Much as I respect your well researched article I cannot understand why carrying an ID card would in any way be an infringement of civil liberty. Practically all the information that will be included on such cards will come from existing government databases like the national insurance no. database.  
 
I would also take issue with the gross exaggerations of the truth that you present as a future vision for Britain - this is certainly not the Labour government's vision for the future. Although I accept that as citizens we should be vocal in defence our civil rights and liberties. 
 
I certainly don't accept the argument that in this country being presumed innocent is a lost luxury. The problems lies with the tendency for the media to paint sometimes inaccurate pictures of suspects and thus influence public opinion, not with justice system itself.

No surprise- this New Labour government are known to finding ways of pushing unpopular thngs through Parliament.  
 
The only way they were ever going to introduce ID cards was through coercion (which is a very authortarian tactic), especially after all these revelations about data being lost recently- a nice little media backlash to the ID card scheme i believe (as data is lost all the time). 
 
Did you also see that 93% of doctors questioned about this proposed NHS data collection and storage system would not want their information on it and do not believe their patients should have to either... Another form of coercion to bring about national ID cards, but one that will hopefully have very powerfull opposition.

I personally have experienced infringement of my right to liberty, and my privacy, because of an over-enthusiastic police force. 
My DNA has been stored on the Police national DNA database, my prints and height have been saved to the PNC and I therefore have some stain on my character. 
 
All because I was maliciously accused of common assault by an unpleasant former housemate. 
 
I have never even looked cockeyed at a police officer and have been a law-abiding person my whole life, and yet here I was, locked up in a police cell for six and a half hours while I waited for the representation I was entitled to. 
 
Now I'm making a formal complaint against the police, and I'm concerned that the police got stuck in and unnecessarily arrested me to get at my DNA. 
 
Thanks for listening.

Very well written Ben, I hope we see your article in the next copy of Pugwash News. 
 
I am opposed to the ID 'card' proposals, and I will tell you why from an IT perspective (and yes IT is incredibly relevant to this discussion). I hope then that common sense will prevail and that those that nothing to hide will realise that they have everything to fear. 
 
Firstly, please read the underpinning legislation in the form of the 'Identity Cards Act 2006' which everyone can access at http://www.westlaw.co.uk/ with your athens account. This legislation suggests the implementation of much more than just cards for everyone to carry. In fact, cards aren't given much column space at all because the cards are just a smokescreen for the main part of the proposal; the National Identity Register. This database will hold a record for each and every citizen and visitor to the UK. Providing data will be mandatory, refusal will carry a fine up to £1000 (7.5) and/or imprisonment, businessmen and holidaymakers from abroad that refuse will be turned away, and even if you don't submit the requested data it will be drawn from other databases (passport, DVLA, the tax office, Department of Work and Pensions, police, medical, defence, local authority, etc.) to create you a number and a record anyway (section 2.4). There is no limit to what the register will hold - 'registrable facts' (1.5) include information about past and present abodes, i.e. how to find you, and then just about anything else. You will have to meet at "an agreed place and time or (in the absense of agreement) at a specified place and time" (5.5) to give "fingerprints and other biometric information" (5.5) photos, and whatever else that "may be required by the Secretary of State" (5.5). Oh and if, like me, you applied for a passport since this act and didn't include a signed declaration (i.e. enclosed a letter) that you did not want to be entered into the register, your record  
will be created anyway. 
 
If the above paragraph, read and quoted from the act, doesn't strike you as a crime against our own liberties and against what our society's relationship between citizen and state stands for (or is excusable in the name of 'the greater good') please read on! 
 
Reason 1: Data handling incompetence and IT project mismanagement. Many of you may have heard about last November's loss of discs by revenue and customs containing bank details of every parent in the UK. You may also have heard in December the loss of 168,000 patient records by several NHS trusts. This has been followed by other stories like the DVA in Northern Ireland losing 6000 records, the Department of Work and Pensions losing 800 loan applications. The Department of Work and Pensions have also had problems in the past; two years ago 1500 of their staff had their  
identities stolen and tax credits set up in their names using the department's online application system. As for the management of government IT projects, weren't we meant to see the huge NHS database a long time ago? - if you care to read into it, it's seen many different contractors (that's right they don't make them themselves, they get greedy expensive companies to do it), waste millions of pounds of taxpayers money and take far too long. 
 
Reason 2: We cannot promise that during our lifetime the objectives of the state won't change. Hitler used database technology to round up the Jews. Before you think this is a radical or unconnected statement, please hear me out (and read 'IBM and the Holocaust' by Edwin Black if you want to know more). Adolf got into power through a democratic election by proposing a solution from Germany's massive hyperinflation of the 1930s. After taking multiple censuses, which included name, address, religion, etc. these were individually punched onto cards, revealing the real reason. These were also cross-referenced with police data to determine whether they had a criminal past (and therefore deemed anti-social). Punch-card tabulators sorted these into any search criteria you saw fit - see it as a sort of WWII Google. Obviously one of the favourite searches was column 28, religion, followed by the anti-social column. Once they were sorted into piles, the cards were fed into printers and lists of the 'unwanted' parts of society were created. The SS came and loaded people onto trains. Mass deportations started in 1939 followed by the creation of forced labour camps (and then extermination). What's to say our leaders in 30 years time, perhaps the BNP elected after a huge terrorist attack, won't use data gathered in 2008 against groups of our society (say a religious group) to deport or exterminate? Or would an easy way to rid our society of the increasing crime levels be to eradicate those 'anti-social' aspects of society (face it, we already have the ASBO which identifies them)? Our government may not intend for this to happen, but their actions now may prove disastrous for our liberty and freedom in the future. 
 
Reason 3: The use of Biometrics. In principle they work. The identification of those that commit crimes would be known as everyone is on file, right from birth or upon application/forced registration. Coupled with Reasons 1 and 2 above, how do we know that our proper identities (not just our paper ones) will be protected from hackers, the corrupt, or the regime? The police now take fingerprints and DNA of everyone arrested. This includes people that are subsequently innocent, and they remain on file forever. We have the largest DNA database in the world and we're meant to be a free society. By taking our fingerprints, DNA, iris patterns, etc. and entering them into a database this allows others to falsify or plant evidence – I bet criminals would love to plant a strand of your hair at the scene of their crime with the knowledge that you will be identified in the database. Plus whatever happened to being innocent until proven guilty? 
 
With these points stated, and many more to be put, why are we be so blind to the current or future consequences of such a scheme? Maybe that's a question for the sociologists...

Love the comments on here - why don't you write this as a feature for Pugwash Magasine? - they are always looking for interesting articles.

Remember that during his time in office as Home Secretary, Jack Straw tried to remove the right to trial by a jury (of one's peers) for many offences.  
The idea of implanting id chips, similar to the ones we get injected into our pets, into new-born babies to prevent abduction from maternity wards was also put forward by the same Cabinet.  
I know many people would think this is a good idea at first sight BUT the thing you are not told is that removing the tag is not as simple as implanting it and is an expensive procedure for a cash-strapped NHS to have to do for every child. This leaves us in a position where the chips are left in to cut costs.  
Move on a few years and you see that the security tag readers in shops to prevent shoplifting are reconfigured to read the tags so that your purchases can be tracked even more efficiently than they are under the present 'loyalty card' schemes. It also means that your movements could be traced wherever you go in the country and your associations with certain people or groups can be 'proved'. 
How long would it be before these tags are copied or cloned? Now you are in two places at once and with no proof of which place you were in. After all, terrorists and criminals don't work or travel under their own names when working. 
 
The argument that any sort of ID archive makes a country 'safer' is wrong for the simple reason that by centralising all the information, you make it more likely and much easier to be abused or for data to be modified or removed. A centralised database also makes a prime target for anybody wishing to cause problems for a country. Imagine the chaos if the central database became infected by a worm or virus that randomly scrambled the contents or even destroyed them. Every ID check would result in detention due to mismatch of details. 
 
Give me paperwork and local control anyday.