I have for some weeks been urging readers to renew their passports, because you will soon not be able to do this without being fingerprinted and placed forever on the national identity register. I think fingerprinting is for burglars, and registers are for sex offenders, and I am afraid that millions of people are as yet unaware that this is going to happen. I don't want anyone to be taken by surprise when it does. If you want to be registered as if you were a cow, and fingerprinted as if you were a mugger, then fine. If not, you need to act soon. Please do spread the warning as widely as you can
The interrogation centres where the fingerprinting will be done are being built and equipped, right now. And at some point in the next 18 months, perhaps much sooner, those who seek to renew their passports will be told they cannot do so unless they attend at one of these centres, often quite distant from their homes. I suspect there will be no warning, just an announcement that this is now the rule. The law has already been passed, and merely needs to be brought into force. The price of renewal goes up in October, yet another reason to get on with it.
Tricia
Good advice Admin, but mine was only renewed a couple of years ago, when you could actually do most of it on the computer, so if I'm still travelling in 8 years time I'll just have to put up with the hassle
Sandie Seward
It's not so much the ID Cards that bother me, Tricia, but the National Identity Register database being set up. I'd like to think that our new prime minister may have second thoughts about it, but I somehow doubt it
He says he's for the people, well, we will just have to wait and see. I'm informing him here and now, that "the People" DO NOT WANT I.D. CARDS, or to be fingerprinted or scanned like criminals.
Drop this scheme Gordon, otherwise we will drop you and your party!
Tricia
I agree Sandie, but I don't know who or what we could replace either him or the party with, as none of them inspire me with a great deal of confidence. I've always said that if you don't bother to vote you can't complain at what you end up with, but all the main parties seem to have something or other with which I strongly disagree,
