turn”
James Hall, director of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), told silicon.com the revised scheme is likely to cut £1bn off its £5.4bn price tag, that power station workers are likely to join airport workers and Olympic security staff as the first UK citizens in line for the cards and that the cards may be used to prove identity over the internet.
But UK businesses remain critical, with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) fearing that companies could be liable if they provide inaccurate information to the National Identity Register and expressing unease over the security of the data that will be held on it.
ID cards. Yes? No? (Answers will be taken down and used on a database…)
Posted: 10th, March 2008 | In: Politicians Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
