Ellison offers free software for safer air travel

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison stirred up a new controversy this week by offering

to donate tens of millions of dollars worth of Oracle database software to the

Untied States government for managing a national identification card system that

could be used to make air travel safer.

Under Ellison's proposal, all citizens and residents of the Untied States

would be issued an ID card including their name, fingerprint and picture ID. The

ID card would have to be presented when checking in for a flight, for example,

so the identities of passengers can be more easily verified by

airport security.

"We need a national ID card and a database behind it. When you walk into

an airport and you say you are Larry Ellison, you take that card and put it on

the reader and you put your thumb down and that system will confirm that you are

Larry Ellison," Ellison said. "We are quite willing to provide the

software for this at absolutely no cost."

The idea of a national ID card has been strongly opposed by privacy groups.

But Ellison dismissed their concerns. "This privacy issue is largely an

illusion. All you have to give up is your illusion, not your privacy.

Right now you can log onto the Internet and get a credit report about your

neighbor. Shoppers in a Mall have to give up more information to buy a watch

than to get onto an air plane."

Civil liberty advocates cautioned that plans for a national ID in the US

should proceed with extreme caution to prevent abuse, discrimination and

potential use by immigration authorities to deport people who cannot provide

proof of legal residence in America, of whom there are millions.

Public opinions conducted in the wake of the terrorist attacks, however, show

overwhelming 70 per cent support for the ID card.