Missing passports

Your report (2 May) that DVLA and the Passport Agency (now the UK Identity and Passport Service) have contrived to lose thousands of passports over the last five years - and that the losses have continued, despite the introduction of a new "secure" delivery system - does little to reassure us that UKIPS will be able to securely provide ID cards to the entire adult population.

That Home Office agencies are unable to guarantee the security of our documents is a clear demonstration of the folly of entrusting proof of identity to a specific piece of paper or plastic.

Of course, stray ID cards will be the least of our worries once compulsory registration is imposed on the entire population. We will have even more to fear from our precious data going astray when it is loaded onto the vast central database to which thousands of people will have access.

After all, some of the Madrid train bombers used ID cards obtained fraudulently from the Spanish Mint.

Government-issued documents may provide an illusion of security to technocrats who can't conceive of the system failing, but we will all pay dearly if the government succeeds in its attempt to nationalise our identities. Once our data are released, it will be impossible to regain our privacy.

GERAINT BEVAN

NO2ID Scotland

Grovepark Gardens

Glasgow