It is heartening to find Richard March remains sanguine in the face of threats to his civil liberties (Letters, May 5).

He cites Prokofiev's heroic Lieutenant Kije, whose inauspicious origins lay in an inkblot, as the probable musical model for future national identity card holders.

However, on a cautionary note, the previous day's report by The Argus's parliamentary correspondent should alert us to the fact that contemporary record keeping unlike that of the Tsarist army now involves not only routine attendance at interview for those applying for a new passport.

According to the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman quoted, as a result of the Home Office's newly evoked bugbear of "identity theft", millions of people will shortly be required to additionally provide fingerprints and iris scans at their local identity and passport service office.

It seems, perhaps, that Big Brother is not to be so gently mocked these days.

-Stephen Williams, Hove