It’s not just the UK government. Every EU government signed up to data-sharing in September 2007. That’s the bad news.

This common government mania for data collection and data-sharing has survived all the spectacular occasions of data loss in the UK over the past year. That’s another bit of bad news.

The good news is that we turned a corner last week. Last week, as you know, it came to light that a consultant had lost the source code for the UK Government Gateway and some logon details.

Why’s that good? Because the Government Gateway is the UK vehicle for data sharing with other EU countries. That is where personal data and company data would be stored for visiting Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, …

Those overseas people and companies will not want their data stored on the UK’s Government Gateway. Not now that no-one can be sure who can see it and alter it and profit from it. Not now that Gordon Brown has confirmed that no data on government systems is secure.

These overseas people and companies pay taxes and they have votes. They will lobby their representatives hard to ensure that there is no chance of their data being given to the leaky-as-a-sieve Brits. They will succeed – what possible defence could there be?

Data-sharing may go on. But it will go on without us, the Brits. No other country with a modicum of self-interest would release their data to us now.

We have all done our best to argue against the NIS and its unpleasant cousins. And David Davis is a beacon. It hasn’t got us anywhere. (We will all continue nevertheless, of course.)

But in the end – or rather, the beginning of the end – it is the government’s data losses which will see off the NIS. It is their surreal mixture of smugness, brazen mendacity, incompetence and insouciance which is the most powerful advocate against the NIS.

And it is other countries’ reactions to that dreadful cocktail which will nail the NIS.

Unsatisfactory? Perhaps. But that’s the way it is.

You wanted to “win” on the basis of logic? Scientific evidence? Theological/political/ethical/psychological argument? Maybe that will come after the victory. But the victory itself will be a grubby little affair full of threats and recriminations.

We must return the favour if the Netherlands, for example, suffer some central government data loss. We must refuse to have our data sent to Holland.

And we must hope that China join in soon. If and when China denounce the biometrics technology salesmen on whose flaky products the whole edifice depends then, again, the NIS and its fellow-travellers will be stopped in their tracks.

Meantime, back to EU data-sharing. James Hall, Chief Executive Officer of IPS, Registrar-General and King of identity is responsible for Project Stork, which measures and promotes the interoperability of the various EU systems like our Government Gateway.

Most Brits would find the next meeting with the Stork committee unbearably embarrassing. But not James Hall. Why? Because he’s made of sterner stuff? No. He’s just very very used to failure.