One could have predicted it. The government has been talking with "private firms" about selling access to the proposed ID card database. This is the database that would gather together information about every person in the country - from biometric data to benefit entitlement, from home address to health problems. And it will be available to Tesco and any other company prepared to pay to rifle through your private life.

Independent article here. (Link originally from The Inquirer.)

The article mentions using the cards and database to check identities at the PoS. From this most authoritarian and untrustworthy government it can only be the beginning.

The infamously unnacountable and inexplicable private credit rating system illustrates how little lenders and vendors care about the validity and accuracy of the information they use, and how little they care about the effect it has on people (as a group distinct from their customers). With the government chucking its dubious databasing ability into the mix, including its aura ineffible official "correctness", one can only imagine the ensuing chaos.