Out-Law reports on the UK government's proposals for a national ID card: ID Card Database emerges from the shadows

This piece nicely reminds us that in its original consultation exercise on what David Blunkett was then calling an "entitlement card" the government said “it is most unlikely that entitlement information relating to specific services would be held on the central register” which, of course, is the complete opposite of what it says in the draft bill on the subject published last week.

Chris Pounder of Masons (who also publish Out-Law) says:

“The Government’s proposals, if enacted in their current form,
could amount to the lawful, secret, unrecorded access by the
police and security services to centralised details which could,
over time, list all the important public and private services used
by each card-holder during his or her life-time”.

“This raises very serious and new privacy concerns about the
central registry database, as the two Commissioners charged with
protecting privacy in the ID Card scheme could be in the dark
about the volume and nature of the access requests to the central
registry database by the security service and police."

A society where we can map anyone in detail but not monitor everyone in detail. Hmmm, now where have I heard that one before?