For some time, I have been boring the people I speak to in the pub with my thoughts on Identity cards. I have blogged about it too.

They often look at me sideways and say "Well I have nothing to hide, what's your problem?" The unsaid next sentence is of course that my objection to letting the government collect all my data on a single large database is that I must have some dark secret that needs to be hidden.

How about keeping secret your address, bank details, national insurance number and the names and ages of all your children?

Seems that if you do give it to the government they might just leave it lying around on some CDs for anyone to look at.

The chancellor says the Banks will not anyone loose money, but should bank shareholders pay for government mistakes?

What if someone uses that information to kidnap a child?

I just heard Alistair Darling say on Radio 4 that if we let the goverment have more data for ID cards it would me more secure. Sorry, but I don't belive it!

This is truely a bad week for those of us who value our privacy. The UK government has used the terrorism excuse to put in place several new measures to spy on those of us who live here.

For a start the government has allowed a whole range of organisations to look at who we phone and when. This includes the location of the nearest cell site when we do it from our mobile phone. There is no oversight of this by the courts. They can just log in and download our itemised bill.

Then the government has told us that we must give up encryption keys when asked. If not we face 2 years in prison. And if you have really forgotten the key thats two years in prison mate. So better write it down somewhere.

The majority of people have been convinced by the argument and I continually hear the refrain "I have nothing to hide".

That is possibly true of all the people I know but they have all failed to realise that some government employees can't be trusted, and will reveal what they know about someone for a fee. Lets face it goverment jobs don't pay a fortune and criminals are likely to offer money and the chance are someone will be tempted.

I can't wait for the first case to come up where a local council officer has used it to spy on his girlfriend/wife/enemy.

In a state where Police now rgularly prosecute people who defend their homes from burglars what do you expect?

So there is at least one flaw in Vista. Reminds me of voice recognition demo I went to where someone shouted out "C: Format".