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Biometric ID Cards Trialled in Glasgow 186

Posted by CowboyNeal from the marks-of-the-beast dept.
StuWho writes "The Register is reporting a trial of Biometric ID Cards in Glasgow, Scotland. The trial is one of several tests prior to the implimentation of a universal UK ID card. It also carries reports of how you can evade the sensors by doing something as simple as crying. 'It costs the UK 1.3 billion a year, and facilitates organised crime, illegal immigration, benefit fraud, illegal working and terrorism,' Home Office Minister Des Browne said. He then said that the ID card would fix all this, but did not say how. It's not only in the US where governments are using the excuse of terrorism to infringe on civil liberties."
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Biometric ID Cards Trialled in Glasgow More

Biometric ID Cards Trialled in Glasgow

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  • And now for the usual sarcasm about Revelations. (Score:5, Funny)

    by The I Shing ( 700142 ) * on Saturday May 22, 2004 @02:56PM (#9225825) Journal
    And the ID card will be grafted onto the right hand or forehead of the bearer, and will contain a 666-character identification number. Persons without ID cards will be disallowed from engaging in commerce of any kind, and those actively refusing to wear the ID card will be summarily put to death.

    When questioned about the potential reactions from devout Christians, government officials replied, "Revelations of what, now?"
    • If you're put to death for refusing to wear it, how could there be anyone disallowed from commerce for not having it?
    • In Glasgow, they should have CATHOLIC and PROTESTANT in big bold letters on the ID cards. Then the hoologans can look at each others cards and procede to murder each other. This will accelerate the process of Darwinistic selection and in a few more generations, Glasgow will be cured of its religious biggotry.
    • Information minister Blunkett has said that there'll be a GBP 2500 penalty [bbc.co.uk] on anyone refusing to register for the ID card. That sounds like it would stop a lot of people from engaging in commerce. (Specifically, those who won't have any money left)

      Do you have 2,500 pounds ($4470) to spare, or would you choose to be marked?
    • Parent was marked funny but the potential is there. There may be enough people scared enough of being
      a minority to beg to be given their new WiFi implant with its unique xxxxxx.xxxxxx.xxxxxx IP address.

      Besides, think how many people you see everyday with a phone welded to their ear. Time to get in to cyborg business perhaps.

      Caveat: I don't own any tin foil hats - they tend concentrate the RF energy into the body rather than away from it, especially near mobile phones...

  • News Opinion (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Bon bons ( 734068 )

    "It's not only in the US where governments are using the excuse of terrorism to infringe on civil liberties."

    It's only news until you stick your opinion in it. Honestly, I think things like this are best said in comments, not in the front-page reports

  • the american flavor (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 22, 2004 @02:57PM (#9225833)
    cryptogram article [schneier.com] talks about an american ID card in the works (and why its a bad thing )
    • Schneier's argument goes like this:

      1. Some dishonest people might be able to forge their identity card.
      2. Since some dishonest people might slip through the cracks, its less secure than we have now.

      Can someone explain to me why this is a valid argument, even if the forgery can't be made highly improbable through cryptography, which I doubt.

  • Disgrace (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fiannaFailMan ( 702447 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @02:58PM (#9225838) Journal
    People in the UK should refuse to carry these things. They are an abomination.
    • It's unfortunate but in the current situation such a large number of people would have to refuse to carry them to have an effect on the government that I couldn't see that happening any time soon.

    • Guess what (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Guess what, it's pretty much impossible to live as a citizen of any modern nation without having to carry some sort of identification. Social security numbers, driver's licenses, even credit and debit cards can be used to identify you and infringe on your privacy. I guess you could go live as a hermit in Montana, paying for everything with wads of dirty bills that you keep stuffed in your matress, but for the other 99% of the population, ID cards are already a reality.

      Instead of crying about them, or com

      • Re:Guess what (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Jane_Dozey ( 759010 )
        Like you said, it already seems that we're already required to carry around ID. So why do we need more?
        And why will they make it mandatory to carry these new ID cards around with us?
        Is there actually a valid reason to spend all this money (and make us pay for the "privalidge")?

      • Re:Guess what (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Cranx ( 456394 )
        How can you be free when your anonymity is completely erased? The government isn't the watchdog of all of its citizens, and shouldn't be. It's perfectly acceptable for a human being to live quietly, unbeknownst to his/her neighbors and remain that way for their entire lives. The government has no right to cast an eye on every living human being, effectively "tagging" them like animals so their every move, their every purchase, their every word spoken can all be cataloged and analyzed for any purpose.

        If
      • ...how about insisting that the government enact legislation to prevent them from being misused.

        Many times such legislation doesn't apply to gov't (OSHA, for example). They would just exempt them selves. With almost every election going 50-50, I doubt that we would unite enough to accomplish that. Outside of Slashdot(actually, both sides of Slashdot), most people are just trying to vote themselves a bigger gov't check or tax break(same thing).
      • If you have my library card number, what can you find out about me?

        If you have my driving license number, what else can you find out with that number?

        If you have my passport ID, what else can you find out about me?

        If you have my national insurance number, what else can you find out about me?

        If you have my national ID number which indexes *everything*, what can you find out about me?

        It isn't rocket science. A single index makes monitoring, investigation, stalking even of individuals trivial. By anyone w
      • Instead of crying about them, or coming up with some kind of implausible 1984-esque depressive scenarios, how about insisting that the government enact legislation to prevent them from being misused.

        What's to stop a future government changing those the laws that regulate their usage in the future? It will be a lot harder to stop any small changes in their usage once the IT database and rollout has been completed.

        You might trust this government but can you guarantee you will trust the next one?

    • Re:Disgrace (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GothChip ( 123005 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:17PM (#9225920) Homepage
      I am one of the 1 Million people who would rather go to jail [theregister.co.uk] then carry a card.

      I can understand why you would want to license drivers and I can understand the need for a passport. But I refuse to accept I need a license to walk down the street in the country where I was born.

      • Re:Disgrace (Score:1, Redundant)

        by turgid ( 580780 )
        I refuse to accept I need a license to walk down the street in the country where I was born.

        Hear hear.

      • Re:Disgrace (Score:5, Insightful)

        by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:36PM (#9225990) Journal
        But I refuse to accept I need a license to walk down the street in the country where I was born.

        You already do need a license. It's called "citizenship" and you get it when you are born. You can surrender this license if, for example, you become a citizen of a different country that doesn't recognize dual citizenship. In this case your country of birth is well within its rights to refuse you entry and prevent you from walk down the street in your native country.

        The only difference is, before you only had to prove your citizenship when you crossed a border. And given the many forms of ID that the average person carries, and the multitude of ways in which the government (or any private agency) can track your movements, I don't see why this is such a massive attack on privacy, other than its symbolic value.

        Much better that we should insist on privacy rights associated with the ID card, rather than resisting it altogether, for reasons which are mostly speculative or implausably apocalyptic.

        • Re:Disgrace (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Yes, yes. That's the model that some states have - particularly dodgy post-revolutionary states like the USA, France, and maoist China - this idea that the citizen of the state is only made so by the state.

          The UK is essentially still a monarchic state, however, and therefore there's no nonsense about "needing a license". The state expects you to pay your taxes and obey its laws and that's that. It doesn't try and infect you with its ideals by having you swear allegiance in school and there's no nonsense ab

          • The UK is essentially still a monarchic state, however, and therefore there's no nonsense about "needing a license".

            If that is true, then why do they issue one kind of passport for those born in the UK itself, and an "overseas" passport for those born in the colonies?

            You are also confusing two different definitions of the word "citizen". Every nation on Earth recognizes a legal status known as citizenship. The idea of "citizen" as a member of society has little to do with the meaning in the sense of im

          • Re:Disgrace (Score:2, Informative)

            by PennyUK ( 309754 )
            Like Anonyomous Coward says, you can live your entire life without making any allegiance to the country. So far, I've never had to swear alleigance to the UK in any form.

        • The problem is the single index. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @05:56PM (#9226637)
          An ID card gives all information about you a single index. All you need is an indidividual's ID number and there's absolutely no technological reason you couldn't monitor their activities in real time.

          "Speculative or implausably apocalyptic"? WTF? Don't you know *any* history?

          Germany, 1938 6 million jews were executed by their government. The jewish people had "J" stamped on their identity documents. It's how they knew who to kill.

          Rwanda, *TEN* years ago. 800,000 men, women and children with "Tutsi" marked on their ID cards were *butchered* by their government... With machetes.

          Governments change in the blink of an eye:

          Pakistan, 1999 a military coup took 17 hours.
          Iraq, the fall of Saddam took a week and that was an outside country.
          Greece, 1967.
          Portugal, 1974.
          Fuck, there was a coup attempt in Spain in 1981.

          What planet do you live on? One where the CIA didn't help overthrow the democratically elected government of Chile and install a military dictator?

          All these things *actually* happened. If you give the government the tools they'll bloody well use them.

          • You seem to be falling into the same trap that catches most people who oppose ID cards: the notion that ID cards, by themselves, will lead to an erosion of civil liberties, and even dictatorship (as you suggest). The fact is that we already live in this world.

            A large fraction of the adult population carries a driver's license, or some other form of government-issued photo ID. An equally large fraction carries a credit card. Various organizations either keep records, or could keep records, on your teleph
            • No, I'm not falling into that trap, because it doesn't exist. Christ I can't believe people keep coming up with this "you already have half a dozen ID documents so why does it matter" argument.

              If you have my credit card number, what do you know about my library usage? My driving habits? Do you know my loyalty card number? Sweet fuck all is what you know. To monitor me, you have to find me in all of the various different and incompatible indexes used by dozens of organisations. Not impossible, but decidedly
              • I can't find a source right now but Iceland has an older democracy than Britian.
              • I don't see why a single number matters, because there is no reason why it could not all be indexed by your name (and address, if there is more than one person with your name).

                So I think the ID card is a red herring. Any government dedicated to abusing civil rights could do everything you're worried about, and the addition of a new "single" identifier makes it only trivially more complex.

                I'll bet the government might already do this in its databases ... you might have a universal ID number and not know i
              • Britain has the oldest democracy in the world and it has functioned more or less acceptably for 800 years without a National Identity Register for all of that.

                The UK has had national identity cards in its history. They were instituted during World War 2 for security reasons (to prevent Nazi spies from being parachuted in to the country), and were retained after the war. In the early fifties, they were challenged in court, when a grocer refused to present his card on request to a police officer. Althoug
              • If you have my credit card number, what do you know about my library usage? My driving habits? Do you know my loyalty card number? Sweet fuck all is what you know. To monitor me, you have to find me in all of the various different and incompatible indexes used by dozens of organisations...[...]Buy access to the offshore supermarket loyalty database and query my ID number (you know, that thing I have to present all over the place), bam! You know how many sheets of toilet paper I use when taking a shit.

                You

            • But you're giving up more and more power to even be able to protect yourself against a possibly corrupt/'evil' government. When the 'shit hits the fan', there will be so much surveillance etc. in place that you won't be able to defend yourself or even organize enough people to be able to defend yourself. The questions you should be asking are (a) if the 'shit hits the fan', will I still have enough privacy/powers to even be able to organize enough people to defend ourselves, and (b) does the government need

        • You already do need a license. It's called "citizenship" and you get it when you are born.

          Uhhh...talked about being confuzled.

          A license is a special authority granted to an individual by the state to do something --like carry a concealed weapon, or fly an airplane. (I left out car for a reason.)

          Citizenship is a status, and more importantly a relationship, not everyone is born with one incidentally (which really fucks things up) but most people have one.

          The concept of citizenship came from the idea tha
          • Fine, but under your definition, an ID card is not a license to walk down the street, either. I was simply trying to show that you already need a certain legal status to be legally present in your country of birth (or any country).

      • Re:Disgrace (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Attaturk ( 695988 )
        I am one of the 1 Million people who would rather go to jail then carry a card.
        I can understand why you would want to license drivers and I can understand the need for a passport. But I refuse to accept I need a license to walk down the street in the country where I was born.

        Took the words right out of my mouth. See you in there mate. Shall I bring the scrabble?

      • Re:Disgrace (Score:2, Interesting)

        by iminplaya ( 723125 )
        ...I can understand the need for a passport.

        I don't. The only purpose for national boundries is to restrict an individual's travel rights, and to create economic stratification for profiteering corporations. Without poverty, how can we motivate people to work?
      • I am also one of that million - in fact I dearly hope the number is higher than that.

        The problem I do have is that, on one hand, we are told that ID cards are essential to our 'security' when more-enlightened people are moving the other way - travel throughout continental Europe as an EU citizen and you just don't not need a passport to travel; I've *never* been challenged to produce one, and it's a joy to travel light, far and wide. You come home to find Tony B.liar (aided and abetted by David Blunkett

        • Re:Ancient rights (Score:2, Informative)

          by H09N0X10U5 ( 780755 )
          travel throughout continental Europe as an EU citizen and you just don't not need a passport to travel; I've *never* been challenged to produce one, and it's a joy to travel light, far and wide.
          Rubbish. You still need an ID card, different name same function. And even when you aren't crossing an international border, it is (certainly in Belgium & France and I think in Germany and Italy) an offence to step out of your door without carrying one.
      • See what the Liberal Democrats say about this. [libdems.org.uk]

        Yes, they are against ID cards!

  • When and to who? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by magarity ( 164372 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @02:59PM (#9225842)
    So you've got this national ID card with biometric data. Who gets to see it and how often? I haven't been pulled over and asked for a driver's license for over 15 years now. I have had to show a DL at the airport last year but what if I just drove everywhere? If this biometric card has a similar use pattern then it doesn't seem worthwhile. On the other hand, if they're going to set up roadblocks every few miles where you have to swipe the thing then I guess it will catch some baddies but how much aggrevation will that cause?
    • I don't know about the rest of the UK, but in at least London the major mode of transportation is the tube (subway). So maybe it will change that you not only have to punch your ticket, but you have to swipe your ID card or passport so they know exactly where and when you boarded or left a station.

      Will it actually work out that way? Who knows, but it's a scary thought.
      • So maybe it will change that you not only have to punch your ticket, but you have to swipe your ID card or passport so they know exactly where and when you boarded or left a station.

        Maybe, but just because they introduce an ID card in the UK it doesn't mean that suddenly you are subject to total control or anything. We have had ID cards in Germany for decades, and nowhere in Germany do you have to show your card when going on a subway or train. In fact, I don't remember ever beeing stopped on the street b

    • Re:When and to who? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The logical next step would be to implement RFID in them, then you "could" scan everyone that passes by a scanner set up on a freeway every 10 miles if you wanted to. I do see something like that happening at some point in time, but probably not for at least another 70+ years. Privacy invasion like that needs to be done slowly enough so the general populace does not even notice it.
    • So you've got this national ID card with biometric data. Who gets to see it and how often?

      These cards will probably end up being abused in much the same way people get pulled over for DWB or DWA (driving while black and driving while arab). The difference here is that if you're required to keep your national id card on you at all times (papers please) people will be bothered for WWB and WWA (walking while black and walking while arab).

  • Defy-ID protest in Glasgow (Score:5, Informative)

    by Master Of Ninja ( 521917 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:02PM (#9225852)
    If you are in the area and want to help protest against the ID cards, Defy ID [defy-id.org.uk] is organising meetings against it. Go to the main website [defy-id.org.uk] to get more information, as well as pointing your friends to it. Everyone needs to know!!

  • Build a better moustrap.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Shivantrill ( 654978 ) * on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:02PM (#9225853)
    And someone will build a better mouse.

    How soon before we hear stories of people having their eye extracted so that someone could get by these scanners? This has been portrayed many times in the movies. Cue the next Urban legend, "I woke up in a hotel room with one eye a different color, someone had swapped them on me!"

    A 4% failure rate? What happens if it fails? Are you detained, denied whatever you were being identified for? This seems unacceptable as a form of identification. Until they perfect the thing, why not use thumbprints?

    • False Positives (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cquark ( 246669 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:12PM (#9225904)
      A 4% failure rate? What happens if it fails? Are you detained, denied whatever you were being identified for? This seems unacceptable as a form of identification.

      If the purpose is discovering terrorists, a 4% false positive rate means the system is completely ineffective. Assuming than one person in a million is a terrorist (ridiculously high, I know), then you'd have 40,000 false positives in addition to your one likely correct guess. That's not only a tremendous cost to civil liberties, but it's also likely that the security personnel are going to ignore the terrorist because they've dealt with 40,000 mistakes in the process, and are justifiably unlikely to believe the system any longer.

      • Re:False Positives (Score:4, Interesting)

        by turgid ( 580780 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:34PM (#9225983) Journal
        The other problem is that with the UK ID card, like the driving license, you don't actually have to carry it, but if asked to see it, you have 7 days to produce it at a police station of your choice.

        Now, will someone kindly explain to me how this cures terrorism (or any other crime for that matter)?

        Contact lenses can defeat iris scanners, and thin transparent plastic can defeat fingerprint scanners.

        There will be nore more "innocent until proven guilty" (not that there really is in England nowadays). Everyone will be under suspicion, and everyone will have to "prove" their innocence. With such a system where infallability is assumed by the powers that be (just listen to or read some of the nonsense David Blunkett comes out with), it will be very difficult indeed to regain your freedom once the system gets its grubby little fingers around your throat.

  • Less Secure (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cquark ( 246669 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:07PM (#9225876)
    The likely result of universal biometric identification schemes will be to make us less secure. All of them suffer from the problem of creating the initial cards for the whole population. How do you determine people's identities to give them their initial cards? By using their current identification materials, so the system won't start in a state that's any more secure than our current identification system. In order to be secure, you not only have to avoid transitioning from a secure state to an insecure one, you also have to start in a secure one, and all of these systems fail that requirement.

    Two of the 9/11 terrorists had valid driver's licenses in false names. Biometrics won't prevent existing false IDs from being used to generate new false biometric IDs. Biometrics also won't prevent the personnel who issue biometric IDs from being bribed or coerced into issuing IDs in false names. Remember that the initialization problem isn't a one time issue either--people lose IDs frequently, so the procedure for issuing new biometric IDs to people who don't have one has to exist throughout the lifetime of the system.

    Identification is not an effective solution to preventing terrorism. What good would it have done to have known Timothy McVeigh's name before the Oklahoma City? In order to prevent terrorism, you need to know someone's intentions, not their identity, or you need preventative mechanisms in place to stop terrorism that are idependent of who a person is, such as secure doors to the cockpits of airplanes.
    • Your less secure argument is invalid. Many people here illegally for whatever reason have papers which look valid, but are not verifiable. A one-time lengthy verification process provides the information needed to put on the card for a quick identification.

      The rest of your post seems to imply that an "effective solution" requires catching ALL terrorists. If you have a way to be 100% effective, I suggest you patent it and start making plans for your new opulent lifestyle.

    • Re:Less Secure (Score:4, Insightful)

      by turgid ( 580780 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:41PM (#9226016) Journal
      The real reasons for the UK ID card scheme are to make money issuing the cards (they'll be compulsory soon, but you'll have to pay a lot of money to get one) and to cut benefit fraud. The UK social security (and health) system loses hundreds of millions of pounds a year through false claims for unemployment benefit, income support and foreigners coming on "holliday" to Britain to get free operations on the NHS. The terrorism story is just an excuse. We already have National Insurance numbers (social security numbers) and cards, but they just contain a signature. You never need to show them to anyone - just recite your number. Biometric ID on your National Insurance card might be a slightly better idea, but the whole "terrorism" thing is just hogwash.
      • The UK social security (and health) system loses hundreds of millions of pounds a year through false claims for unemployment benefit, income support and foreigners coming on "holliday" to Britain to get free operations on the NHS

        Do you not have a health card or something similar? In Ontario we have a card you give to the hospital or doctor when you go there. It used to be that they were just a card with a number and name on them but they have change so that they now have your photo and signature on them.
        • Do you not have a health card or something similar?

          We have an NHS number printed in purple on a flimsy piece of card. Mine is somewhere... That's it. It's realted to your National Insurance number.

      • Re:Less Secure (Score:5, Informative)

        by Blue Stone ( 582566 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @06:01PM (#9226662) Homepage Journal
        "The UK social security (and health) system loses hundreds of millions of pounds a year through false claims for unemployment benefit [&] income support [...]" But very very little of that is related to people claiming money under a false identity. The majority of cash that's taken from the system in breach of the rules is due to things like people claiming benefits whilst working, people caliming benefits as if they are single people when they are infact couples (housing benefit etc.) and such like.

        Identity is only a small factor in benefit fraud in the UK (just the same as it is in crime, which will also be largely unaffected by ID cards.)

      • Identity based benefit fraud is around 5% of the 4 billion per year. The rest of the fraud is "misrepresentation of circumstances" according to the DWP. This is people claiming that they are unemployed while actually being employed for cash in hand or claiming housing benefit while owning a house or "renting" from relatives etc. You get the picture.

        The ID scheme itself will cost more to administer on an annual basis, around 250 million per year.

    • You've raised an interesting point... Yes, there's no way that the system could actually start out as secure because we don't have any secure system in place to verify it.

      But it's worth noting that the biometric ID would be with a person for their entire life. If they were to try to use some flaw in the existing system to fake their identity before getting tagged biometrically, it wouldn't really matter a whole hell of a lot because they'd still be stuck with that (fake) identity for the rest of their l

  • social engineering (Score:5, Insightful)

    by magarity ( 164372 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:08PM (#9225881)
    The biggest problem of this kind of idea is the one where line level law enforcement persons contract 'the computer is always right' syndrome.

    "Well, yeah, he kept twitching nervously but the database said that according to his ID card he was allowed to have all those guns and explosives."
    "Well, I know she *looked* like someone's great grandmother but the database said she was really an international terrorist so we shot her on sight."

    With good looking fake identification you can bluff your way past the most secure system as long as there's a person you can appeal to. And if your information gets entered incorrectly by the minimum wage data entry clerks hired to populate the database with its first data, you're SOL.

  • Trial in FRA (Frankfurt am Main) in Germany (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:24PM (#9225942)
    There is a similar trial with Biometrical data by lufthansa in Frankfurt. I dunno the detail... But you can read them here :
    LH and biometric [californiaaviation.org]
    German Airport and Biometric [silicon.com]

    Face it, whether you like it or not (I personally dislike it being traced and identified by my "biological property" for various reason, one being you cannot escape being recognized once they are in governement database...), biometric will come...

  • there's only one good biometric (Score:3, Interesting)

    by InternationalCow ( 681980 ) <mauricevansteensel.mac@com> on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:26PM (#9225945) Journal
    .. and that's DNA extracted from blood cells (the white ones). Run it through a lab-on-a-chip which will take all of, oh , 5 minutes these days and run a minimum of six microsatellite repeats on it. Guaranteed ID, although you might consider running eight satellites for added safety. One problem: the identification procedure is invasive (it has to be, to be sure that the DNA really comes from the person that is being ID'ed) and takes too long. But those are mere technical problems. All other forms of biometry can be circumvented (crying, enucleation of eyes, cutting of hands). You can even check the blood for freshness (eg by measuring calcium in platelets, takes a couple microseconds) to prevent people from carrying little bags of blood to have tested.
  • Biometric ID Cards Trialled in Glasgow

    Trialled? Try "tried".

    • thank you! (Score:3, Funny)

      by sbma44 ( 694130 )
      Aren't we nerds supposed to feel a sense of antipathy toward horrible marketingspeak like this? You can't "trial" something. You can't "task" someone. Stop verbing nouns.

      • Re:thank you! (Score:2, Informative)

        by kraut ( 2788 )
        Allegedly you can "burglarize" someone's house, though, at leat in the colonies ;)
      • Ahem, this is English we're speaking here. There is essentially no linguistic barrier in English between the verb and the noun. So go out and noun whatever you like.

  • [Y]ou can evade the sensors by doing something as simple as crying.

    Crying, simple? I'm a bloke, you insensitive clod!

  • And in other news, (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 22, 2004 @04:16PM (#9226180)
    Nouns verbed in Slashdot article header.

    Come on, "trialled"?

  • Correction (Score:3, Informative)

    by StuWho ( 748218 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @05:21PM (#9226483) Journal
    Part of the section attributed to me is a quote from The Register.

    'It costs the UK 1.3 billion a year, and facilitates organised crime, illegal immigration, benefit fraud, illegal working and terrorism,'[Quote from Des Brown] Home Office Minister Des Browne said. He then said that the ID card would fix all this, but did not say how.[Quote from The Register].It's not only in the US where governments are using the excuse of terrorism to infringe on civil liberties.[Quote from StuWho].

  • And there's a campaign against them being organised on the BBC iCAN activism site:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/G114

  • Bad for privacy? I don't think so (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jsebrech ( 525647 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @06:11PM (#9226700)
    Why do people assume ID cards would be a privacy invasion? Every modern country needs to keep track of its citizens for various things, from banking to medical insurance. The US uses the combination of social security number and driver's license as a facsimile for an ID card. The problem with these facsimiles is that they weren't originally designed to uniquely identify a person, so identity theft is a lot easier.

    Here in Belgium we have had ID cards for as long as I can remember, and it has never to my knowledge been a privacy problem. Yes, the ID card lets people gather up all your data in one tight bundle, but that can be done with or without an ID card. It is not some disastrous measure that suddenly opens up your data to all the world. There is no privacy in modern society. Not in Western Europe (which mostly has ID cards) and not in the US. Deal with it.

    I don't get the hysteria people have around things like ID cards. The government doesn't need them to find out what they want about you. And they are a protection against identity theft.

    Now, as for why the British government thinks ID cards will solve illegal immigration, let me explain why this would be the case. Currently since there are no ID cards, once someone gets inside the British borders, they can pretend to be a citizen, and even if the police stops them they aren't easily identified as illegal immigrants. Therefore all someone needs to do to live as an illegal immigrant in Britain is sneak past customs (not a hard thing to do). When there is a national ID card not carrying your ID sets you apart for scrutiny, and life as an illegal immigrant becomes a lot harder. And since most modern ID card systems are tied into a database which cops can easily access they are very hard to fake, so the black market won't be the answer.
    • "very modern country needs to keep track of its citizens for various things, from banking to medical insurance."

      Eh, no it bloody doesn't. The government in the UK is a public *servant*, that means I am their boss not the other way round. You might be quite happy on your leash as the property of your government.

      "Yes, the ID card lets people gather up all your data in one tight bundle, but that can be done with or without an ID card."

      Um, no it can't. That's the whole point of the card... To allow this.

      Sp
    • Every modern country needs to keep track of its citizens for various things, from banking to medical insurance.

      Well then have the banks issue me whatever they want to identify me (prior to ID cards they have perfectly good internal cusotmer identification systems.)

      Medical insurance is an odd one. But, if everyone in a social health care country has automatic insurance, then why do they need a card anyway?

      Here in Belgium we have had ID cards for as long as I can remember, and it has never to my knowledg

  • Hmmm. (Score:3, Funny)

    by H09N0X10U5 ( 780755 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @06:22PM (#9226729)
    'It costs the UK 1.3 billion a year, and facilitates organised crime, illegal immigration, benefit fraud, illegal working and terrorism,' Home Office Minister Des Browne said.
    But that's enough about the EU...

  • Ive in Glasgow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by neon-fx ( 777448 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @07:15PM (#9226941)
    I live in glasgow and to be honest, im not agaisnt the plan. Im just against having to pay for this sort of thing (im a student you see). The main reason Im not against them is because of the amount of fraud here, I work in a major department store in town and every day Im in the police get called in for people trying to get money out the store via openning instore acount under false ID. An ID card would be perfect way to let us know a little bit about the client, it would save alot of time as well. The other reason is becuase of the amount of scum who live here who take advantage of our benfits system (social security equivalent) and other means of claiming things they dont deserve. I currently carry about my drivers licience as my main form of ID and a matricluation card to get about university, neither of these have ever caused me an inconvienience and Ive never been worried about my privacy. One more card for a lot less hasslte, not a problem with me as long as its free.

  • Waste of money, no benefit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kraut ( 2788 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @07:17PM (#9226947)
    So the government plans to spend 3 billion of our tax money on this, which, given their record of delivering IT systems, will almost certainly mean 8 billion for a system that does half what was promised.

    Then it wants to charge you 35 for getting an ID card, which you have to renew regularly. How do you identify yourself to get this card? Doh, using your existing unsafe identification.

    It will do nothing to stop illegal immigration; it will do NOTHING to stop terrorism. It might cut down on benefit fraud a bit - but that's hardly a reason to make everyone carry one. It might cut down on "health tourism" a little, but the estimated cost of that is trivial by government standards anyway (200million). Also, of course, anyone willing to travel to the UK to use our public health system must a) be pretty desperate anyway and b) we can't actually, in this country, turn dying people away at the hospital door for not having insurance.
  • .. as your biometric data says you're made entirely of deep fried mars bars.'

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