The next phase of the ID scheme is about to begin. Already the PM has torn up 2005's promises to Parliament about how the ID database will work. Now he backs police 'fishing expeditions'. What next?
How do YOU fancy a 20-minute grilling by an official? Or a dossier on your private life built by bureaucrats? Do you know what official files say about you - what if they are wrong?
From April 2007 the UK Identity & Passport Service begins to open ID interrogation centres - 69 of them this year. New passport applicants - mostly teenagers - will be guinea-pigs for National Identity Scheme enrolment.
At the head of the queue are 300,000 young people. You, or your family... soon to be treated as suspects.
A passport is not a right. Soon when you apply you'll be asked for lots of information about yourself: official numbers, old addresses, your education, that sort of thing. It will be used to look up everything about you: school, social services, police, and credit records, perhaps family details... to grab all your private information. "Data-rape", some people are calling it.
You may - later, you will - be summoned, at a time to suit the IPS. Photos and fingerprints will be taken. An "intrusive interview" will check that your answers about details of your life agree with the official ones. If they do, you'll get your passport. If not... it is not clear.
It takes time to assemble a file on you. The UK IPS estimates 1 in 4 will have to cancel their travel plans, because they do not get a passport in time.
Get a passport NOW. Tell your friends, if you think their private lives should be their own. If you do before the centres open, your chances of avoiding data-rape are good. And by fighting you'll help stop it happening to others.
Before you go wandering for your gap year or on holiday, tell Tony Blair and his bullying government to "Take a hike".
