What public support is there for NIDS?
Normally there is little public support for NIDS, in ‘Anglo-American’ countries at least. In the past 20 years, NIDS have been proposed at various times in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. Each time politicians have dropped the schemes in the face of strong public opposition. However, in the wake of the September attacks, there are signs of a shift in public attitudes in favor of NIDS. On October 6, 2001, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported that 80% of Canadians would submit themselves “to providing fingerprints for a national identity card that would be carried on your person at all times to show police or security officials on request”. However, there has been no public explanation of how such a scheme would work, so one must presume that this support reflects a general assumption that a NIDS would provide protection against another attack like that of September 11. This apparent public support would presumably be much weaker if people knew that a NIDS would not be effective f
