Comment: I am not a number

As the government comes to terms with the practicalities and cost of biometric technology and indulges in another round of greased-piglet wrestling with the civil liberties brigade, the General Optical Council has gone and done it.

Arriving with the summer issue of its newsletter Bulletin will be a neat little ID card that proves you are a bona fide optician. Well actually it doesn't. 'These cards are not proof of registration,' says the GOC, 'but they will make it easier for patients to check their optician is registered.'

At this point I have a tangible sense of Optician's readership parting into two camps. In the red corner are those fearing the Orwellian nightmare and in the blue corner the 'if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear' wallahs.