While the government in the UK forges full-steam ahead with plans for ID cards, it’s interesting to see that they’re carrying out market-research on the issue. I just had a very chilly (perhaps in more ways than one) half-hour probe from a market-research company by the name of TNS on that very topic.

My girlfriend, as a foreign national, will be one of the first to be subjected to the new system. As a foreigner, her criminal tendencies will be put to test by this glorious new dawn (brave new world?). Interestingly, the guy asking the questions was in the same boat – and all in favour of biometrics in ID cards.

There were many questions that slip my mind, but a whole range on how I felt about ID cards, whether I think they’d work in preventing a range of problems. I wasn’t asked if I felt that particualr issues, such as illegal immigration, were a bad thing – it was assumed by the tone of the questions. Then again, it was unlikely I’d demand free reign for terrorist groups. However, so close to Stockwell, perhaps I would be inclined to worry about mistaken identities…

All in all, it has led me to wonder – are they as committed as they say they are, presuming they will listen to the results that come back? I remember the Iraq-war demonstrations, and I remember that the government did not listen to the voice of the public. However, that was when the public disagreed. The man from TNS probably should not have told me so freely, but the results coming back show 43% of the public (presuming we can take his stats as gold) in favour of ID cards, far above those not in favour. So there you have it, basically. ID cards are coming, and no amount of principled backbenchers will be able to do a thing about it, whether or not it really is a good idea of an extremely expensive scheme that will fall flat on its face once it results in a massive increase in cases of ID theft, as opposed to the opposite.

Link to No2ID

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Yesterday, I spent an hour doing a webchat question and answer session on the 10 Downing Street website. I quite like the idea of confiscating the mobile phones of those caught using them whilst driving, but what I would really like to see is the power introduced to ban them from using mobile phones for life. We intend to start using roadside cameras to spot those using mobile phones, in addition to more sophisticated tracking devices to hunt down these perpetrators.

I have realised that we have not gone far enough with the idea of bringing down the age limit from 21 to 17 years, in relation to the 5 year maximum jail term for carrying a firearm. Therefore, it is my intention to lower the age to 10 years and double the maximum sentence to 10 years.

I quite like the American idea of “Zero Tolerance”. I intend to introduce a minimum 20 year prison sentence for crimes such as graffiti (perhaps even extended to cover blogging), and anti-social behaviour. However, whereas the American’s are soft with their three strikes and you are out rule, which derives from the game of baseball, our national sport is cricket and you hit the wicket once and you are out. Therefore I intend to introduce “stumped”, you get one go and that’s it!

Our plans are well under way to introduce both the biometric ID card and new biometric passport. These will have your fingerprint and iris scans, and everybody’s photo will be fed into a giant data base which anyone in authority can get immediate access to. This identity management is intended to protect the individual from such crimes as identity theft, for example, in credit card frauds. We intend to use foreigners as guinea pigs in our experiment and very quickly extend it to everybody else.