The establishment of a national ID card got a little closer to becoming reality in Britain as the bill easily passed its second reading in late December. Beginning in 2008 every citizen will be required to provide and keep current personal information kept in a national database.

… Tony Blair’s Labor government estimates the cost of the system at 3 billion pounds ($5.7 billion), though opponents believe it will cost at least twice that much.

Ever seen a government program that didn’t bloat out of control? For instance, when legislation for the national gun registry of Canada passed in 1995 it was believed that the end cost to the taxpayer would be a net $2 million (Canadian) — $119 million to implement offset by $117 million income received from registration fees. With 7 million guns registered (an estimated 88% of all guns in country, not counting terrorist weapons) costs have soared to over $1 billion and ongoing maintenance costs have skyrocketed. (For you math majors out there, that’s $142.86 per gun.)

Imagine what it will cost to track every bit of information about the some 60 million people of the United Kingdom, not to mention immigrants and temporary residents (personally, I put the project the eventual cost to be over $35 billion pounds). And we’re not just talking about keeping a name and address plus some static information like the make, model and serial number of a piece of hardware.

The heart of the Identity Cards Bill is the creation of a national database to contain 51 categories of detailed information on every British citizen and resident, including fingerprints and an iris scan.

Fingerprints and iris scans are only the beginning. Reading through the text of the bill reveals that the wording allows a great deal of latitude as to what information the British Big Brother will require, including “other biometric information”. Presumably when science comes to allow it, DNA information of every person on the British Isles will be captured, cataloged and stored in the massive government database.

The government will impose stiff fines for failing to report changes to information: the citizen must keep Big Brother’s data current. Moving? Change in employment? Getting married or having a baby? On top of all the other stress in your life you’d better remember to trot down to your local registration office and get one of the highly trained data entry clerks to punch in the new information.

And how about the many hands that will be entering information about you? Will they falter? Will numbers get transposed? Will your information be suddenly contaminated with data about the guy that happened to be standing in front of you in line?

Anyone who has ever attempted to get a drivers license can well imagine the quality of “data entry clerk” that will be employed by the state. And anyone who has ever tried to get a mistake on their credit report fixed can well imagine the nightmare that will await them when trying to do a similar thing with the bureaucracy that is government.

The potential for abuse is unimaginable. Of course there will be official abuse: it is a sociological maxim that information captured will be information abused. Abuse by government officials and friends of the government will happen from time to time, engendering a great sound and fury of outrage by the out-of-power party of the moment, after which the gathering of additional information will continue.

But the abuse on a small scale will be unimaginably damaging. Imagine the cop living down the street being able to look at your personal information. Imagine someone in your PTA or Lions Club being able to call up everything about you and your family. Imagine the parents of the kid that your kid has asked to a dance being able to investigate you on such a personal level.

Don’t think it won’t happen? It has already happened here. Low-level IRS personnel were caught calling up information about their neighbors just a few years ago. In town after town, cops with access to arrest records have been using it for personal information or even personal gain time after time.

Furthermore, the impact of abuse will grow over time because the information gathered will grow over time. Some “visionary” in the government will champion the great good that can be gained by tying the National ID Database to their creaking socialized medicine bureaucracy, so that medical history will be brought up with a click. Another will trumpet the benefits of tying financial information to the database. Soon everything about you will be accessible by thousands of people.

Now imagine a potential employer being able to see your work history, medical history, financial history, perhaps even DNA information that could point out genetic predisposition for everything from depression to criminal activity. Don’t think it can happen? Forget that your neighbor could easily supplement his income by doing a little research on you for someone. What if the potential employer was the government?

Doesn’t it sound reasonable that the State Department should be able to thoroughly vet personnel that will be deployed in embassies on foreign soil? Wouldn’t it make sense to allow the CIA to investigate potential agents making certain that we get the best, the brightest, the least likely to be turncoats? (Financial troubles? Oh no — he might become a double agent!)

What about jobs in the private sector that are essential to “national security”? Going to work on a weapons system for Boeing? Better check him out!

Do you really trust the government with all your information? Do you trust them to not screw it (and your life) up? Do you trust them to keep it secure?

I don’t. I won’t.