Why Defy-ID?
The UK government plan to introduce a compulsory biometric identity system, fronted by a card but backed up by a massive database that will intrude on many aspects of our lives.
Not a number - time to refuse ID
The government has now won the power to give anyone applying for a passport, or any other “designated document”, a compulsory ID card and at the same time build a vast database of personal and biometric information, starting in 2008.
Four out of five of us already have passports, and just one more act of parliament will be needed to make ID cards compulsory for everyone; this wasn't exactly unpredicted.
So what if this wasn't in the Labour manifesto, as some opponents have complained? Why should anyone expect us to have faith in Tony Blair or any other authority-obsessed war-mongering politician anyway? Politicians who voted against the public to invade Iraq have now voted to invade our lives, for our own protection.
Media soundbites about identity theft and terrorism are designed make us fearful of other people, and make us feel like we need a state to protect us. What will hurt most in the long-term is the state's use of the National Identity Register to restrict and control access to public services, and give the majority of us the day-to-day hassle of having to produce evidence of our “entitlement”.
The state is intent on taking away any privacy we have left, tracking every part of our lives, and selling our details to private companies. How long will it be before we start getting billed for healthcare if we don't appear on the register for any reason? How long before we're stopped in the street and get asked to produce our cards, or perhaps worse still, have our private information read invisibly from a distance, just to show we are entitled to exist?
The real struggle must now begin to make this scheme completely unworkable. The world should not belong to the ruling class who, if you go back through history, have always used force and laws to take land, resources, and make people do what they wanted.
We should not have to justify our existence to the state - it's time to take back our lives!
Defy-ID is an adhoc network of groups and individuals who are prepared to actively resist the introduction of Identity Cards and the creation of the National Identity Register.