As a marketing strategy this has something to be said for it. This is quite deliberate. As the Cabinet document summarising the CCTA report put it, public concern about 'the spectre of a police state' will need to be allayed by making the cards 'an attractive practical proposition'. The former would gain politically from an association with food rather than conscription . A system of national identification will be essential to its success.
Surveillance is only the first part of the game.
It is estimated that the average adult has private information about her or himself on over 200 separate files. By 1982 Government departments boasted 220 different data banks. Now technology provides the opportunity for Government to draw all this disparate information together. One way is through the practice of data matching - linking up computer files on individuals across departments to build profiles of the data subject . Another way is to centralise information on a single national database, for which there will soon by a prototype in the form of the new, privately controlled National Insurance 2 Recording System.