Investigate the pros and cons of ID cards

A national identification card would be used to prove someone's identity to government officials. Each cardholder would have a unique card. The information stored on the card would be basic details and would be checked by and confirmed by the cardholder. Indentity theft would be reduced by using biometric information such as fingerprints in order to link the card to the cardholder. A large database called the "National Identity Register" would hold all the data.

Advantages
- Immigration control - Immgritation would become a lot easier to control and they would help border angents. Identifying individuals would be made much easier with the use of the identity cards as they would hold such information as height, weight, eye-colour, etc. Furthemore, border officials would be able to recieve much more control and would be able to find out the immigration status of individuals.
- Easy Identification – Many places ask for photographic proof of identification and for those without a driving license or another form of photo identification it would make proving your identity easy and hassle free. Also an easier form of identification would make check in times at airports less and also much easier to handle.

Disadvantages
- Feasibility – It would difficult to issue cards to citizens, permanent residents and legal immigrants. It would also mean staff would have to be trained to be able to issue cards. Also it would be difficult to ensure the population applied for cards. Homeless people may find it hard to produce identification in order to obtain a card as they may not birth certificates etc.
- Many people already have a form of identification such as a passport or drivers license. It would be pointless for people to carry around two forms of ID card. Also the costs of create national identity cards would outweigh the befits of having them
- Possible Invasion Of Privacy – By having the ID card the government would have to create a database in which personal information would have to be stored some people may see this as an invasion of privacy.

I think that the likelyhood of this happening and being a success is very small. It is too much trouble and will waste too much time and money to get every single person within the UK to change to this form of ID when we already have a perfectly decent identification system in place. Furthermore, the expense of changing the whole system, implementing it, training staff etc, would be better used in improving our country in somewhere that actually needed the help, like our healthcare system or something similar that is more likely to be much more beneficial.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5438693_pros-cons-national-id-cards.html