Lib Dems blast Government over "database state"

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesman for Newcastle East, Cllr Stephen Psallidas, has attacked the Government over the Child Benefit records fiasco, and their generally poor record on computer projects. He draws parallels with the disaster waiting to happen over ID Cards, in a letter to local newspapers which reads:

"The Government's loss of 25 million peoples' personal and bank details from the Child Benefit database has been little short of disgraceful.

And what does this tell us about their ability to run a database containing vastly more information about 60 million people - that is, every man, woman and child in the country?

I refer of course to the secretive National Identity Register which underpins New Labour's flagship ID Cards project. New Labour are soon to demand that every person in Britain provide them with detailed personal information about their lives, and be charged for the privilege of receiving an ID card. This information will in time be supplemented by detailed tracking of virtually everything we do, including applying for benefits, opening a bank account, taking a holiday abroad, even catching a bus or borrowing a library book. It will contain our most individual personal data such as our iris scans and fingerprints. To top it all, literally hundreds of thousands of civil servants and police officers will have access to this database without our knowledge.

Quite apart from the invasion of individuals' privacy, given the Child Benefit fiasco, one does not have to be paranoid to see how easily the National Identity Register could be compromised or abused. And if someone's records were stolen, including their iris scans and fingerprints, what would the Government do - issue that person with new eyes or fingers?!

The National Identity Register, and its associated ID Cards, are a hugely expensive disaster waiting to happen. But will New Labour learn its lessons from repeated computer foul-ups like the one at the Child Benefit service? I doubt it."