Disillusioned Discordian

In a society where Identity documents are required to obtain services, what do we become without those documents? This is the question parents who fail to pay their Child Support Maintenance could soon be asking themselves. As reported by the Times, The Welfare Reform Bill, which is currently going through the house would enable the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to commandeer the driver’s licences and passports of parents who fall behind on their payments.

Of course as with most neo-labour punitive measures this would be carried out without a court order. The dangerous precedent this Bill sets becomes more apparent as we move towards a society where a single National Identity Card is required to interact with state and private commercial services. In such a society the removal of the card by the state would deny the person access to services transforming them overnight into a persona non gratis. At times such a notion has seemed far fetched, even for someone such as myself who takes a great interest in these matters. Now sadly it seems with this measure we are only a small step away from living in a society where confiscation of your ID card can be used as a punitive measure without judicial overview.