h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Its hardly news is it ? For as long as I can remember its been practise to insult your taxi driver at the end of a rough ride by saying "you're not the one who passed the test are you ?"

(originally this refered to Irish, then Indian, Pakistani, and currently Polish.)

I dislike the idea of an identity card intensely, and plan never to have one. Apparently though, I understand that if you do not get a card, then you will not be able to get a passport.

Therefore, failure to comply effectively means imprisonment inside this god forsaken country. How much more oppressive can you get?

Holidaying in the UK is great...it's the continued lvivng that's the pain in the arse.

The woman that Brown has made Home Office Minister is all for ID cards so it not going to die soon.

Solution: get the ID card, get the passport, emigrate, send the ID card back.

Good idea! We can manage without you

Im for ID cards at liest it will remind me who I am!. First Lord of the admerality Sir Alan something or other told me to be un-british ( quote from his speech) to snitch on my neighbours! gosh! glad i dident write that script! Im British UK happilly tied up with Wales Scotland and Cornwall! un- british maybe you can ask him to think before speaks in public? PS my ID card photo is really ugly!!

Yes. I'm definately 'for' ID cards. Especially useful for shopkeepers. It will put an end to all sorts of arguments and barrages of abuse.

Im for ID cards at liest it will remind me who I am!.

Yessssssssssssss..............and the next step will be barcodes on your forehead.............

That seems an obvious progression...

Little plastic card > barcode tattoo > Enter the Matrix

I hope you won't mind if I plant this little quote here. It just seems to fit nicely. It's from Frank Herbert's book, Dune:
"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase."

I don't want an ID card. I know who I am. My family, friends and neighbours know who I am. There are some people who haven't lived in my village all their lives who don't know who I am. If they ask, I'll tell them. If they ask me to prove it they'll be disappointed. It's not my intention to go anywhere that they demand an ID. Not sure how much of a fight I'll be willing to put up to remain ID-free. We'll see when the pressure's on.

It will be subtle.

One day, the postman will try to deliver a package when you're not in and when you go to collect it at the delivery office, they'll ask for your ID.

You'll get toothache and go to see the dentist you've visited regularly for the last twenty years. And the receptionist will ask for your ID.

Your TV licence form will have a box where you put your ID number and, when you return it with the box blank, the nice young girl from the call centre will call you up about it.

When you have your little flutter on the lottery, the girl behind the corner will ask to swipe your ID.

At the polling station you show them your polling card and they check you off against a list and then ask for your ID.

When your credit card is about to expire, you'll get a renewal notice with a box for your ID number.

Every time, you'll be asked politely with a smile and the other person will grimace with you and sympathise, but point out that it's standard procedure and those are the rules you see.

And the politicians will point out that the ID card is entirely voluntary, no one is compelled to carry one at all. But if you want to pick up your mail or get that troublesome molar looked at or pay the BBC tax or play the lottery or vote or have a credit card, it really would be simpler all round just to carry an ID card. No one likes to make a fuss and it makes life so-oo much easier.

How depressing. People's need for privacy seems to be seen more and more as some sort of bizarre eccentricity. My doctor was chuntering on the other day about the problems they were having putting patients' details on a huge NHS database. I asked if it was possible to opt out of that (as she knew I would). Perhaps I'll be able to find a back-street dentist like those old back-street abortionists. I don't do the lottery. I can live without the telly. I never pick up stuff from the post office when they leave a card. Help lines are a waste of time and sanity so I never phone them. I do vote but nobody I've ever voted for has ever won an election so that's obviously a waste of time and a habit I could try to break. The credit card is the one that'll get me. Damn! I'll fight them as long as I can but they have all the weapons and all I have is my bloody-mindedness.

I wouldn't take my list too literally but yes, it'll be the little annoying things that will be linked to ID cards that'll just wear down people's resistance. It'll end up being far more trouble *not* to have a card.

No, your list gives a good idea of how it'll work though. It could start with seemingly innocuous little things and grow into a monster - an insidious, slowly rising tide of red tape and bureaucracy. It has to be slow to catch us all. Like that awful frog experiment, where they found if they put a frog in hot water, it hopped straight out, but if they put it in cold water and heated it very slowly, the frog just stayed there until it boiled. Very sneaky.

Nice analogy

I don't think they'll be that subtle - takes too long to get your money.

First passports - then you'll need it to open a bank account - then you'll need it at job interviews - no ID , no job.

For anybody that thinks the morons in power can be trusted with a database:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=474788&in_page_id=1770

"A major security alert has been sparked after the theft of a computer database containing thousands of top secret telephone records from police investigations into terrorism and organised crime.

Worried police chiefs throughout the UK launched a massive inquiry into the removal of the sophisticated computer and other IT equipment from a private firm specialising in gathering evidence from mobile phone calls made by suspects"

Can someone please round up the Women's Institute and the Cub Scouts and we'll launch a revolution.

You'd be better off making a film about it