Richard Baum

I’m not the first to say it, and I won’t be the last, but if the government manages to lose the personal data of fifteen million of us (yes, 15,000,000 of us) in one go by bunging it in an internal envelope and hoping for the best, it doesn’t bode well for the ID card scheme.

But for me it isn’t the simple incompetence that’s the problem (although it is staggering that anyone, in any job, can be that incompetent), it’s the fact that the government expect us to hand over an incredible amount of data for virtually everything, and then they and the people they pass it onto treat it with such incredible disrespect. There’s nothing we can do about it, and the knock-on effects of them thinking it their right to ask for everything is having a disturbing impact on lots of other areas of life.

This government’s constant demands for personal data, now required for everything from car tax to purchasing a TV, and obtained in the name of everything from fraud-prevention to national security, is just simply excessive and gnawing away at our rights as citizens of this nation not to divulge every last bit of information to anyone who asks.

It’s a culture that’s pervading everything now. I went to the post office the other day to buy some stamps, and couldn’t leave the kiosk without being asked by the cashier what credit cards I had, whether I wanted a personal loan, and whether I wanted a car insurance quote. Now I know she was trying to sell me stuff, but what possible world have we stumbled into where it is even marginally appropriate to ask me about that? It’s my business, thanks. If I want credit, insurance or a loan, I’ll ask you. Shut up and mind your own business.

Every single one of the estate agents I’ve visited in the last few days (and, heaven preserve me, there’ve been a lot) has subsequently rung me to ask if I wanted mortgage advice, and what my income is. Mind your own business! It had occurred to me that a mortgage would be required to purchase a house, and that my income would be a fair guide to the likely amounts involved. I am not a numb-skulled simpleton, and if I want to talk to someone about mortgages, I will do so. I don’t need your offer of “help,” because it is clearly nothing more than a manic info-grab based solely on a vicious hunt for my money, and I have no idea what you’re gonna do with the stuff I tell you. Apart from probably laugh.

It’s this casual nosiness, and the equally casual acceptance of that prying from every commercial enterprise under the sun, that is one of the many negative consequences of the current climate we’re living in – where personal data and information isn’t personal any more. It’s the preserve of anyone who asks for it, and we’re used to giving it to them. It’s the norm to expect us to share everything now. The girl at the post office and the guy at the estate agent could’ve done anything with that information. It’s mine, and you’re not having it.

And neither are the government. Although they, of course, don’t just ask for it. They demand it. ID cards, which will be compulsory under government proposals, are not only spectacularly expensive, but will require us to give biometric as well as physical private information to a government that plainly can’t be trusted.

I don’t want to, I won’t, and I shouldn’t have to. There should be limits to what we’re asked to provide, and at the moment they seem to have been clearly over-stepped.

And 15 million people have found out what the consequences are today.

 Rick