the fourth place

I'm not sure if the Home Office have repeated this lie 1.7bn times, but they are trying hard.

Here's my response to this article from, you guessed it, the BBC.

I wonder if anyone at the BBC has actually looked at the 1.7bn figure. I have and - though I'm not an expert - frankly I think the Home Office are being simply deceitful in publishing this figure and that campaigners have failed to present the level of actual and potential mendacity involved. I can only imagine they are being deliberately conservative in their criticisms.

As for the BBC it is pathetic that the figure is repeated without any qualification and without reference to previous criticisms from experts. I am left believing that BBC employees must simply be partial to the ID scheme and feel compelled to complain to you today on that basis. Certainly, the statistic is worthy of specific scrutiny as an example of Home Office dishonesty.

In the meantime I would expect the article to be amended to include a reference to prior criticisms of the 1.7bn figure and for the BBC to put in place tougher procedures to ensure that examples of factual bias are not presented on the BBC web site again and that no article can be published on bbc.co.uk before it is scrutinised.