So, private companies will be allowed access to data held in any national ID database. Sure, they won’t be allowed to go “fishing”, which I assume means that they’ll have to show that they have a legitimate interest in the person in question before finding out everything about them.

Obviously, no private company would ever do something like that under false pretences, no sirree. No nasty new power company would change your account to their’s on the basis of a phone call with an eight year old child, either. Oh, and phishing wouldn’t work. Oh, and down is now up, just for those who didn’t get the memo.

One of the defences I’ve often heard for the ID scheme is that a government database would be much preferable to all the nasty banks and utility companies having all this information on you. Which I would take issue with, for a couple of reasons.

• Have you seen the government’s record on large scale IT projects?
• At least private companies have some incentive to keep data secure (you know, because they’ll be sued if it gets out and they have a reputation to protect). The government knows that if when it’s data leaks, then nobody can do anything anyway. There’s no big stick to keep them in line with.
• The banks and utility companies will get all the fucking data from the government anyway, whether you want them to or not.

Oh yes, don’t forget:

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