Evening Standard demolishes the £1.3 billion identity fraud hype

SpyBlog has found a nice article from the Evening Standard which demolishes the £1.3 billion identity fraud hype, identity fraud being the reason de jour for ID Cards which will of course be replaced as soon as this kind of thing get to a wider audience:

"And thus the Governmet's supposed £1.3 billion tally of identity fraud falls to no more than £150 million, just over a tenth of the claimed figure."

and there are much cheaper alternatives than the £90 (a wild underestimate) that the governments claims an ID Card will cost, which actually will protect you from identity fraud and without most of the destruction of your personal Civil Liberties (obviously why the government isn't promoting them).

CIFAS, once a leading supporter of ID cards, now seem to have turned rather lukewarm about the Government's grand design. "It's very hard to say that ID cards will prevent identity theft," says Young. "It could have some benefits - that's as far as we'll go."

However, if you are worried about identity theft, there are rather more effective and cheaper safeguards than an ID card. For £11.75 you can ask CIFAS for "protective registration", which means they will carry out tough extra checks on any new application in your name. For £45, you can sign up for monitoring with a credit reference agency such as Experian, so you'll be alerted the moment anyone tries to apply for credit as you.