*Looks like "elections have consequences."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/27/theresa-may-scrapping-id-cards
"The £4.5bn national identity card scheme is to be scrapped within 100 days, the home secretary, Theresa May, announced today.
"The 15,000 identity cards already issued are to be cancelled without any refund of the £30 fee to holders within a month of the legislation reaching the statute book. (((Maybe you can sell those 15,000 cards to tech collectors for thirty pounds each, Britons – and congratulations on getting ripped-off by your new government for attempting to collaborate with your old government's antiterror ID schemes.)))
Abolishing the cards and associated register will be the first piece of legislation introduced to parliament by the new government. May said the identity documents bill will invalidate all existing cards. (((First order of business, is it? My goodness.)))
The role of the identity commissioner, created in an effort to prevent data blunders and leaks, will be abolished. (((in 1789 they would have carried his head on a pike, but that was then and this is now.)))
The government said the move will save £86m over four years and avoid £800m in costs over the next 10 years that would have been raised by increased charges. An allied decision to cancel the next generation of biometric fingerprint passports will save a further £134m over four years. Savings to the public under the whole package will total £1bn. (((I find it hard to believe that the current British ID system is all that cheap, because I've been to British airports as a hapless foreigner.)))
The publication of the identity documents bill today marks the end of an eight-year Whitehall struggle over compulsory identity cards since they were first floated by the then-home secretary David Blunkett in the aftermath of 9/11. (((Well, it marks the temporary end, until the cards get mandated by Europe, or there's another spate of London terror bombings, or whatever. Actually, I rather suspect a public-private workaround where the British simply ditch clumsy ID cards entirely, and covertly monitor the population 24/7 with cellphones and videocams. And "Big Society." One can imagine all kinds of awesome "human flesh search engine" stuff being carried out by right-wing British "big societies." Perfidious Albion's fondness for covert monitoring goes all the way down to neighborhood levels.)))
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/24/councils-covert-surveillance-operations
((("Councils carry out over 8,500 covert surveillance operations")))
"More than 5.4m combined passport and identity cards were due to be issued when the scheme was started in earnest next year. This was projected to rise to 10m ID cards/passports being issued ever year from 2016 onwards....
"A separate scheme under which identity cards are issued to all foreign nationals resident in Britain by 2015 run by the United Kingdom Border Agency is still to go ahead. (((Oh well, that's handy. Good to see they are keeping the technical capacity to do the cards, ready to deploy at any moment.))) Home Office ministers said yesterday this was a separate scheme for biometric residence permits for foreign nationals that was required by European Union legislation. ((("I blame Europe.")))
May said: "This bill is the first step of many that this government is taking to reduce the control of the state over decent, law-abiding people and hand power back to them. (((Really? Wow. Maybe they're gonna 'empower the people' by releasing massive private ID-card networks as an iPhone app.)))
"With swift parliamentary approval, we aim to consign identity cards and the intrusive ID card scheme to history within 100 days."
"The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said: "The wasteful, bureaucratic and intrusive ID card system represents everything that has been wrong with government in recent years." (((Well, there must be some satisfaction for the Lib-Dems in an event like this – even if they're the junior coalition partner, at least they get to kill off some programs they've cordially despised for years.))) ...
