Rosher.Net

It’s said that a week is a long time in politics. There’s another saying too; ‘get them while they’re young’. It’s fairly clear now, from media, from peer comment, from sites like no2id, that the electronic ID card is not going to happen any time soon – right thinking libertarians (like myself) will fight it to a standstill. It might take a generation to get it through parliament… Hmm, a generation…

Last week, the DfES (Department for Education and Skills) admitted a plan to fingerprint every school child without requiring parental consent. Of course, the child has to consent and has to understand what he or she is consenting to. But let’s face it, how many adults have really thought this stuff through? Given classroom peer pressure, which of our dear things is going to go against the flow, against their teacher’s wishes, and say no?

And once the kids have given their consent to fingerprinting – for the library access… for logging on to the computers… ‘No? Sorry then you can’t have access. Sure? Huh? Thought so.’ – then a DNA swipe is around the next corner along with blood sampling and the rest. One generation later you have the UK DNA database and no-one really noticed, no-one dissented when they needed to. Combine that with the sharing of databases within the system and, well, you’d better hope your genes are clean.

Whether you believe the ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ or not, there can be no rational person who does not see that we are moving ever faster into Big Brother UK. I wonder, as someone with nothing to hide but with many fears, just what life will be like for children in that brave new world…

Later edit: http://www.leavethemkidsalone.com/

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