Home Office minister Joan Ryan would be well advised to check her facts in future. Her response on Friday to Geraint Bevan's letter (April 6) not only attempts to put words into Mr Bevan's mouth - a classic politician's move, to fight a "straw man" rather than the facts - but fails to address his key point.
The government proposes spending billions of pounds compelling everyone in the UK to register their personal details with the Home Office, fining them or denying them services, benefits or a passport if they fail to comply. Schedule 1 of the Identity Cards Act 2006 lists the personal information that may be recorded on the National Identity Register (NIR), which includes your name and any other names you are known by or have been known by, your address and every other address that you have lived at.
Precisely the sort of information needed by someone determined to track down the partner he has abused and who is now in hiding. To claim that ID registration does not therefore represent a risk to those fleeing abuse shows Ms Ryan to be either dangerously ignorant of the real world or a hypocrite of the highest order.
The Home Office has repeatedly stated that to pay for the scheme, it will be charging private companies (banks, employers, retailers) and a host of public sector agencies for "ID verification services". Its current estimate is more than 44,000 organisations - representing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people able to make official checks on you.
It is beyond belief that any organisation would pay for a service that didn't confirm details as basic as a person's address, or that only "vetted civil servants" would be allowed to access.
What possible use would such a "service" be? Ms Ryan asserts that checks will be by consent - but, if an ID check is required for something, "consent" is effectively mandatory. For if checks can be avoided by merely refusing consent, then what is the point of an ID card at all? - Phil Booth, National Coordinator, NO2ID, Box 412, 19-21 Crawford Street, London.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article