National (British) ID Cards?

Question

Apparently theres been a poll of around 512 people about ID Cards, 72% agreed to it, 16% said no, 12% said they didnt care. What are peoples views on this?

Sure ID Cards will help solve political hot potatoes like Immigration, and rising crime. But it will make us limited to what we can do, and in fact gives more power to the Government with regards to charging taxes.

Its all happening next year from the source i have. Email me and i'll get you the link.

So my question is, what are your views on this?

Answer 1

ID Cards are a complete joke. South Africa has had ID Cards for over 30 years and have the worst crime rate in the world and nothing gets done about it. Also they have no idea how many illegals are there either.

Answer 2

Well it's unlikely to happen next year as Gordon Brown is known to be against ID cards. Although the way was cleared through parliament last year (Dec 2006) there is still the question of the costs both the set up and running costs and the costs to the individual. The latest scheme puts the amount at over £5 billion and that will only rise as many of these mass scheme prices have.

It is highly unlikely that cards will stop crime or illegal immigration for reason mentioned by other posters. Although many other European countries have ID cards they still have problems with illegal immigration and they are hardly crime free.

ID cards will always be contentious - although they offer supposed greater freedom from the terrors they come a price to your general liberty and once that threshold has been crossed then who knows what else will be removed.

Answer 3

Not long ago the former Head of M.I.5 stated that the ID cards would be no deterrent to terrorists as the London Bombers were all British citizens and would have had ID Cards. They certainly will not stop criminals even although to-days papers tell us that one in five immigrants is responsible for criminal activities. This is merely another way the government have thought of to take away our liberties and is bound to be useful for taxation purposes.
The old chestnut that, "I have done nothing wrong so what have I to fear" will quickly be seen to be a farcical notion. Any thinking person knows that over the past ten years we have lost more and more of our freedoms to an increasingly authoritarian government.

Answer 4

ID cards will not help with immigration or crime. they have them in many European countries already and it doesn't reduce the problem. This is about EU harmonisation Britain is one of the few if not only member that does not currently have ID cards.

You will have to pay the costs of these cards which are estimated to cost between £300 and £600 per person so you can be sure it will be a lot more as this government hasn't got one single IT project running properly on time or within cost and that includes the passport, NHS, CSA, GP and immigration fiasco's to name a few all of which have current problems in operational areas.

I have not seen this poll. What was the actual question?

Answer 5

Who conducted this poll? Where was it conducted? I am HIGHLY suspicious of it - I don't know a single person who's in favour of spending such a collossal amount of money on a piece of plastic that would be completely and utterly useless for anything other than the government keeping tracks on everyone. Making us more secure? That's absolute rubbish. A foreign terrorist won't need an ID card because they'd only be in the country a short amount of time. A home-grown terrorist will already have an ID card. As for immigration I should have thought passports, birth certificates and visas are PERFECTLY viable way of seeing who should be here and who shouldn't. No more wasted money, no more wasted time, and the government stay out of our lives.

I am very much against ID cards. They would be an utterly pointless waste of time and money.

Answer 6

No, it won't stop any percieved immigration problems. For it to do that, everyone would have to be liable to be stopped and searched on sight. And only those who do not look European would eventually be harrassed.

It would not stop crime in the slightest. No one would show an ID card just before stealing anything, or defrauding large corporations.

There are no arguments for the card, so there is no need to implement an ID card.

Answer 7

What the hell do I need an ID card for I have credit cards and plenty of other info carried by me and in any case I know who I am. What his half baked government chooses to ignore that every half organised terrorist organisation has already found a way around the scheme. Computors programs are not unbreakable and anyone who knows what they are doing have already broken into government systems unless they do not use 'phone lines or radio

Answer 8

Actually, I am in favour of it. Having an ID card will help ascertain who is eligible for benefits, free NHS treatment and the like.

The only problem I have with it at the moment is the technology needed to make it secure. I do not think that it is up to the standard we need yet.

But for those who are worried about a surveillance society, we live in one already. It is not controlled by the government. It is controlled by business. Everytime you use your credit card, it is logged to build up a picture of how you spend your money. Every time you use a supermarket reward card, the same thing happens.

Our ID's are already tracked. ID cards will just make it more honest.

Answer 9

At the end of the day this is just another scam from the party of scam.
It fits in nicely with the 4 million cctv's now watching your every movement and the proposed "congestion charge" scheme to which the police and other government bodies will have full access to monitor your vehicle.

It's called BIG BROTHER my friends - it's here so you'd better get used to it. Remember New Labours favourite phrase "nothing to hide - nothing to fear"

Answer 10

The government and others have all the information on us they need so I.D.cards will not make much of a difference as these will be easily forged as everything else is. The Banks, credit card, Internet provider, store cards, passport agency, D.V.L.A. doctors surgery, etc. seem to know more about me than I do myself?