My passport is due for renewal within three years. I had planned to say bugger it, after all, you do not technically need it for travelling in EU. However, if I were to renew say this year or next, what would actually be collected and stored?

Paris, cause at least we know what is recorded of hers...

Don't believe a word of it. These slimy fuckers will do everything they can to weasel their way through the maze until one way or another they've got us all on their databases. Whether it's ID cards, mandatory passports, entitlement cards or whatever else, they think that as long as they can try and obfuscate the fact that the cards, in whatever form, don't matter and it's the database they really want, they won't stop until they are made to, by voting them out of office.

Once the cards exist they will become compulsory in fact, if not in law. All this stuff from the government about the cards not being compulsory is utter twaddle.

Want to open a bank account? You'll need an ID card as the banks use that to cut costs.

Want to open get a load? You'll need an ID card as the banks use that to cut costs.

Want to get insurance? You'll need an ID card as the companies use that to cut costs.

And so on.

Yes there will be other methods of identification, but using them will become onerous (and probably add costs) so people will become compelled to have an ID card or (effectively) become a non-person.

We do not need ID cards, we do not need the ID database; there is nothing to fear. All we need are our MPs brought to book over their dodgy dealings and our police kept in check. That's it. Nothing more.

the database?

The good news is that I renewed my passport a couple of months ago, so this is not my problem for another ten years or so. By which point I'm sure that we'll be living in a paradise of freedom and civil rights. And by "we" I mean people who have emigrated to a paradise of freedom and civil rights, which relative to the Britain of ten years time will probably be Saudi Arabia...

Passport? All countries seem to use 'em, no great shakes.

ID Card? Well, if some saddo doesn't know who he is, let him buy one.

But.

What part of "We Do Not Want Your Obscenely Intrusive Database" do these cretins not understand?

0/10. Will be expelled next year.

We're being prepared to accept their new ID card plans, and whatever other gross infringement on our liberties they can think of, right now.

I trust every else has noticed the uplift in threat propaganda over the last couple of days. 60,000 people trained to spot potential terry wrists. Waqui scaring us all to death with more stories of dirty bombs. Hoax bomb threats on airliners. Football grounds evacuated because of suspect packages.

I expect there will be some full scale security shenanigans with a large civic area put on ultra high alert before the end of the week. Then, once the public have been suitably softened into thinking we're really under siege, along will come the next batch of freedom restricting legislation.

Why log the nations biometric infomation in a central database, the argument remains the same.

If my personal details become released into the public domain due to its biometric nature I am unable to claim new details. Already certain MP's have had their fingerprint information posted in public forums, all this will do is further destablise an already weak plan.

Human checks will always remain more reliable than any automated system so if they want to increase safety add more human checks. Since were in a recession with jobs being axed daily it shoudnt be hard to pick up some appropriately skilled staff.

Fed up with this damn state and the govt pushing procedures the country doesnt want.

How is a mandatory ID card in the UK going to stop foreign terrorists? They won't have the cards.

Since they called in the marketing people to make ID cards more acceptable, I guess this is what the marketing people told them.

(1)... identity card, a passport or both

A passport is an identity card for traveling, so its still an identity card and its still linked to the same data. So its just a warm fuzzy feeling name for an ID card. So its a PR smoke screen to not call it a ID card. They could just paint the card white for ID card and Red for passport, its still the same card and still the same Big Brother intentions and system behind it all.

(2)... ID cards not compulsory.

Frankly thats utter PR marketing Bullshit for, its not compulsory (yet) ... until ... (wait for ID cards to fade from public radar view) ... we then slowly integrate ID cards into this area and that area, and give it to this few people here and that few people there and over time, it becomes ever more central, ever more necessary for every day life, until you can do little without having an ID card. Then they win. They get what they originally intended. ID cards for everyone.

This is absolutely no change of stance on ID cards. Its simply a marketing makeover to gloss over their long term goals. Then anyone who accuses them of their long term goals gets this PR marketing crap thrown at them to say, hey but look, the government has changes its goals with the ID cards.

They haven't changes anything. This is simply a way to gain public acceptance (more to the point public acquiescence) until there is no choice but to accept the ruling elites wishes on the matter, so they can keep an ever closer eye on us all. They have got very good at avoiding opposition to their wishes. The problem is, regardless of which group of self-righteous, close minded plutocrats get into power next, we have no one who can protect us from the wishes of the ruling elite plutocrats.

Due to recent ancestry, I am in the fortunate position of being able to claim a second nationality. So, rather than renew my out-of-date passport, I can claim my other nationality and get a new, foreign passport that way. And then I can escape from this growing police state, to Australia!

Oh, wait...

God forbid, but this makes me wonder if we actually need terrorists to save us from the government.

Where's superman when we need him? Don't say *I* have to stand up and be Spartacus!

NO CARRIER

When will the government do us a favour and jump off a frigging pier like the bunch of idiotic lemmings they are.

Under Blair they were bad. Under Brown they're just even more obviously stupid than we thought before.

We've got their ministers bleeding the system dry via expenses, throwing our money at banks without setting down any hard and fast terms and conditions, and we're supposed to be worried about ID cards and terrorism.

Well sorry to be blunt but bollocks to that - I'm more concerned that:

1) I'm expected to need ID in my own country of birth, whilst they keep letting umpteem million immigrants into the country rather than addressing the problem and getting our own citizens off benefit and FORCING THEM back into work. Easy solution? Take away the money and replace it with food tokens. We'll soon see how many of them will take the easy route if they don't get their free beer and fags anymore.

2) People who had the common sense to save for their future have been fucked, fucked and fucked some more by Brown and his bunch of incompetents.

I used to be proud to be British. Now it's an embarrassment. I've protested, I just don't see why the rest of the moaners don't get off their high horses and do the same.

It's just required.

I've got mine somewhere in my coat here.....

I believe the guy you're looking for is a certain Mr. Fawkes...

... does not mean "we will not..."

I'm quite sure the plans have simply been moved to a secure back office where they are out of sight.

NuLab has lied so many times about so many things that no sensible person believes a thing they or their minions say anymore. Perhaps the party should display a little honesty just this once and rename itself "the Liar Party".

And I'm hoping to be out of the country by the end of this year anyway.

Up yours labour, and goodbye rainy old England.

should be given ID cards on entry to the country. Obvious really.

Me and few of my pals from Romania have our own plans to deal with that. All I can say now is it won't take more than a week to fix after it goes live. I don't think it's at all optimistic to say we should be able to pick up at least a dozen laptops civil servants will leave lying around in that time frame.

I've got to get out of this 3rd world country...

Or, alternatively, start an epic conquest of the country by rallying the masses under a single united banner of non-schoolchild-ness (except for the schoolchildren of course, they should just do as they're told...). I'll start with Scotland - they hate the bloody sassenachs' ID card even more than the bloody sassenachs.

Mine's the one with the Overlord badge on it - please hail.

May never be compulsory unless......that is you need a job, or need to pay tax, get an NI number or get a driving licence or get benefits.

From getting a library book to paying for postage stamps you can bet there will be a host of new laws enacated (probably without reference to Parilamentary voting) that WILL require an ID card to do almost everything.

Back door stealth compulsion thats how they will do it.

And remember folks we need all your data to protect you from a bearded feckwit in a cave in the ar5e end of nowhere and his merry band of UK based feckwits. Honest trust us we're the Gov would we lie?

Cromwell said that he had a 'Parliament of whores' some things just don't change so they.

Obligatory Mandleson knocking up the 'Back Door' Joke omitted.

No2id I signed up and I'd urge you lot to consider it.

Which has always been the point.

The plan is two fold; 1) Positively identify people so they cannot claim multiple Social services (it was originally a DSS entitlement card if you've been following the story) 2) Track people identified by the government (small 'G') as 'subversive' or 'differently political' so it is possible to stop them working, traveling, associating, obtaining positions of influence.

You could suggest that the latter is anti-terror related but so far the record on identifying those people before they blow up tube trains full of people has been, shall we say a "little weak". More likely that it will be back to the old whitehall game of persecuting pinko commie fag subversives. NB: Stephen Fry is on Twitter chaps

"It is not our intention that identity cards should be mandatory for UK nationals."

Translates as:

"It is the intention of the Police, MI5, The Home Secretary, The Prime Minister, Waitrose, the NHS, Battersea Dog's Home, the EU, that bloke called Fred we met down the pub..............."

You won't be able to get a job, claim benefits, open a bank account, get a mortgage, rent a house, buy a car or leave this shit-hole of a country without one, but they won't *actually* be compulsory.

So, fine, if you don't mind living in a cardboard box under the local motorway flyover and either starving to death or begging for/ stealing food.

I was recently refused access to the funds in a long-standing ISA until I had supplied my original driving license (not a copy) and a utility bill (not an internet download). "Money Laundering Regulations", they said. Send them by recorded delivery post. What a glorious government-mandated opportunity for identity thieves!

What, I wondered, if I had all my utilities and bank accounts on-line without paper statements, couldn't drive, and never travelled abroad so no passport either? They delined to answer. With things like this as of now, what are the chances of ever getting any of your money out of a bank without showing them your "optional" ID card, as soon as the accursed things are widespread? Be afraid. Be very afraid.

@Mikko - it's not the cards I'm afraid of. It's the centralization of everything that anyone needs to steal my identity, in one big government database, with easy access to just about every civil servant in the country. Not one of them will ever be corrupt, we are assured. The toothpaste will never get out of the tube. And if it does, the UK's government will put it all back like it was before. And all future governments will always act in our best interests. If you believe that, can I sell you the Eiffel tower?