i am a ctizen of zimbambwe. i live in gelgium and i need this id

Posted by henrietta mutoti | 17.03.09, 18:40 GMT

A referendum is the only way to ascertain how many people "actively" want to support the identity database and its card, and how many would prefer to retain control over their identity and reject any such state apparatus interfering in their lives.

How do you feel about testing this issue at the polls, Mr Hall, rather than containing it in the wrapper of a party manifesto?

Poll tax, anybody?

Posted by Mihail | 07.03.09, 16:36 GMT

As already mentioned below many people already have forms of ID now officially acceptable. Even those in the jobs of taxi drivers, security industry (wef: 1 Dec 09 for Northern Ireland), health (such as social workers) now all have to undergo official checks and be issued with so-called official ID before being allowed to work. So can someone from Government explain why I, and others, really need another one?

Posted by johnh | 06.03.09, 11:19 GMT

James Hall, you have a very selective memory. A report published in the Belfast Telegraph, on or about January 10, 2007 stated that the Passport Office in High Street, Belfast has had to pay out £45,000 in compensation due to your staff making inexcusable blunders with passport applications, resulting in many holidaymakers being left high & dry.

Can you be trusted with people's personal data? With these ID cards, it won't be just your holidays that will be messed up.

Posted by 6079Smith.W | 05.03.09, 20:44 GMT

Dear Mr Hall - Which part of "NO" do you not understand?

Build more prisons - you will need them. I refuse to give this Government any more private and personal information, just for it to be dumped in a skip or lost in the street.

Posted by TheTurfBurner | 05.03.09, 14:57 GMT

There's something quite sinister about this: 'We will give the individual full control over their personal information'. What do you mean, 'we will give'? It's not your position to 'give' us control over our own identities. Is this what Labour peer Lord Gould called "a new kind of identity and a new kind of freedom"? How arrogant. The government ought to serve the public, not the other way round.

In any case, clause 152 of the proposed Coroners and Justice Bill effectively removes the "full control over personal information" which Mr Hall so graciously deigns to give us.

As for "already a reality" - his department has yet to issue *any* ID cards under the Identity Cards Act. "Foreign nationals" do not have ID cards - in fact, Mr Hall cannot legally issue EU nationals with ID cards without first having forced them upon the British people.

Perhaps if Mr Hall wants to write any more letters, he might like to tell us the truth in future.

Posted by Ted Bovis | 05.03.09, 09:38 GMT

Yeah - we all believe you! This is simply a good example of a civil servant explaining why they are making a nice little job for themselves. Most of us have plenty of ID - passports, driving licenses, utility bills and so on. we do not need Big Brother adding 'concrete forms of identity.' There are a lot of potentially sinister implcations - perhaps that 59% should wake up to the dangers of excessive state control.

Posted by Jeni | 04.03.09, 21:09 GMT

I must confess that I found the last post of Malachy McAnespie one of the most amusing and ill informed comments I have rad on a serious board.

The ID will not be an all in one card, for a start the banks don't want to know about it. They have their own security systems already in place and they really don't want this half brained scheme interfering with them. And what of the danger of putting all your ID eggs in one basket? It will become an absolute honeypot for criminals who will doubtless conceive ways of taking over your identity as a means of emptying your bank accounts, the perfect e-crime in fact.

We certainly do have various documents supporting our ID and the fact is that they are ours and we control them already. What the government is proposing is the abduction of our identity for its own keeping, and it certainly won't be safe as the various data leaks of late confirm. Why should they wish to have this control over us? This is the most frightening aspect.

Posted by Justin Roberts | 04.03.09, 20:55 GMT

Leaving aside the fact that you can’t trust NuLab further than you could throw Charles Clarke, and even if 59% of people do support an ID card – something they think of as akin to a library card - they would certainly not support the National Identity Register (NIR), the monster behind it.

If they knew they would certainly not support the creation of a stalker state that will shadow your every move from cradle to grave, and beyond. Or support £1000 fines for not keeping it updated, prison terms and being refused a passport (and therefore permission to leave the UK) for non-compliance. Or support the cross-referencing of the NIR with information from roadside cameras, mobile phone or internet search records and email use, NHS, DNA records or surveillance.

The government should remember that the state is the servant of the people and not the other way round. A free British subject should not have to prove who he/she is in their own country. Whatever Mr Hall thinks.

Posted by clarence wilcock | 04.03.09, 17:40 GMT

"A comprehensive combined data card will be damn handy, and make it more difficult for criminals."

You'll be hard pressed to find any security experts to agree with you. Most regard it as a massive honeypot of data just waiting to be ripped off.

And if we already have items we can use as ID why on Earth do we need another? Particularly one costing billions of pounds that requires the collation of boggling amounts of information for the government to lose?

Posted by bob | 04.03.09, 16:49 GMT

Instead of being a civil servant, Mr Hall ought to have chosen a career in politics. His supposed "survey" was as rinaccurate as the last election in Zimbabwe and does not reflect public opinion about the ID card as proposed by this government. ID cards under the Identity Cards Act are not yet "a reality" as he knows full well. The ones issued to foreign nationals are simply new-style residence permits issued under the Immigration Act and not ID cards issued under the Identity Cards Act. The government is trying to force airport workers to accept ID cards but the unions have made it clear they will not accept them, even though the government have told them that if they don't accept these "voluntary" ID cards, they could lose their jobs.

At the next election, New Labour will be toast and so will the entire ID card scheme. Hopefully, Mr Hall will be collecting his P45, along with the rest of New Labour's yes men.

Posted by Stu | 04.03.09, 16:10 GMT

Malachy: if everyone already has a 'concrete form of identity' then why do we need another one (that you will have to pay for)?

Posted by ChrisW | 04.03.09, 15:04 GMT

"the latest official research shows that 59% of people actively support our plans"

I would accept that statement but for the word 'actively' - who are you trying to kid?

Many of the people who claim to support ID cards, when questioned more closely, have very little knowledge of what they will really mean in practice.

Its just one more step in the gradual erradication of our freedoms and the benifits, if any, will be negligable.

Posted by Neil | 04.03.09, 14:14 GMT

'We will give the individual full control over their personal information and the reassurance of independent oversight.' - Not true. The Home Secretary will be able to order that be shared to MI5 for example.

Most of this letter is full of half truths.

Posted by ChrisW | 04.03.09, 13:58 GMT

Daft to suggest that Identity Cards are unpopular. I know no one without Credit Card , Passport, Bank Card or some concrete form of identity. A comprehensive combined data card will be damn handy, and make it more difficult for criminals.

Posted by Malachy McAnespie | 04.03.09, 12:05 GMT