DATA LOSS SHATTERS CONFIDENCE IN ID CARDS

12.00.00am GMT Fri 14th Mar 2008

Commenting on the Joint Committee on Human Rights critical report into 'Data Protection and Human Rights', Jenny Willott, Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, said:

"This report should be the last nail in the coffin for ID cards. Why should the public trust this Government with the quantity of personal data they would load on to the ID card system, when it has utterly failed to protect far less?

"Over the last 10 years, the Labour government has combined a drive to gather up evermore information on the public with a cavalier attitude to people's basic human right for their personal data to be properly protected.

"Why has it taken the loss of data affecting 1 in every 3 people for the Government to look again at their security procedures?

"Whatever the outcome of the ongoing review into personal information safeguards, the Government will have to do the miraculous to convince anyone that they know how to fix this systematic problem."