Paying For Your Government Propaganda

Over at the UK's super state security agency other wise known as the Home Office. The civil servants responsile for insuring the introdution of a system that would have been a Stasi officers wet dream (aka the national ID Register), are at it again. The cretinous fuckers have decided to waste £71,892.96 of your money on a DVD to promote their wretched scheme. You can view a clip here. Those of you in the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear camp" should take note of the credits of the film, they really give the game away:

The Identity Cards Programme would like to thank the following organisations for their help in producing this video:

-UK Passport Service
-Home Office Immigration and Nationality Directorate
-Department for Work and Pensions
-Criminal Records Bureau
-Kent Probation Service
-The Post Office

That's right folks from the day you are born you are simply citizen-criminal number xyz987654321 and you're on permanent probation.

Any of Dwainsibly's readers who find my posts are written "emotive language" can find a dry select committee report which considers that the ID card scheme may contravene the ECHR. A small clipping:

13. The systematic collection and storage of information on the Register therefore engages Article 8, even without any further use or disclosure of the material.[19] The information which the Bill envisages will be held on the Register allows for significant intrusion into private life. This is particularly the case since a person's record on the Register will include a record of the occasions on which his or her entry on the Register has been accessed by others (clause 1(5)(h)), for example, in the use of public services, or by prospective employers, or as part of criminal investigations (regardless of whether these result in prosecutions or convictions). Thus the information held on the Register may amount to a detailed account of their private life.

14. Information may be held on the Register for as long as consistent with the statutory purpose of verifying the registrable facts about an individual. This implies that information will be held at least for a person's lifetime, or at least where they remain resident in the UK. The interference with Article 8 rights is likely to increase as information on an individual is held for lengthy periods. This is particularly the case since, as noted above, the Register will hold a record of the occasions on which a person's records have been accessed by others, potentially providing, over time, a detailed picture of private life. The ECtHR has emphasised that holding information concerning someone's distant past raises particular Article 8 issues.[20] As regards each of the registrable facts entered in respect of an individual, it must be shown first that the consequent interference with private life pursues a legitimate aim listed under Article 8.2; and can be justified as necessary in a democratic society, proportionate to the aim it pursues, and in pursuit of a pressing social need. This requires that privacy rights should be interfered with to the minimum degree necessary.

15. We are concerned at the range of the information which may be held on an individual's record on the Register, and at its apparent lack of relation to the statutory aims, and to the aims listed as legitimate for the purposes of Article 8 ECHR. In particular, we do not see why the statutory purposes necessitate a record of a person's previous residential status, where, for example, someone has previously held a temporary residence permit, but later acquired UK citizenship. Neither do we see why it is necessary for the statutory purposes to record not only a person's main residence, but also any second homes they may have. Thirdly, it is not clear why it is necessary for the statutory purposes to retain records of each occasion on which a person's entry in the Register has been accessed by others, a provision which is potentially highly intrusive of privacy, if the information is disclosed to third parties. We have written to the Home Secretary asking why the gathering and storage of this information is considered to serve a legitimate aim, and to be a necessary and proportionate interference with Article 8 rights

I am still hoping this turns into Labour's Poll Tax.