The UK Government is planning to make a big Database that contains all our data. Health, Social Security, Tax and everything else the government knows about us will be consolidated into one big database. This raises three big questions.

Since the Government has such a poor record on big database projects will this just become another gravy train for companies lile CAP Gemini and Accenture?

The next question in my mind relates to the security of this data. How can they possibly keep it secure?

Holding all this data in one place makes it especially attractive to criminals who will want access to it to steal our identities. No matter what physical security is put in place some people will alsways be amenable to large amounts of money. So we can never be sure our data is entirely safe.

The third question is use of that data by a future government.

Many people in the UK really have no understanding of history. I read in the paper that people who were asked about ID cards said they had no problem with ID cards as they were not planning to be criminals.

Maybe they also don't realise that many people in Nazi Germany were not planning to be criminals either but the Government made them so. We might trust this Governament not to abuse the data it collects but what about a future Government perhaps one rules by a BNP or a Muslim Fundamentalist Prime minister. Could we trust them too?

Should we risk giving this tool to anyone even someone we trust?