Identity theft is the fastest growing fraud in Britain. But how do you stop thieves stealing your identity? Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke believes strongly that ID cards are the key – and in a passionate polemic makes the case for the controversial plans to register the biometric data of British people on a national database.

So far the anti-ID cards lobby has been making the running. A broad spectrum of the media is against a national database – from right wing libertarians to liberals on the left who fear a police state. Charles Clarke believes he’s speaking up for the argument too little heard – that the new system will protect the citizen. He’s furious that people say supporters of the national database will help bring about a fascist state or British gulags. His wife’s family is Estonian and many of them were killed by the KGB. So Charles Clarke visits Estonia to find out why a country which has experienced true totalitarianism has embraced one of the most advanced ID card systems in the world.

He argues that the state holding information about us on centralized databases can bring far more benefits than dangers. He meets the victim of a horrific sexual assault whose attacker was caught, 15 years later solely because of the national DNA database. He also talks to a man whose partner died after a routine medical procedure partly because her full medical record was not available to all those who treated her. Charles Clarke believes the creation of ID cards and National Identity databases can allow people more access to their own data and more control over who can look at it.