Lost and Stolen Identities and Documents: A Sign of Things to Come for ID Cards?

8.34.41pm UTC (GMT +0000) Sun 21st May 2006

The identities of 13,000 civil servants have been stolen from Department of Work and Pensions databases by organised criminals, and around 600,000 documents have been reported lost or stolen by the Identity and Passport Service

Anti-ID Card campaigners have highlighted two separate issues this week which increase fears for the forthcoming Identity Card scheme. The identities of 13,000 civil servants have been stolen from Department of Work and Pensions databases by organised criminals, and around 600,000 documents have been reported lost or stolen by the Identity and Passport Service. And now it has been admitted that several thousand people have been identified wrongly as Criminals by the very Government department that will administer ID Cards

Local Lib Dem Campaigner Gordon Seekings echoed the words of many anti-ID campaigners when he said "ID Cards don't solve the identity theft problem. They create a brand new market for it. The ID Database that comes with ID Cards is more complex than any other database currently in place or being built - and there are Government databases currently being built which are billions over budget and still don't work."

"It's not only a bad idea in principle - it'll be an unworkable idea in practice. This Government seems hell-bent on spending billions - of YOUR money - trying to implement it. In comparison, the Millennium Dome is going to end up like a small, cheap planning mistake next to the thundering nightmare that ID Cards are shaping up to be."

Nick Clegg MP - "If organised criminals are capable of infiltrating the Department of Work and Pensions, it is clear they will target the Identity Cards database where the stakes are even higher."

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Clegg MP has said "If organised criminals are capable of infiltrating the Department of Work and Pensions, it is clear they will target the Identity Cards database where the stakes are even higher. The government's claims that ID cards will cut identity fraud look increasingly unrealistic. If the ID card database is breached, people could find their iris scans and finger prints as well as personal data and National Insurance numbers stolen."

Continuing Nick said "Many of the 600,000 documents recorded as lost or stolen may have been mislaid by individuals, but many others will have fallen into the hands of criminals and even terrorists. It is a worrying loophole in security, and a stark warning of the abuses we are likely to see with ID cards."

Related Link:

Follow this link to the Lib Dem "SayNo2ID" campaign.