As so many people have already pointed out, the loss of the UK’s child benefit database is a disaster for the government. The incompetence beggars belief. This data is so important it should be treated like the launch codes for a nuclear weapon – there is nothing indicating that people were taking it anything like that seriously.

Until the discs are recovered (if they ever are), it seems to me there will be little way of knowing whether they are or have been used for fradulent purposes, who has copied the information, where it might have been sent to, in what new formats. Of the 25 million people who have been put at risk, some are bound to be victims of identity fraud, by sheer law of averages. Each time one of them is it will make another negative headline – whether they were actually connected to these lost CDs or not. Iain Dale has also pointed out that some or all of the people exposed could, theoretically, sue the government (though they would, in effect, be suing themselves). The amount of negative publicity could be endless.

Let us assume, then, that this Labour government is toast, and that we can expect a Conservative government in 2010 at the latest. What does it mean for ID cards?

According to the Home Office’s ID card implementation plan (opens pdf – timetable on page 27) the government plans to start issuing ID cards to British citizens at around the end of 2009 – by which time the massive database they need will already exist (it will just need filling in). This is when people will really start to feel this scheme in action – when they have to start carrying the things around, when they have to start paying for them, when they have to start registering. The Lib Dems have promised not to register at all. No2ID and others will undoubtedly organise mass demonstrations. If Gordon Brown is insane enough to push on with them anyway, just months before an election, then the Conservatives will promise to scrap them when they come in (as they already have).

I’m sure they will deliver on that promise. But, as Guy Herbert of No2ID has written on these pages:

‘ID cards’ are the concrete expression of this register, but strictly speaking are not necessary: numbering you and making constant reference to the central file will do

There is a third way option, then, which Cameron could take. Why not ditch the actual ID cards, but keep the database? Keep recording biometric data for all visa applicants, etc., but don’t push on through with the idea of forcing everyone to carry their card? When the Tories come in they will be confronted with this choice. Junk the entire database, and try and roll back to the way things were. Or junk the concrete expression, at which point most people will probably forget about the database behind them. I believe they will come in, talk to the civil servants in charge of the scheme, be convinced of the difficulty of rolling back, and take the second option. This presents those of us who are against the idea of a ‘database state’ with a serious problem – the flashpoint moment of resistance, when people can make an obvious stand, can easily be dodged.

I personally believe a centralised database state an inevitability. The real question then becomes, not how do we ’stop it’, but what powers we (as a people) need to possess be able to live with one. The power to immediately sack members of an administrative department that do not treat this data with the seriousness it deserves seems like an obvious start.

(cross-posted from OurKingdom)