The report about NHS trusts losing patient records should provide a wake-up call to those who are still intent on foisting compulsory ID cards on us (The Argus, December 24).
It follows hard on the heels of the Revenue and Customs losing computer disks containing the details of almost half the population.
These losses matter for a number of reasons. The Revenue and Customs disks contain banking details which may give others enough information to copy our identity in a way that leaves us open to fraud.
Even if we are refunded, it usually takes time and a great deal of inconvenience at the very least. Those of us who have had to deal with banks when funds have vanished from our accounts for reasons we can't understand have not always found them to be the most sympathetic and helpful of institutions.
These losses of data also matter because they demonstrate the sad fact that the Government cannot be trusted to look after our personal information.
ID cards are supposed to provide us with better security. The reality is they will make it easier than ever for the dishonest and the criminally minded to clone our identities and misuse them.
Police officers already have the power to detain us if they have reasonable grounds to suspect we have committed an offence and we don't or can't identify ourselves.
Good police officers will have to waste time dealing with yet another unnecessary offence added to the statute book - people not carrying their ID card - when they could and should be tackling genuine crime.
A minority of bad police officers will use ID cards as a way to inconvenience the forgetful or those who have had their cards stolen, as happened in the Forties and Fifties. It was petty abuses then that led to them being scrapped.
The cost of the scheme is an unnecessary tax which will hit the poorest hardest.
ID cards won't protect us from terrorism as the Madrid bombings demonstrated all too clearly. But they will reduce our freedom in a way which will be a triumph for terrorists and enemies of the state.
- A Williams, Northease Drive, Hove
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article