Privacy and civil liberties campaigners this afternoon slated Home Office Minister Liam Byrne’s claim [1] that the National Identity System will be the 21st century equivalent of the railways or the National Grid.

Phil Booth, NO2ID [2] National Coordinator, said:

Mr Byrne hasn’t a clue what the world will look like in 2020. But a lumbering, costly ID scheme that nationalises personal identity is a steam-driven solution in the digital age.
It is crazy to say that the best way to “protect” our identities is to give them to the Home Office – the department of screw-up and cover-up – to look after. These are the last people on earth you should trust to keep your information safe.

- ENDS –

Notes to Editors

1) At Chatham House this morning. See
http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/Speeches/sc-identity-21st-century
for full text of speech.

2) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. Scroll down http://www.no2id.net for a list of ‘database
state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing. NO2ID is affiliated to by the National Union of Journalists:

http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=1595

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