THE siting of a passport office in Swindon may appear to be a welcome development (Advertiser, May 4).

However, it should be sounding the alarm bells. For it marks the first step in the Government's plans to introduce compulsory ID cards.

The cosily named "interview centres" will eventually function as legally enforced Government registration offices and they will be at the heart of the new State surveillance IT system.

They will be places where people will be summoned to be compulsorily fingerprinted, uniquely numbered like cattle and have their personal details stored in a central State database. It is a sinister, anti-libertarian development and the public is being deceived about it by our Government.

Meanwhile, the Home Office, which carries responsibility for passports and now ID, has allowed more than 1,000 foreign criminals to go missing. It beggars belief that such an incompetent Government department should expect to be entrusted with the personal details of every adult in the country.

The best advice to anyone who may be concerned about having their identity controlled by the State is that you should renew your passport immediately, whether you need to or not, and buy yourself 10 years of relative freedom from this increasingly authoritarian Big Brother regime.

For more information see the website www.renewforfreedom.org

Lynda WarrenBroad Town