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purplecthulhu at 11:41pm on 05/11/2004
purplecthulhu at 11:41pm on 05/11/2004The No2ID UK anti-IDcards campaign is moving ahead.
Among other things they're organising a petition which will force some notice to be taken by No10. If you worry about ID cards, please go and sign it now:
http://www.no2id-petition.net/
Furthermore, the more the public hear about it, the less they seem to like it. The recent consultation exercise turned out to have 47% of responses against the cards, and only 31% in favour, while the governments own focus groups whe were initially in favour of the card were "generally a little less enthusiastic following discussion of the details".
Meanwhile, buried in the annoucements of the splitting of ID cards, drivers licenses and passports last week, we find that they've now doubled the cost of a passport as a result. This is in addition to the likely reduction of passport lifetimes from 10 years to 5 since this is the maximum length of time the data chip manufacturers think their devices will last.
Even if you have no other objection to ID cards, do you really want to pay 4 times for a passport as a result?
And among the government's response to my own submission to the consulation exercise they say, in response to my worries about the costs of ID card terminals for the NHS, police force, benefit offices etc. that 'the initial start up costs for the identity card scheme will be met from existing Departmental budgets.' So this means that all those nice ID terminals in doctors surgeries, hospitals, police stations, police cars, job centres etc. will be paid for from those department's usual running costs. How many policemen and nurses are they going to fire to pay for this, because the money for this new kit isn't coming from any new budgets?
Among other things they're organising a petition which will force some notice to be taken by No10. If you worry about ID cards, please go and sign it now:
http://www.no2id-petition.net/
Furthermore, the more the public hear about it, the less they seem to like it. The recent consultation exercise turned out to have 47% of responses against the cards, and only 31% in favour, while the governments own focus groups whe were initially in favour of the card were "generally a little less enthusiastic following discussion of the details".
Meanwhile, buried in the annoucements of the splitting of ID cards, drivers licenses and passports last week, we find that they've now doubled the cost of a passport as a result. This is in addition to the likely reduction of passport lifetimes from 10 years to 5 since this is the maximum length of time the data chip manufacturers think their devices will last.
Even if you have no other objection to ID cards, do you really want to pay 4 times for a passport as a result?
And among the government's response to my own submission to the consulation exercise they say, in response to my worries about the costs of ID card terminals for the NHS, police force, benefit offices etc. that 'the initial start up costs for the identity card scheme will be met from existing Departmental budgets.' So this means that all those nice ID terminals in doctors surgeries, hospitals, police stations, police cars, job centres etc. will be paid for from those department's usual running costs. How many policemen and nurses are they going to fire to pay for this, because the money for this new kit isn't coming from any new budgets?
sleepy
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