Delighted intrustive card IDea is no more

WITHOUT wishing to sound like a conspiracist, I often feel the gaze of big brother is getting dangerously out of control.

I’ve raised these concerns about cars having their number plates stored with ANPR technology on this page before, and also discussed my objections to the ID card scheme pioneered by the previous government.

You can therefore imagine my delight when the new regime announced that the cursed cards are being scrapped within the next 100 days, subject to getting the green light from the House of Commons.

The totally pointless “identity commissioner”, a job created specifically to protect the data collected for the cards, is also getting the chop.

Home Secretary Theresa May said: “This Bill is the first step of many that this government is taking to reduce the control of the state over decent, law-abiding people, and hand power back to them.

“With swift Parliamentary approval, we aim to consign identity cards and the intrusive ID card scheme to history within 100 days.”

I was having a bit of a dig at the government last week, but credit where credit’s due, this is a very positive move.

The ID cards served no purpose when the majority of us have driving licences and/or passports.

Our personal data is already collected by a myriad of commercial organisations, and we don’t need another government department added to the list.

The only shame is that the ID cards scheme got as far as it did, with approximately 15,000 people having shelled out �30 to be issued with a card, cash which they won’t be seeing again.

Unfortunately foreign nationals residing in the UK will still require ID cards under a separate system, and one hopes the government will look at ditching this too.

I don’t see why they should be subjected to more scrutiny than the rest of us.