This week’s Big Question went to Coventry in the midlands and asked:

Do you think the ID cards scheme is a good idea?

John (33)  Banks make mistakes often enough.  I can’t see how they can make ID cards for everyone in the country without making mistakes.  And once there were incorrect details in the system imagine how difficult it would be to change them?

Rachel (25)  I haven’t really got a problem with it.  If you’ve not done anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Nadeem (47)  If you ask me, it’ll be a criminal’s dream.  All that information on one card.  Identity theft is already a big problem – why make it easier for criminals?

Pete (36)  All of us carry ID of one sort or another – driving licence, passport, whatever.  Why not have it all in one place, recognised everywhere.  Of course you could lose it – but the more important something is, the less likely you are to lose it.

Barbara (50)  We’ve managed all these years without ID cards so why do we now need to spend billions of pounds to introduce cards.  It’ll cost a fortune and I just don’t see the point.

Justin (39)  I lived in Spain for ten years and everyone carries ID cards there and they don’t seem to think it’s an attack on their civil liberties or anything like that.  I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Lisa (28)  I’d rather not have to carry an ID card but, you know, they say it’ll help the fight against terrorism and I think sometimes we have to do things we don’t like if it will make the country safer.  I think it’s a price worth paying.

Terry (49)  I don’t think a single one of the arguments for ID cards is convincing.  It won’t prevent terrorism, it won’t make life easier for anyone but it will cost an absolute fortune and be a bureaucratic nightmare.

Sylvia (68)  We used to have them when I lived in Italy and I didn’t mind – but that was just a photo and your name and address and that was the generally recognised ID card.  That was fine.  But here they’re talking about all kinds of biometric data – whatever that means!  Why do they need to have so much information on it?  I don’t like the idea of it.

Vineeta (19)  Well they say it wouldn’t be use to check up on anyone but if you have that much information on people centrally stored, who knows who get hold of it.  There’s no guarantee that it would be used properly.  I think it’s against peoples’ civil liberties.