Muriel Gray on ID Cards

This article by Muriel Gray is succinct and insightful. In it she makes a simple argument against ID cards that outlines why ordinary people will be inconvenienced by them. For example, she rubbishes the old mantra, nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

” When questioned on why compulsory cards would be a good or a bad thing, the favoured response among such deep thinkers is inevitably: “If you’ve nothing to hide, what’s the problem?”

Here’s the problem. Plenty of innocent people have things to hide, things that are absolutely nobody else’s business but their own, and is their right to keep concealed. There are many people who choose to live under an alias for perfectly valid reasons: women fleeing violent relationships who fear their fist-wielding partner will track them down; parents who gave up their babies for adoption and never wish to be tracked down by their adult children, or even an ex-colleague of mine who was sexually abused as a child and wanted rid of the family back in Ireland who never believed her story and kept trying to find her. She wanted their name erased from her life and memory, and to ensure that her own children would never find them and make contact. “

She goes on to point out that fraud is just waiting in the wings – not to mention the infallibility of technology:

“As you read this, there is doubtless someone already perfecting the reproduction and forgery of biometric cards. There are so many reasons why ID cards are an obscene infringement of human rights, and so very few why they will increase security and improve services. After the CSA example of outstandingly botched IT, you can bet the technology to introduce ID cards will throw up some nightmares. Sorry madam, you can’t travel/get health care/a library card/ your university place. Why not? Card says you’re a convicted felon. But I’m not. Sorry, computer says no.”

Perhaps, most chilling of all is her summing up:

“Make no mistake; the government will sell your data. No coincidence that Blunkett made the allusion to the supermarket loyalty card. And what will that data include? HIV positive? Member of a political party? Recovering addict? Who can be sure? I’m innocent and I have much to hide. It’s called my private life.”

Quite.

Full article here.