retailers will be neither equipped nor authorised to access the national biometric database. They will have to rely on the photograph and printed details on the card, with no way of checking the card's validity. As a result, it will be very easy for criminals to produce high-quality fake cards and use them to steal high-value goods by obtaining loans fraudulently in someone else's name. The obvious solution to this is to equip retailers to query the database, so that they can check the authenticity of ID cards before completing the loan application.
Eventually, then, we could get to a situation where the ID card has to be presented for checking several times every day. This leads to the second concern. Every time the database is queried, the time, date, location and purpose could be recorded – allowing the database to build up a complete picture of every movement made by its individuals. As more agencies are granted access to the database, the number of transactions recorded will increase dramatically, to a point where we may no longer need CCTV, because ID cards are recording our every move. Potentially, then, an innocent person could find themselves accused of consorting with known terrorists, merely because their ID card happens to have been used for a transaction where several suspects' ID cards have also been active.
Features - Yorkshire Post Today: News, Sport, Jobs, Property, Cars, Entertainments & More: Filed in: ID, ID_cards, UK, costs, IT, biometrics, terrorism, crime
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