When Chris Lightfoot, who was involved in the development of MySociety projects such as WriteToThem and PledgeBank, committed suicide last year, I thought again about the No2ID campaign he’d been so enthusiastically supporting - and I thought they were a bit, well, anti-statist libertarian cranky.
After all, I have to carry around several items that identify me all the time. Cashpoint cards, credit cards; sometimes my driving licence; sometimes my passport.
Of course, the Government-proposed ID cards won’t replace any of the identifying documents I already have to carry. There’s no tie-in with my bank, or with the DVLA, and they’re not going to replace passports. So it’s another form of ID I will have to carry around with me.
Then a couple of weeks ago I received from the Inland Revenue details of a request for a tax credit for someone who wasn’t me, who doesn’t live in my house, whom I’ve never heard of. Over the next few days, I was sent more information about this person and his spouse, including their full bank account details (bank, branch, sort code, account number).
Now I don’t think i could trust the Government to run an ID scheme even if there were quite pressing reasons to introduce one. So I’m joining up with No2ID.
