9:18am Thursday 6th December 2007
The Government's data disaster over child benefit records shows why plans for identity cards must be scrapped.
Following the revelation that the personal details of 25million parents and children have been lost by the Government's Revenue and Customs department (HMRC), and may have fallen into the hands of identity fraudsters, I'm urging everyone to campaign to abandon plans for a national ID cards scheme and a National Identity Register in which the Government wants to store the personal information of everyone in the country.
The fiasco at HMRC has shown the dangers of the Government holding huge amounts of information about each one of us while being slipshod in the way that same information is looked after. This whole saga of incompetence has been shocking and families in Merton are now rightly asking whether their personal details are safe.
The National Identity Register, which the Government is setting up as part of the ID card scheme, will hold vastly more information on each and every one of us than Customs and Revenue managed to lose. The possibilities for the loss of that information, either accidentally or through illegitimate means must make the Government stop and think again very seriously about its plan to store all the data it can on us on a central register.
This is a clear illustration of the real dangers of a big brother centralised state. State control of personal identity details is a real threat to our civil liberties. The money saved - some £5.6billion - could far better be spent on ensuring our borders are secure and getting more police on the streets.
The Liberal Democrats opposed ID cards when the scheme went through Parliament. We said the scheme would be expensive, misguided and insecure. This latest debacle shows just what is at risk.
The Government must end the ID card scheme.
STEPHEN GEE
Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Wimbledon
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