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the Press Release Index
28th January 2008
Tories Say NO To ID Cards
West
Aberdeenshire
and Kincardine Conservatives were out in force at the
weekend gathering signatures on a nationwide petition
opposing the introduction of compulsory identity cards.
Conservative leader David Cameron has spearheaded a campaign
of opposition at Westminster but asked party activists to
engage with the public on a day of action to raise awareness
and gauge opinion on this controversial subject.
North East
MSP Alex Johnstone, who will also be the party's
local candidate in the forthcoming Westminster general
election, spent Saturday on the streets of Westhill,
Banchory and Stonehaven finding out what people really
think.
Speaking
afterwards he said, "While my own position on
the introduction of compulsory identity cards is
motivated by my opposition to the principle, I have not been
surprised to find many who believe that if you have 'nothing
to hide you have nothing to fear'.
I have
found many more people however, who oppose them for
practical reasons, mostly because they simply do not trust
the government with their personal information.
"The people
I met on the streets of Banchory and Westhill believe that
they will be expensive and time consuming to obtain.
Neither do they believe that they will have any effect on
fraud or terrorism, believing in fact that having all your
information on a single card will make us more vulnerable to
card cloning and identity theft.
"Worse
still everyone is well aware of the number of high profile
cases in recent months where secure information held by the
government has been lost or stolen and used for illegal
purposes. The introduction of a compulsory ID card scheme
would simply open the door to this fast growing arm of the
criminal economy".
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