How much more control can we stomach?

We're not the biggest fans of Meg Hillier MP here at Big Brother Watch Towers. The most compliant of the spineless drones that float around the Home Office, she staggers from embarrassing mistake to unintentionally hilarious error; but this latest idea really takes the biscuit. 

Yesterday, the parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Home Office, in a break between her relentless promotion of the National Identity Register in the North of England, floated the creation of an online ID card.

As The Northern Echo reports:

A Government minister has said identity cards for young people could be one way of keeping children safe on the internet.

Ms Hillier, who is also responsible for the national identity card scheme, said in Belgium, youngsters had identity cards.

She added: “Children have to prove they are children before they go on social networking sites.

“This isn’t Home Office policy, but there are various technical mechanisms. 

Not content with pushing the identity card scheme at a deeply sceptical population, Hillier is now trying to move people-tracking and ID surveillance online. 

The danger posed by paedophiles impersonating children on the internet is real – but it is one that can be countered with tough parenting rules for youngsters online rather than a catch-all policy that harms law-abiding people and leads to more surveillance and more government control. Children know not to get into cars with strangers because they have been taught to understand the risks – it is time parents treated chatting to strangers online with the same warnings.

But why let parents do the work when the government can interfere, eh?

By Dylan Sharpe