Adam Smith Institute

I've been waiting, with bated breath, for that delightful example of bureaucratic competence, the losing of 25 million records, to be used as an example of how ID cards were even more important. Not just important, necessary even, for, in some magical manner, the fact that the information on them will be much more important, means that the possibility of normal levels of bureaucratic competence is simply impossible.

Lo and behold, we actually have this argument being made by David Blunkett in a letter to The Times. On first reading my favourite part was this:

The first, as I have discovered in the three years since I was Home Secretary — including as the honorary chair of the Information Systems Security Association Advisory Group — is the astonishing lack of understanding about the necessity of security in the transfer of data.

Perhaps I'm being picky but shouldn't we be choosing our Home Secretaries from the pool of people who already understand these basic facts before their appointment, rather than those who find them out after their resignation? 

As the day went on I found Dizzy's refutation of his points on security. ID cards will be plagued with exactly the same problems for the system will still contain that most fallible of instruments, human beings. Mr. Blunkett's testament here is, in Dizzy's view, testes.

I then found Mr. Eugenides who has something else very interesting to point out. Mr. Blunkett is a paid advisor to a company which operates ID card systems and that company has registered an interest in contracting for parts of the UK one.

So the thought of said Mr. Blunkett telling us all that the ID card system will be quite different, indeed, super-secure, so much so in fact that the recent gobsmackingly awful security shambles shows just how vital it is that we get cracking on the new system toot sweet, doesn't surprise me.

As the risk of getting all Mandy Rice-Davies on you, well, he would, wouldn't he? 

It transpires that HM Revenue and Customs has "lost" the details of 25 million child benefit recipients in the post. The records included the names and addresses of parents and their children, dates of birth, child benefit and national insurance numbers, and – in seven million cases – bank and building society records. The data was contained on two discs, which were sent to the National Audit Office by unrecorded delivery. No one knows where they ended up.

To his credit Paul Gray, the chairman of HMRC, has already resigned. But this incident should raise much wider questions about the extent to which we are prepared to trust government with our personal information. Surely this sort of thing provides the single greatest argument against ID cards and the central ID database the scheme would entail?

Factor in civil liberties concerns and spiralling costs, and the case against ID cards looks pretty conclusive. Of course, the government tells us we can trust them, that they have our best interests at heart, and that ID cards will make the world a safer place. I'm sure they believe it. But does anyone believe them?