Lazy LibDem Anti-ID campaign.

The Lib Dems have: http://www.libdems.org.uk/noidcards/ running at the moment.

Lets go through what they say:

Expensive: Introducing Labour's *mandatory ID card scheme is likely to cost every taxpayer at least £200.

1.Likely?
Aside from being weasel words, they need to be a little more accurate than that.
2. Where is this figure plucked from?
3. What time frame is that over?

* Home Office: Will it be compulsory to have an ID card?
It’s likely that ID card ownership will eventually be compulsory but we don’t know when.
We’ll have to be confident that ID cards work successfully before making them compulsory and this will require an evaluation of the introductory phase and a full debate in Parliament

And then we will each be charged over £90.

1. Current passports cost £72 (first adult).
2. This leaves £18 pound for the ID card.
3. Adding the two and ignoring the cost of the passport is IMO an attempt to sway us into thinking ID cards are expensive.
"ID cards cost us £18" - is not quite as headline grabbing, I suppose.

Intrusive: Human rights campaigners Liberty say:...

I don't think I need add what they say...would they ever deem ID cards a good thing?
Do bears poo in forests?

Ineffective: Stella Rimington, the ex-head of MI5, says "I don't think that anybody in the intelligence services ... would be pressing for ID cards".

Stella Rimington, the ex-head of MI5 actually said: "ID cards have possibly some purpose.
"But I don't think that anybody in the intelligence services, particularly in my former service, would be pressing for ID cards.


"My angle on ID cards is that they may be of some use but only if they can be made unforgeable (YES2ID: which is fair enough) - and all our other documentation is quite easy to forge (YES2ID: All our current documentation is easy to forge - ID cards are a quantum leap forward. )

Home Office:

Identity fraud is on the increase. As well as causing great distress to the victims, it costs the UK economy millions of pounds each year (show me some facts and figures on identity theft and fraud).

Criminals can copy personal information (from a bank statement, for example) or steal or forge the documents – such as utility bills – we currently use to prove identity.

The National Identity Scheme is designed to be far more secure than anything we use at present. Security is built in to the system in the following ways:

Biometric data is held both on the card and in the National Identity Register (NIR). A criminal may steal your card, but your unique biometric data cannot be taken from you. Anyone trying to make a major financial transaction, for example, would have their biometric data checked against that held in the NIR. If they were not the registered cardholder this check would fail.
Each ID card has a PIN known only to the cardholder.
Each card also has a biometric image of the cardholder’s face. This looks like a photograph and can be used for a quick visual check that the customer presenting the card is the genuine cardholder.

"If we have ID cards at vast expense and people can go into a back room and forge them they are going to be absolutely useless." (YES2ID: This highlights how out of touch she is and how old these comments are.)

Both America and Australia have far worse problems of identity theft than the UK because both of them rely on a single, widely used, identity number

1. Not Biometric though are they!
2. Each ID card has a PIN known only to the cardholder.