"This declaration, however, also adopts the subsidiarity principle, leaving full autonomy to Member States as to what kind of electronic identity they issue."

From recent events this means that the UK Government would keep and then farm out everything because it is too stupid to extract just the essential bits.

All other members of the club have working national IDs and some of them have the national ID integrated with a PKI and useable for services. What exactly is a third world country (in the identity management sense) like UK doing in that group? It is like Paris Hilton trying to play in a Shakespear play.

"Sooner or later everyone will have an identity card in some form... the Belgians are rolling theirs out, the Estonians are fully complete..."

Blimey, Estonia AND Belgium? That's got to be most of the world's population - better get in line!

Absolutely right, and because it's Britain, your personal information will be shipped round Europe on a CD (along with 24,999,999 other records).

Thanks to the miracle of e-government, your French car tax renewal should take no more than five or six weeks by which time you'll have also enjoyed being declared a terrorist in Estonia, cleared out a small bank in Iceland and have applied to adopt a Bulgarian orphan in all three Benelux countries.

If I had a gun I'd shoot myself right now. Have they not learned anything.

I suppose I could get a job with some agency that has access to all this data when it comes online, and then use the system to change everybodies religion to Jehovahs Witness. Somewhere some poor buggger will have a car crash, get pulled in to hospital unconsous and as the doctor is about to start the blood transfusion a nurse shouts STOP. His record said no transfusion so they die. A single massive database or many small ones linked together is going to be a target for every crook, terrorist or pycho out there and we're run towards it at breakneck speed, God help us. Antigua anyone?

I mean, dear God! that's TERRIBLE. Shooting's too good for 'em. A bloody good kick in the arse is what they need.

And as to the "no plans" it doesn't mean it won't happen, it just means thay they haven't got a plan to do it yet.

What about the "no plans to use RIPA outside its remit"? After they got the law, THEN they used it outside its' remit. They didn't necessarily plan it that way, but, hey, it happens.

Bah.

It seems that everything that happens in, what, six series of Yes Minister has to happen in real life at some point. This time, the European identity card.

Sir Humphrey: "The Germans will love it, the French will ignore it, the Italians and Irish will be too chaotic to enforce it. Only the British will resent it."

The government does indeed plan to mail my personal details to Turkey by mistake.

A Martian might observe that the job comes with the requirement to simulate a passive/aggressive persona.

We have had Blunkett the tender-underneath-caveman, Clarke the (hassled-)man-in-a-pub-with-too-much-to-do-but-in-dire-need-of-a-drink-anyway, Straw the (unhassled-)gook-with-the-i-can-grind-this-claptrap-out-longer-than-you-and-even-in-my-sleep attitude (well in place when he shook Mugabe's hand), Reid the et-tu-brute-up-yours-apparatchik. And so on.

Having seen the present incumbent operating over the extension to terrorist detention, and now here, she appears to be rapidly developing a no-point-asking-me-anything-I'm-just-a-stupid-woman-what-else-do-you-expect-really simulation. You should be able to predict her progress, tho YMMV.

All preconstructed and carefully assembled, of course, for the hyperreal. The borg/zombie of reality is not allowed.

"STORK actually stands for Secure idenTity acrOss boRders acKnowledged."

Presumably because calling it KING STORK (Keep Imagining Nobody's Grabbing Secure idenTity acrOss boRders acKnowledged) would have been too obvious...?

@ "Joe Stalin"

"If I had a gun I'd shoot myself right now. Have they not learned anything."

Yes; they've learned that if they don't allow people to own guns they make THAT avenue of escape harder, too!

Why can't they come out with plain spoken legistlation that says: "THIS WILL NEVER BE PERMITTED AND ANY POLITICIAN THAT ASKS FOR IT WILL BE SUMMARILY EXECUTED"; instead of the vague bollocks of saying: "no plans".

WTF does "no plans" mean? And these fascist politicians wonder why they are hated sooooo much.

Unless and until there is clear incontrovertable legistlation to castrate and crucify any and all abusers of the data, nothing like this should be considered.

"STORK actually stands for Secure idenTity acrOss boRders acKnowledged."

Not only is this an embarrassingly contrived acronym, the expanded text doesn't actually mean anything. I suppose you might get a triple word score on buzzword bingo. I suggest that the Eurocrat responsible is publically storked with a pair of CD-ROMs.

I'm sooo glad I'm emigrating next year.

*Gets coat, furniture, cats, kids and wife and hails a shipping container...

This lunatic obsession with ID cards just never ends.

Stop the planet. I want to get off.

'They'd like to reassure everyone that there are "no plans" to share usage information between governments (except as necessary to authenticate eIDs).' - lol

.....until they've made sure that we've handed our soveriegnty over completely to the EU Commission, who will then order it.

ffs...what next..

I've seen documents describing the "European Citizens Card", but even many in the SmartCard Industry don't know the exact specifications. Many things remain optional, for exampe the use of the ECC as a travel document may not be implmented in the UK, but it likely would be in Germany. One things is clear, the card - or a variation of it is quite likely to happen, especially as a counter to unplanned EU immigration, (ECC = Health/Benefit Entitlement Card)

However it may not be a card! I suspect it will (2012) end-up being an embedded technology in , for example, daughter of Nokia 6131 NFC or the equivalent Sagem GSM...

@ Comission Rat:

"However it may not be a card! I suspect it will (2012) end-up being an embedded technology in , for example, daughter of Nokia 6131 NFC or the equivalent Sagem GSM..."

Or perhaps.....

"What's that little lump just below the nape of your neck?"