Well I would certainly have a problem with a compulsory ID Card like the German one, even a minimalist one. Once it becomes compulsory to possess one, it becomes a tool of coercion. There is ample evidence that on the continent compulsory ID Cards are used hassle ethnic minorities disproportionately. When I man NO2ID stalls, I would say that the majority of those who say they support ID Cards support them because they think ID Cards will give licence to the police to stop and interrogate black skinned people. Yes, the database and the surveillance it represents is a key issue with the National Identity Scheme but we should not discount the risk to civil liberties and to racial harmony represented by a compulsory card without the database.

More to the point, if our financial institutions thought that placing a photograph on a credit card would significantly reduce fraud in attended transactions, they would already have implemented it. Unfortunately Mr Briggs appears too ignorant to know it, but most credit card fraud is from unattended transactions by phone or internet, where neither a photograph nor an ID Card will make the slightest difference.

I don’t know why you continue to repeat this canard, Mr Briggs. I have plenty of experience of ID Cards, such as my passport, my driving licence, my shotgun certificate and my firearms certificate.

You go on to say an ID card can actually be rather useful. Indeed it can be and on the rare occasions I need to prove my identity I take one of those documents with me. I am perplexed why you think the UK government should spend £20 billion in implementing yet another form of government ID or waste police resources in attempting to make it compulsory. Don’t you think we have enough real crimes for the police to investigate?

My views on ID cards are not particularly odd in my view but in holding them I get lot’s of abuse from the insular and ignorant little Englanders who don’t like Johnny Foreigner!

Actually Mr Briggs, the way you express your opinions is pretty offensive so it is no surprise to me that you have harvested abuse in equal measure to that you have sown.

Secondly, he says:

an ID card can actually be rather useful. As you correctly say the card has my photo and my name on it. My credit card has my name only on it. The shop assistant looks at the Credit Card, check the name, looks at the ID Card and checks the name, looks at the photo and looks at me!

But what use is that? The shop assistant, even if he has been so diligent (I doubt it), has merely confirmed that the names on the credit card and ID card are identical, and that the photo on the ID card looks like Mr Briggs. He has not verified that Mr Briggs is the ‘owner’ of either card.

Why isn’t there a photo of Mr Briggs on his credit card? Or, indeed, his fingerprints? With a system that verified his fingerprint presentation was identical to that on the card (or in a database)?

But the UK ID card scheme won’t take this approach because it is not really an ID card scheme at all but rather a massive data collection exercise to create the National Identity Register, a huge centralised database holding highly sensitive data on all of us.

It is a population surveillance and control system being sold ‘Trojan Horse Style’ as an innocuous ID card system in order to dupe those who are not prepared to look at the detail into thinking that it is not a threat to our hard won civil liberties when in fact it is a major assault on them.

I frankly couldn’t care less about a bit of plastic - I already have quite a few and I have no need for yet one more. But if you want another bit of plastic in your wallet, lets push for an irrevocably voluntary ID card programme so you can then have one without forcing myself and others to pay for something we don’t want or need and something which we believe will create risks to our safety and security.

In my view anyone who volunteers for a UK ID card needs to have their head examined since we now have overwhelming evidence to show that the UK government is pathologically incapable of keeping our sensitive data safe. But if someone is determined, despite this evidence, to put their safety and security at risk by willingly giving their sensitive identity data to this government for ’safe’ keeping, it’s not my job to stop them.

Provided, of course, they don’t force me to do the same thing.

Thanks for your question and your comments. I was really anecdotally trying in my piece to say two things. First that anyone who has actually lived in a country where ID cards are required has practical experience that is of merit. I lived in three such countries (Hong Kong; The Netherlands and the UAE) and it was not an issue for me or anyone else that I knew (local or alien). Much of the insular and ignorant criticism I referred to is from Brits who have no experience of ID Cards. I do and haven’t found it a problem.

The second point was that an ID card can actually be rather useful. As you correctly say the card has my photo and my name on it. My credit card has my name only on it. The shop assistant looks at the Credit Card, check the name, looks at the ID Card and checks the name, looks at the photo and looks at me! All in the space of a few seconds. Common practice in many jurisdictions and on its own a good argument for ID cards I would have thought. A photo Drivers licence would do the same job of course – and what is a drivers licence but a sort of ID card. I’d combine the two in the UK.

As far as the UAE card is concerned there was no requirement on me to return the card when I left the country and it is still valid as identification. That’s why I use it.

My views on ID cards are not particularly odd in my view but in holding them I get lot’s of abuse from the insular and ignorant little Englanders who don’t like Johnny Foreigner!

I suspect (and please tell me if I’m wrong) that the person who inspected your ID checked to see if the names were the same on both cards and you looked a little like the photograph on the card. They might even have checked to see if the card was still valid based on a date shown on the card? I’m assuming the ID card you used was actually issued to you by the government of the UAE?

Is your average vendor going to be sufficiently aware of the visible security measures that would differentiate a real UAE ID from a fake one? Do they have access to a magnifying glass or a UV lamp to further examine those cards they think may be fake? Actually I admit a UV lamp might be available somewhere in the shop for checking currency, but I doubt whether they know what they’re looking for on the ID card.

And we can extend that thinking beyond a foreign ID card to those issued in their own country by their own authorities.

I won’t even go into how likely it would be for any IT based schemes to work well with ID cards from another country.

The benefit you attribute to having an ID card is a bit misplaced here. The person verifying your ID had no grounds to trust the document you were presenting as being your authentic ID, and no means to verify it either.

For whatever reason the original requirement to show some photo ID was introduced we could argue that it has been met (you did show some photo ID after all) and conversely that it has not been met (since the ID is unverifiable). Either way it seems a somewhat pointless exchange.

PS: Have you kept the ID as a keepsake, still required to produce it on entry to the UAE or are should you now return/dispose of it as you are no longer a permanent resident? This last question isn’t meant to catch you out, I’m genuinely interested in how the change of status affects your ID card entitlement/requirement.

It is also about the alleged problems we are trying to solve, and whether or not they are best solved by this scheme or by some alternative(s), whether it’s worth doing anything about that alleged problem at all, or indeed whether there is in fact a problem.

Furthermore, one should also consider the proposal not only on its own but also in the context of the other means of population surveillance and control, and other civil liberties infringing measures, that have been or are seriously proposed to be introduced, where we are going with all this, and where we want to end up.

It seems to me that the more the UK public learns about the Government’s scheme, and its associated costs and risks, the more people are less inclined to support it. They are asking questions that Mr Briggs is not. Indeed, far from being insular and ignorant, they are educating themselves about the disadvantages as well as the supposed benefits, and concluding that it might well not be worth it.

In not touching on any of these issues at all, Mr Briggs’s article fails to do the subject any justice whatsoever. It would be kind to call his article ‘unpersuasive’.

Quite. I was asked for photo ID when purchasing 100 Euros to give as a present. To prevent money laundering is not a credible reason and indeed the post office sold me the Euros for cash without any identification being required at all.

Further, on the matter of credit card fraud and ID cards, this is a commercial issue of balancing risk against cost and inconvenience. If our financial institutions considered it worthwhile to place photographs on credit cards or to include biometrics then they would have done so. There is really no reason for the government to impose a solution. As I am sure we can all recall from the days when we authenticated by signature, rarely if ever was the signature scrutinised and nor would a photgraph on an ID Card. But what about the infallible biometrics on the ID Card, you say? Leaving aside the issues around biometrics, which is a very immature technology, there is substantial cost in rolling out tens of thousands of biometric scanners in shops. And that cost accounts for a fair proportion of the £30 billion total implementation costs for the country as a whole to implement Labour’s vision of ID Cards. Spending such sums for highly problemmatic gain should not be on the agenda when we are entering a recession.

Your arguments for ID cards would be met by an irrevocably voluntary ID card.

You have explained why you want one but what you have NOT explained is why I should be forced to have one at considerable expense and at a very considerable cost to my safety and security (there is now indisputable evidence that the government cannot keep any data it collects safe).

I can prove my identiry when necessary and I do not need an ID card to do this.

So the issue is not why you like ID cards but, rather, why those, suuch as myself, who don’t need or want one should be forced to have one.

I might add that calling those who happen to disagree with your own view ‘ignorant’ is both ignorant and arrogant.

You claim that ID Cards do not constitute an infringement of civil liberties. Well tell that to Turks in Germany. Muslims in ‘liberal’ Holland or the two French muslim teenagers who were killed during officious ID checks by French police. On the subject of ‘liberal’ Holland, there are at present > 100,000 cases going through the courts of those appealing fines for being found outside their homes without an ID Card. By all means please do try to sell us the benefits of being treated in this fashion.

You are entitled to your opinions about ID cards. What you are not, in my view, entitled to do is to sneer at my journalistic style. You reveal an ignorance of what journalism is about in you rather unpleasant post. All of us have our own ways of making a point. It is common practice (sometimes) to personalise - i.e. to draw colourfully on one’s own experiences. On other occasions it is perhaps better to be cold and more factual. My own style is often to tell a story based on my own experience. It is offensive of you to disparage it.

That’s what I’m talking about!

Just as a suggestion most people do not want to hear about a persons life experiences unless you are are on an adventure, doing something out of the ordinary, etc…

So using “I” gives the impression that your life experiences matter to everyone. Unless merely say this is only your personal opinion.

In short give us some facts, try to be objective, give us more sides to the issue.

Saying that objections are “ignorant and insular” just because you say it is so tells me nothing. Try proving to me why they are “ignorant and insular” and maybe people will start believing what you say.

It just seems you have not accomplished trying to formulate your facts enough to where we should advocate or use ID cards.