“The key change that the new card will bring to our lives is that agents of the state – primarily the police – will be able to stop any of us while we are going about our normal business and ask for proof of identity without having to give a reason.”

This is a factual error, as the Government have stated that the police will have no additional powers to demand identity. With the proposed National Identity Scheme, as now, the police will need the same (adequate) reason to demand knowledge of anyone’s identity.

If and when the proposed scheme becomes compulsory (which the Government certainly intends), UK residents would have to use the scheme to demonstrate identity for access to specifically identified Government services, if and only if they wished to use those services. The sole difference from now would be a limitation on the means of identity that would be acceptable.

And again, he wrote:

“Once we have identity cards that must be produced on demand this feeling [a degree of privacy and to go about life unobserved and unremarked] will vanish, and it will be a significant loss.”

With the proposed National Identity Scheme, we will only be obliged to prove identity using it in very limited circumstances, each specified in law by Partliament. This is most unlikely to include satisfying the curiosity of waiters and fellow cafe users, or to obtain the right to drink coffee.

As Bill wrote early in his article, the proposed scheme could be much improved. However, his case is weakened by misrepresenting what is actually proposed, and we the public are made more confused about what changes we should require.

Nigel Sedgwick