NO2ID

I tried a name at random and got no results. Then I tried "George Bush" in Crawford, Texas. It works perfectly - where is the satire?

In the conception of the site itself, which mocks the idea--which is inherent in the REAL-ID proposals, and our own Dear Leader's scheme--of being able to do this at all, and that if possible it somehow counts as a security measure .

Sorry, that wasn't an entirely serious question.

The web page authors do seem to have a degree of faith in data protection regulations across the Atlantic: "Gotcha! You didn't really think you view your driver's license on line did you? Send this to your friends and play a joke on them". I wouldn't really be overly surprised if our government were to propose making driver records available to corporate subscribers, no doubt with the justification that insurance companies need to find insurance cheats to make our roads safer. The concept really isn't that far removed from the ID Cards Bill's provision for the Home Secretary to correct inaccurate information that is given during verifications. Fortunately that isn't in this particular bill.

Didn't I read somewhere that the HO initially wanted to charge £75 for companies to verify individuals on the NIR, but then dropped it to 57p, and the companies still weren't interested?

I doubt it. Or at least not from any informed source. The Home Office refuses to publish any meaningful information related to costs or charges, on grounds of 'commercial confidentiality', but more likely because it hasn't got a clue. This is the organisation that was obliged to put through £934 million in adjustments to get its cashbook to balance for 2004-2005, but is 'confident' it has had no fraud.