Is this the end for ID cards?

[Kaidonni]

What I meant was, would you trust the same establishment with running an ID card scheme if they screw up so monumentally as to lose the records of 25m benefit claimants, while blatantly violating the Data Protection Act? You just don't violate it unless it's either deliberate, or you need shooting, and everyone who employed you the same. A real business would go under and be ripped apart, the managers and other high-up individuals finding their butts on a platter in front of a very serious, unimpressed judge (well...not in the UK, maybe a country with judges who aren't idiots who hand out lenient sentences to murderers, rapists, etc etc...and proceed to harp on about the Human Rights of the criminals).

In days past, those guilty would have been lined up against the wall and shot at dawn by firing squad, or tortured in the most horific way and then executed...