I can see this being rolled out across europe. I know other countries have such technology in place, but in a purely voluntary basis. This scheme is not.
Already the Irish govt is talking about this. Will britain be the guinea pig for the rest of the world?

remember, britain is the most overtly surveilled country on the planet. So social conditioning has been hard at work to bring its population to the level whereby they will consent to this.

Naturally there will be a controlled opposition to reign in any true opposition to this plan.

Another scenario is everybody will have the ID card, but identity theft will be rampant and loads of people will be affected. And sure enough they will call on their loverly govt to provide a solution.
(this entire process can be called "engineering consent" an old process)

I'll pop your next post if you can tell me what that solution will be?

The solution will be something like this:

The biometric card is only half of a key. The other half of the key will be a small chip implanted under your skin. You will need to have the card AND they read the corresponding data from the implanted chip. This way one cannot 'use' someone elses card. The chip will be like an unlock key for YOUR card only.
This prevents unauthorized use of 'your' card.

Any other world problems you need solved today? I am after all, the Real Napster, but am also very busy!

How many times do I have to say this, Nineteen-Eighty Four is not a manual, dammit!

Um... I've actually never read 1984 (if that's the book, you mean) I basically came up with that answer in about 15 seconds after reading his clip.

You should. Its a powerful read. And I was referring to the clip itself. I don't see the need for the cards other than to track people in order to control them. Whether its Big Brother or Big Nanny, its should the goverment working for me, not the other way around.

There was actually a school in California (If I remember right) that used RFID tags as a tracking means within the school. Tardies and absenteeism almost vanished literally overnight. The school could tell where every student was at any given time. Kids didn't loiter in the halls or other areas. The biggest benefit was actually in an emergency; they had to evacuate the school due to a fire alarm, and the school officals knew that every teacher and student was present and accounted for in a few seconds. So the technology is both a blessing and a curse at the same time, for what it's worth.

Back in the day we wandered around hunting and gathering