The ID card death knell

The scandal now rocking the Government may sound the death knell for the ID card scheme. The unbelievable admission that the personal details of 25 million UK residents have possibly been lost after being posted on 2 unencrypted CDs has shown how details can so easily get into the wrong hands.

In this case there is no evidence of criminal intent just sheer incompetence. We should be getting used to Government incompetence now, after all the complications to the tax system and wastage in the tax credit system, and are able to blame a certain Mr Brown. The scale of these problems on top of the Northern Rock fiasco should be scaring Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown. If banks have to give money back to customers due to the child benefit account details, they will probably sue the Government. And for quite a lot.

On top of all this, the competence of Government to handle personal details must now be questioned. As I have said before, ID cards pose a risk of holding details all in one place - open to a hacker or someone silly enough to store the details on a CD. Maybe GB will now sense some way of getting out of present problems by announcing the abolition of plans for ID cards. He would be wise to do so, before the clamour to have them subsides significantly.

Squiffy.