Watch the Hand 2: Perceptions

ID cards. You'll have them even if you don't want them.

That's almost a certainty, unless the Tories or Lib Dems win the next elections, which doesn't sound very realistic.

However, despite the government's past admissions (when it suited them) that ID cards won't solve problems like terrorism and that the benefits to the State have been exaggerated to the detriment of the highlight that should have been given to individual benefits (which is funny, because I don't want to have to prove who I am because I know perfectly well who I am, because of the principle of the thing - for me it's essentially an issue of personal liberties and freedoms being eroded, and I can't avoid feeling robbed - and because I don't believe in the benefits to the individual)

If we were to accept that an ID card scheme was a good thing, then why the exceptions for some? And why does it have to e so costly to the individual?

Anway, I've made my views on Id cards once, but what I had forgotten to recount here was what happened to friend of mine.

The other day she had the wallet here she keeps her European ID card stolen, only realized it 10 minutes later and quickly run to the bank to cancel her account. Unluckily the (male) burglar (whe now the burglar was male because she saw him run out of the restaurant where she was having lunch but didn't think much of it until she noticed the wallet was missing) had already been to the bank and withdrawn £600 pounds from her account using her ID card with an obvious female name and photo on it;

When she returned to the branch to make a formal complaint against the agent who allowed the stupid withdrawal to happen - and she was a little incensed, thus making alarm bells ring inside the branch and automatically turn her into an undesirable client - she wasn't allowed to see the branch manager because she didn't have an ID card to prove who she was; for a good 15 minutes they maintained that she had to prove who she was even though she explained her ID and all credit cards had been stolen and she didn't have a driving licence. Finally she saw the manager, closed the account and told them to bugger off.

In a world already ridden with deeply frustrating call centres, automated calls, fear-mongers and incompetent minds in positions of power, the last thing anyone needs is to be forced to prove who they are.

Not least because we will be creating a scope not to be believed.

There's no avoiding feeling incensed at this when today we learn that the Ministry of Defence lost 11,000 ID cards; and this was only a trial period in a very small part of the scheme.

Worse even than losing the cards was the government's admission that it was necessary to improve the "security awareness" of the scheme.

Not security, but "security awareness".

Because we live in a world of perceptions.