Flights at risk as pilots refuse to accept 'demeaning' ID cards

[Maxbert]

I'm going to stick my head out from the JetBlast burrow where I usually dwell, as, having read through the whole thread, there is more than just Pilot input here-

I live in Luxembourg, and have done since 1973 (I was 5...). I hold a British passport, born in London of a British father and Italian mother. Up until a few years ago, I could renew my passport at the British Embassy in Luxembourg, and did so many times. Things changed, and now the Embassy in Paris handles passports for Benelux countries, Switzerland, France and the French DOM-TOMs. Why? God only knows, presumably it is for someone's "convenience", although not mine... Anyhow, the whole process has become considerably more expensive, time-consuming and inconvenient.

But here's the thing- Maybe not this year (when my passport is due for renewal), but certainly from 2012 according to the Act of Parliament and assorted information I have read, my details will also be included in the NIS, or whatever the database is called.

WHY?

I don't live in England, have no connections with the UK now other than by birth, but if I want to renew my documents this becomes mandatory.

So- I am applying for Luxembourgish nationality, and will renounce the British, if only for peace of mind. That being said, it is important to point out that Luxembourg has far, FAR more info about me on file than the UK does, including tax information, details about my children, medical info, etc...

Strangely, this bothers me far less than the idea of the UK having info on me- I suppose it's cultural (had a Luxembourg ID card since I was fifteen, IIRC), and it's part of the way of life on the Continent. Also, to date, nobody has come knocking on my door in the wee hours- Why should they?

ID cards bring undoubted benefits for all the "legitimate" identification purposes mentioned in posts above.

So- I am not anti ID card, nor, really, anti centralised DB, just as long as none of our governments turn all Terry Gilliam on us, which they could at any time, whether Luxembourg or England.

Two other brief points:

At some point, even given data-mining tools and whatnot, there will be just so much information that there will not be enough people or time to analyse it all- We will be just as anonymous within an ocean of information as within a desert of information.

Finally, RFID does not necessarily have to be your enemy- Luxembourg public transport recently introduced the "E-Go" card (clever, eh?) to replace paper tickets / cards. At first I thought "Uh-oh, all my movements will now be tracked"- Well no- No personal data has to be given, you saunter up and request a monthly ticket, pay for it (cash is fine), they take a plastic card, zap it, and you're on your way, once you have validated it at a base station to activate it. Thereafter you swipe it nowhere, it contains only data about its validity. This is a huge step backwards, as at least the old paper versions had a date stamp on them so you could tell when to renew them!

Maxbert's 2 €cent's worth...