How would you go about persuading people to accept a deeply unpopular proposal like National Identity Cards and a huge, intrusive National Identity Register (NIR)? Well, you might introduce it gradually one group of victims at a time. You might start, for example, with students - you could make it difficult to get a student loan or bank account unless you “voluntarily” sign up. You might then use the fear factor and make ID Cards a requirement for workers in industries such as aviation. Who could object to that?

Well the aviation industry has.

The Guardian reports that the chief executives of British Airways, easyJet, Virgin Atlantic and BMI have written a joint letter to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith complaining of being used as political pawns. For those five rivals to get together on anything is pretty unusual in itself, the directness of their attack quite amazing.

All airside workers will from next year be forced to enroll in the “voluntary” ID Card scheme. The airline industry argues that not only will this not provide any extra security but could actually make flying less safe:

“First and foremost, no additional security benefits have been identified. Indeed, there is a real risk that enrolment in the national ID scheme will be seen to provide an added, but ultimately false, sense of security to our processes”

The British Air Transport Association (BATA) goes on to makes it clear that the airline industry is not going to sit back and be used in this way:

“This supports our view that the UK aviation industry is being used for political purposes on a project which has questionable public support.”

Looks like the government’s been rumbled.

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