THE Home Office, through junior minister Joan Ryan MP, seeks to reassure us that unregulated information cannot be held on the ID cards it is forcing on us (It's on the cards, Letters, January 20).

Tony Blair announced plans for a "super database", the point of which is to make all information held about us by any branch of the Government available to every other branch of government.

This means a civil servant with your ID card and a computer can access all the other information the State has gathered about you.

All databases contain mistakes, incomplete records and inaccurately entered data.

Who will monitor the reliability of this information? How easy will it be for us to challenge errors?

Requests under the Freedom Of Information Act can already be refused on the basis that they will cost too much to process.

The Government argues this is all about efficiency, but efficiency and security are not compatible. Secure systems use inefficiency as a way of protecting information - they purposely make it difficult for criminals to gain access.

A more "efficient" system is, by definition, easier to access. Once terrorists and criminals have fake ID cards in their pockets, and "efficient" access to the system, how will we be protected?

Or is the Government expecting the bad guys to give up?

Commander Janet Williams (deputy assistant commissioner, Metropolitan Police), whose background is in terrorism, has said: "ID cards are not the solution to terrorism or serious and organised crime."

The IRIS biometric immigration trial at UK airports has failed half its assessments, and the Government is attacking its own information watchdog in order to prevent the public gaining access to information on the ID programme.

Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.