Abandon support for crazy ID cards, Westminster LibDems tell local MP Karen Buck

7.05.55pm GMT Thu 22nd Nov 2007

LibDems have long argued that ID cards will be expensive, bureaucratic and ineffective... now we know that we cannot even trust the Government to keep our data safe

The Government's data disaster over child benefit records shows why plans for Identity Cards must be scrapped, say Westminster Liberal Democrats.

Following the revelation that the personal details of 25,000,000 parents and children have been lost by the Government's Revenue and Customs department (HMRC), and could fall into the hands of identity fraudsters, chair-elect of the local Liberal Democrats, Mark Blackburn, has written to Labour MP for Regent's Park and Kensington North Karen Buck urging her to withdraw her support for the ID cards scheme and a National Identity Register in which the Government wants to store the personal information of everyone in the country.

"The fiasco at HMRC has shown the dangers inherent in the Government holding vast amounts of information about each and every one of us. Officials have been utterly slipshod in the way this same information is kept," said Mark.

"This whole incompetent episode has been shocking and families in Westminster will now rightly question whether their personal details are safe.

"The National Identity Register, which the Government is setting up as part of the Identity Card scheme, will hold vastly more information on every one of us than HMRC managed to lose.

"The possibilities for the loss of that information, either accidentally or through illegitimate means, must surely make the Government stop and think very seriously about their plan to store all the data they can on us on a central register.

"This is a clear illustration of the real dangers of a Big Brother centralised state. State control of personal identity details is a real threat to our civil liberties. The Government should respond to the anger and abandon its ID card scheme immediately. It is clear the Government cannot be trusted to manage effectively mass databases of personal information.

"Labour MP Karen Buck voted for Identity Cards when the scheme went through Parliament, despite some brave Labour MPs taking a principled stand and joining the Liberal Democrats in voting against.

"But a debacle on this scale must surely give her cause to think again. I have written to her calling on her to press the Government to end the Identity Card scheme for good and to ensure that we do not risk a personal data disaster on an even more catastrophic scale."