Plans to introduce an identity card scheme are "dying a death of 1,000 cuts", David Davis has said.
The former shadow home secretary also told the BBC that there is no need for the government's planned national identity register, which the Conservative's are opposing.
On Tuesday, home secretary Alan Johnson dropped plans to make ID cards compulsory for pilots and airside workers at Manchester and London City airports.
And Johnson confirmed that ID cards would always be voluntary for British nationals.
But Davis questioned the effectiveness of the scheme following the latest moves.
"It is dying a death of 1,000 cuts," he stated. "But even so, by 2011 they are saying that if you require a passport you will go on the national identity register. It won't just be the biometric detail, which frankly they have got to do because of international agreements. It will be all the other data.
"There is no need for a national identity register. By 2011, the odds are, let's face it, that this [Conservative] government will be there and it will be cancelled. All of the money they have spent so far will have been largely wasted."
Davis also confirmed that he would not carry a voluntary ID card himself.
"Why should I put myself on a national identity register with 49 items of data about me that the government holds?" he asked.
"It could... actually reduce my security and at the same time actually increase the knowledge about me by the state. Why should I do that?"
Article Comments
Actually, it won't hold 49 items of data, it will be the same data as currently held on the passport database + fingerprints.
1st Jul 2009 at 3:53 pm by Matt
