£17m and counting...
Linked from the No2ID forum recently is an article on the costs already run up in regards to the ID Card Bill.
This is all the more worrying when Blair is turning round and saying "for just a little bit more money we can have this...". "Just a little bit more" is how stupid, unworkable, unethical acts gain unstoppable momentum. Eventually it'll be "But we've already spent £12 billion on the scheme, it would be insanity to just walk away from it..." except we won't let you get that far...
And recently the HO had a bit of an own goal when they revealed that on mainland Europe, ID cards are accepted as travel documents. Which means that the already bulltwanging division of costs between (non-databased) biometric passports at £93 (of which with the biometric information somehow costs £51) and National ID Card (plus database processing) at less than £29 has become even more unstuck. It will under this scheme be pointless for people to get a passport unless they are leaving the continent - who's going to pay out £93 on travel documents so they can go to Spain for their holidays when they can just get one of these newfangled bits of polltax.. I mean plastic, for £29, that'll do the trick just as well! Hee hee. So now the scheme will have to be subsidised by the long-haul travellers alone? Passport prices going up even more to cover the capped ID cards, Non-European destinations getting increasingly unattractive... so it goes...
Oo, and here's a thought. Much has been said about how the Act will criminalise those unlikely to be able to keep up with the updating of information, those who may lose their cards, those who may leave their house without their cards (like hell they won't be compulsory to carry). Hmm... the old, the insane, the homeless... this list seems familiar... I wonder if the database is unable to handle Hebrew characters..?
This is all the more worrying when Blair is turning round and saying "for just a little bit more money we can have this...". "Just a little bit more" is how stupid, unworkable, unethical acts gain unstoppable momentum. Eventually it'll be "But we've already spent £12 billion on the scheme, it would be insanity to just walk away from it..." except we won't let you get that far...
And recently the HO had a bit of an own goal when they revealed that on mainland Europe, ID cards are accepted as travel documents. Which means that the already bulltwanging division of costs between (non-databased) biometric passports at £93 (of which with the biometric information somehow costs £51) and National ID Card (plus database processing) at less than £29 has become even more unstuck. It will under this scheme be pointless for people to get a passport unless they are leaving the continent - who's going to pay out £93 on travel documents so they can go to Spain for their holidays when they can just get one of these newfangled bits of polltax.. I mean plastic, for £29, that'll do the trick just as well! Hee hee. So now the scheme will have to be subsidised by the long-haul travellers alone? Passport prices going up even more to cover the capped ID cards, Non-European destinations getting increasingly unattractive... so it goes...
Oo, and here's a thought. Much has been said about how the Act will criminalise those unlikely to be able to keep up with the updating of information, those who may lose their cards, those who may leave their house without their cards (like hell they won't be compulsory to carry). Hmm... the old, the insane, the homeless... this list seems familiar... I wonder if the database is unable to handle Hebrew characters..?
posted by Hamilton's Brain | 4:47 pm
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