Medway MP Warns of ID Card 'Orwellian application centres'

Medway MP Bob Marshall has recently warned of the UK's I.D. card scheme's plans for special Orwellian application centres whereupon a person would have to submit him/her self for inspection.

This would involve a UK resident presenting themselves at these special centres for photography,noting of eye colour and even 'having your heads measured'.

No doubt the government would probably insist on everyone attending these centres and eventualy make this 'tagging and bagging' compulsory for all UK citizens.

Isn't this a little buit reminiscent of 1930s Nazi Germany?
Some may say this is alarmist but if these comments comes directly from a UK politician with ,one suspects,an intimate knowledge of ID card scheme intentions,then it seems a valid concern.

As for the 'nothing to fear- nothing to hide' brigade-why not make the ID card scheme and visits to these centres voluntary-then all the people who think it is just harmless fun can go and get their heads meausured and eye colour noted whilst others who think this is a truly repugnant idea can stay at home?

Let's hope that these centres gain the same kind of 'attention' that many GATSO cameras do.

Actually, I wish 'Big Sister' Jacqui would suffer the same fate as some of these GATSOs too.

reply to post by karl 12


Doth thou haveth a linky?

I would like to have a read if possible?

i'm not 100% comfortable with this ID card scheme, namely because I do not trust the Government to keep my data safe.

Like Frankie Boyle said about this scheme, it's ok now if you have you lose your wallet stolen as you just get a new bank card or whatever, but it you end up having your ID card stolen/cloned or whatever, you'd need new fudging eyeballs!

Originally posted by stumason
Doth thou haveth a linky?

I would like to have a read if possible?

i'm not 100% comfortable with this ID card scheme, namely because I do not trust the Government to keep my data safe.

Thanks for the replies,his comments were made on a political radio show aired earlier this week but I haven't got a link for the actual transcript.
Heres another interesting account of the 'special centres' which are initialy going to be introduced as biometric passport centres:
www.wrp.org.uk...

On the eve of yesterday’s debate, UK Passport Service chief Bernard Herdan revealed that more than 4.5 million people a year will have to go to special interview centres, where they will be asked to verify their identity by answering questions about their previous addresses and their schools, in order to get a new biometric passport from the end of 2008.

He added that 600,000 people will be interviewed by the end of next year. From the end of 2006 first-time adult passport applicants will be called to interview at one of 70 centres nationwide.

From July next year, all new passports will include a computer chip which would initially contain only facial scans, further details such as fingerprints or iris scans, will become a requirement at a later date.

The passports will use the same database as being used for the proposed national identity register that is part of the ID card system.

Herdan said that biometric passports would transform ‘pretty seamlessly’ into the ID card scheme.

Cheers Karl


[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

If I may ask, why do they care about measuring your head size? If they are already doing facial pictures, they've gotten a lot of difficult-to-change facial data, like the distance between your eyes, etc. And apart from facial measurements, head sizes for human adults aren't unique enough to be useful for identification purposes.

(jokingly, not seriously) the only thing a head size should be good for it determining whether the subject is human. Who are they trying to root out, alien imposters?