George Smith offers the entertaining suggestion that there is a conspiracy to undermine ID cards (Letters, January 21). It is certainly true that many civil servants privately express deep reservations about the national ID scheme. Many at the sharp end of government IT systems are supporters of NO2ID. However, there is a more mundane explanation for the recent spate of reported data losses; and it does not require any fanciful conspiracy theories.

Years of woeful scrutiny by parliament have resulted in a government that seeks primarily to serve itself. Bureaucratic convenience is first and foremost in the minds of ministers who are incapable of recognising the difference between the public interest and bureaucratic self-interest.

Data protection has never been taken seriously by Whitehall. The UK Government chose to exempt itself from the Data Protection Act rather than burden itself with the duty of care that is owed to citizens. As Christine Grahame, the SNP MSP, has just discovered, DVLA has been profiting handsomely from the sale of driver details: more than five million driver records have been sold to private companies since 2002.

At the heart of government policy is the Transformational Government agenda, the deliberate aim of which is vastly to increase data-sharing while stripping away the minimal protections that currently exist. It is an agenda that serves bureaucrats rather than the needs of citizens.

Ministers talk of protecting our identities, but like all protection rackets, the national ID scheme is designed to benefit the racketeers, not the public.

Geraint Bevan, NO2ID Scotland, 3e Grovepark Gardens, Glasgow.