Poll shows growing opposition to ID cards over data fears

· 25% now strongly against their use, says ICM survey
· Majority concerned about sharing of personal details

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Wednesday February 6, 2008
The Guardian

The number of people strongly opposed to the introduction of a national identity card scheme has risen sharply, according to the results of an ICM poll to be published today.

Those campaigning against ID cards said last night that the poll, with results showing that 25% of the public are deeply opposed to the idea, raises the prospect that the potential number of those likely to refuse to register for the card has risen. If the poll’s findings were reflected in the wider population, as many as 10 million people may be expected to refuse to comply.

The ICM survey also shows that a majority of the British people say they are “uncomfortable” with the idea that personal data provided to the government for one purpose should be shared between all Whitehall-run public services.

The poll, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, shows that British public opinion is deeply split over the introduction of identity cards, with 50% against the idea and 47% in favour.

Recent disputes over the further delays to have hit the project have strengthened opposition to the scheme, with those who think it is “a very bad” idea rising from 17% last September to 25% now. This compares with only 12% who think that pressing ahead with ID cards, which will cost around £93 per person when combined with a passport, is a “very good idea”.

In the aftermath of the government’s recent embarrassing losses of confidential personal data, public opinion appears to have turned sharply against the idea of sharing information within Whitehall and the creeping introduction of the “Big Brother” state.

A majority – 52% – say they feel uncomfortable with allowing “personal information that is provided to one government department to be shared between all government departments that provide public services”.

However, the poll does show that clear support exists among the public for setting up a central identity register and collecting personal travel details on everyone coming in and out of Britain. It also reveals some support for the creation of a separate database about every child, including details about their parents and carers.

That ‘support’ is there because they have not asked the right question. If it is put to people that their details will end up being used as if they had an ID card and the NIR was implimented, they would all swing against it. That is obvious.

Phil Booth, of the No2id campaign, said: “With a quarter of the country deeply opposed to ID cards, and a clear majority reluctant to have their personal information shared even for public services, the government needs to fundamentally rethink its database state.

“These figures suggest that millions will simply refuse to comply.”

He said the results showed that between 10 million and 15 million could refuse to register for the card.

[…]

The first ID cards will be introduced in December this year for foreign nationals resident in the country.

That is discrimination, and it will not happen. Like we have said so many times, if you do not force everyone to have an ID card, mandating that a small group (brown skinned foreigners) to have them means that everyone who looks like a foreigner will be harrassed. This is clearly not doable.

It will follow a pilot scheme to be run in London from April to test the technology. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has confirmed that legislation will have to be introduced before it becomes compulsory for British nationals to register for the ID cards scheme.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,2253081,00.html

That is not going to happen. Clearly.

What is most interesting about this is how people are going to react to the abominable temple to soft Fascism, Heathrow Terminal 5.

Millions of people are going to turn up there, and in a harassed state, will probably consent to being fingerprinted. That Concentration Camp like processing will go on and on, until they have the fingerprints and matched passport details of many tens of millions of people. Then, they can say, “we already have your details from your passing through Treblinka Terminal 5, as you can see, the world has not ended. If we give you ID cards, you will not have to have your prints taken wherever you travel; you will just have to swipe your card – we will speed you through if you have one”.

Two years down the line, at the current rate of throughput (67 million annual passengers, 11% travel to UK destinations, 43% are short-haul international travellers, and 46% are long-haul.) means that they will have at least 60 million records stored in their system, erring on the small side. Many of these entries will be of completely innocent British travellers, at least 11% of whom were traveling inside their own country.

Like I said before this building is designed to soften the public to the idea of being fingerprinted and surveilled, and it was done completely deliberately. Once millions have been violated by this monstrous building, it will be that much easier to slide ID cards between the metal contacts that, if they were to touch, would blow up the scheme in the face of that chunky mass murderer Gordon Brown.

Terminal 5 propaganda is already moving ahead at full steam, and of course, there is no mention of fingerprinting in this PR drivel.

I wonder what a mass refusal to be fingerprinted at Terminal 5 would look like? Or a mass stay away campaign, where people from all over the world refuse to arrive in or pass through Terminal 5 in protest at this evil Fascist police state temple, this foul abattoir where peoples dignity is ground up into hamburger, this Nazi inspired brainwashing tool where people are reduced to the level of numbered cattle.

The fact is that it is illogical to be against ID cards and the NIR but to then allow yourself to be fingerprinted at Terminal 5. All the objections to ID cards and the NIR overlap perfectly with the objections to that disgusting warehouse, and so, who is going to be first in the mass media to point out the problem with this bad building, and what are they going to do should people finally wake up and say, “I am a human being my life has value; my dignity and sense of decency demands that I will not to submit to this”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 2:30 am and is filed under NIR, Politricks, Post Tipping Point, Told You So, Yes yes yes!.