It seems like every man and his dog has an opinion about whether Britain should implement ID Cards for it’s citizens. Here’s a humorous take on it: A Very Model of a Modern Minister.
Just to give you a taster, here’s the first verse:
The world today is filled with villains stealing one’s identity
And terrorists intent on acts of violent extremity
Our citizens are prisoners, our criminals at liberty
Our nation at the mercy of felonious proclivity
Our very own Home Secretary will rebuild our society
A model of sagaciousness and picture of propriety
It’s patent that protection of the future of humanity
Relies on Mr Clarke to put an end to this insanity!
It’s quite amusing to watch the debate. We’ve had ID Cards in Malta for many years now, and in fact, I was born into the system and assigned an ID Number at birth. It has proved to be more practical than not and having a primary key for every individual does lend itself quite elegantly to implementing information systems around people. The current situation in the UK is that people are identified by a couple of personal attributes (Name, DOB etc) and their residence over the last few years. Not very reliable at all. I remember failing a credit check once, because I had only been in the UK for three years and was unable to provide address details for the last five years.
Will be interesting to watch how the whole thing pans out.