Wendy Grossman summarizes the UK's lurch towards national ID cards in A national database or 60,000 more policemen:
the expectation is that legislation to create the national database whose physical manifestation will be a national identify card will be upon us in a matter of weeks, and it’s a good idea to be ready in case they don’t give us much time to comment. Though there may not be much to comment on.
If the Children Bill is any guide (see particularly Part II, Section 8), national identity card legislation will follow the trend to be completely vague and put off all the important nuts and bolts into regulations – secondary legislation that can be passed with minimal debate. The Childrens Bill, by the way, creates a national database of all children under 18. In other words, we can vote down the national database/identity card now, but in 20 years being numbered and tracked will seem normal to emergent adults.
There's lots more, too.
