Poll: Millions may resist ID cards

This morning's Telegraph has a big story on a YouGov poll which suggests that millions may resist the government's ID cards scheme.

I'm not sure it will run into the millions but suspect it could be tens or possibly hundreds of thousands. Once the reality of the government's specific ID card system disaster starts to dawn on people the protests may then grow.

I had an interesting chat with someone at the weekend about the children's index. She's a parent of primary school children who had no inkling that the government were developing the children's index database nor that there were so many other children's databases in operation. She had recently received a letter from her children's school, however, noting that what she considered to be significant items of personal information were now going to be collected about her children. She was angry that her family's privacy was being invaded with no justifiable reason and that her permission was not sought for the collection of this data.

She asked me about the databases because I had mentioned recently that I had written a book about civil rights and computers. At the time she had noted politely that that sounded interesting but it was clear that the subject was really too remote and abstract for her to take a real interest. The school's letter, however, suddenly turned it into something of immediate concern. We might find that once the ID card system begins to operate it will provide a similar jolt to many others' sensitivities to how the goverment are building massive new insecure information systems in their name.