Adam Smith Institute

It was reported yesterday that private shops and post offices might be recruited to collect biometric data for the government’s ID card scheme. This is another addition to the elaborate plan for introducing the UK's new form of identification. Starting next year, some 200,000 airport workers will get identity cards as a condition of employment. The following year, students will be encouraged to apply for a card when opening a bank account, and eventually, the Identity and Passport Service hopes to distribute a substantial number in connection with issuing British passports.

Yet the Home Office is already encountering (justified) opposition to this plan. Many are protesting the £30 charge for an ID card, when most of the population do not see it as necessary. Airlines such as British Airways, Easy Jet and Virgin Atlantic have expressed opposition because they claim the scheme is unfounded and will not increase security. Despite the good intentions of the government, it is obvious that this scheme will build up its already mounting costs. In the next ten years, the ID cards are predicted to cost £4,740 million for British and Irish citizens, and an additional £311 million for foreign nationals. In times like these, who really wants to think about further spending on plans most people contest?

As the government tries to move forward with the ID card scheme, the British people may not be the only opposing force that they face. As mentioned earlier, the Home Office is looking to "use market forces and competition" by enlisting the services of private companies, organization and retailers to enrol UK citizens in the program. Those outside of the Home Office, however, speculate whether private companies would be willing to invest millions into a program that very well could be scrapped by a new administration.

So, we must wait and see how the execution of the ID card scheme pans out in the next few years. But getting fingerprinted while shopping for groceries at the supermarket is still a rather worrying thought.

Good news for freedom today as the House of Lords has defeated the government over the issue of keeping peoples' DNA and fingerprints on the police national database. Peers backed a Conservative amendment calling for national guidelines for deleting material by 161 votes to 150.

The amendment by Tory frontbencher Baroness Hanham would require the Government to publish national guidelines to establish procedures for people to find out what information was held on them or their dependants, how to ask for it to be deleted, and the circumstances where police chiefs could refuse. Such regulations would have to be approved by both Houses.

The National Policing Improvement Agency - which released the figures under Freedom of Information rules – estimates that 4,631,838 individuals are now on the database. This includes people who have not been convicted of any crime. And they have big plans for your DNA: A senior scientist from the Forensic Science Service said the Home Office would like the DNA database to be the same size as the national fingerprint database, which has more than 7.3million prints.

Europe may offer some salvation. Next month a case will be heard in the European Court of Human Rights. It will rule on whether it is lawful to keep DNA samples from individuals that have not been convicted for any crime. If successful, over 1 million DNA records will have to be destroyed.

With this government readily tearing through the foundations of freedom in the UK, the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights at times appear to be last lines of defence we have. And yet for very different reasons, both are rather suspect protectors of our liberty.

What this country needs is a new contract between the individual and the state. One in which power hungry politicians can be kept at arms length from our private space. We are all suffering from the intrusive state, the consequent lack of liberty demands redress. In 1100 we got the Charter of Liberties; in 1215 we got the Magna Carta Libertatum. Now about to enter 2009, we need another contract to restrain executive power.

Following Scotland, Redbridge council aims to ban smokers from becoming foster carers, to protect children from the effects of passive smoking. The cabinet of Redbridge council, east London, meets today to rule on the proposed ban that would come into force in January 2010.

Michael Stark, cabinet member for children's services argues that "Unlike adults, children have little choice about whether or not to be in a smoky environment so I hope the cabinet will take the decision to limit the harmful effects this drug can have on them."

True, but no child has a choice to be born into their situation. In a world in which the demand for unwanted children is not met by the number adults prepared to care for them, cutting out a vast section of potential foster carers based upon their enjoyment of tobacco will prove a costly mistake.

Given the understandable scarcity of people willing to make the epic commitment of becoming a foster parent, one has to question placing the importance of whether the adult smokes ahead of other qualities. Lest it not be forgotten: “Smoking only kills you if you stick the cigarette in your own mouth. To pretend otherwise is mumbo-jumbo”.

Although inspired by an impulse to protect, if Redbridge council go ahead with the ban it would cause untold harm to many vulnerable future children.

UPDATE: The ban was enforced: nothing less than a disgrace.