Scottish Tories launch campaign against "ineffective" ID cards
Scottish Tories launch new criticism of the U.K. government for a national biometric ID; “Despite what Gordon Brown and the Labour government says, ID cards won’t stop terrorist attacks and won’t prevent identity fraud,” leader says.
The Scottish Tories Friday launched a campaign against identity cards, denouncing them as costly, ineffective, and an invasion of privacy. Their leader, Annabel Goldie, said: “Despite what Gordon Brown and the Labour government says, ID cards won’t stop terrorist attacks and won’t prevent identity fraud. Hard-working Scots will each have to fork out almost £100 for this total invasion of privacy. And on top of that, they will have to travel to a biometric scan centre in order to have their biometrics taken.”
The Scotsman’s Joe Quinn writes that the Conservatives also claim the U.K. government is planning to “blackmail” students into having ID cards to access loans and bank accounts. A leaked Home Office paper showed young people would be targeted from 2010 — the date originally set for the extension of the scheme to anyone renewing a passport. That is thought to have been put back to 2012. The report said, however, that the “first priority” was to issue ID cards from next year to those in positions of trust, with airport workers singled out for specific attention. A spokesman for the Identity and Passport Service said: “We will begin issuing ID cards for foreign nationals this year and the first ID cards for British citizens in 2009.”
