UK Compulsory ID Plan Shelved 201
e9th writes "Despite a bump or two along the way, it seemed that compulsory ID cards were a done deal in the UK. Now, the Financial Times is reporting that the scheme has been shelved. Unfortunately, it seems that this was more a matter of convenience than of concern for citizens' privacy."
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)
If it comes to UK it was mostly about database that should store them and information there. And UK.gov ineptitude when it comes to anything IT.
ID cards can be very useful - I came from country where those are the norm. But I strongly oppose them in UK as last thing I want is UK gov to lose a disk with all those details (like it never happened). Also cost quoted was ridiculous, just like all IT projects in that country.
Still applies to non-citizens (Score:3, Informative)
The cards are still around, and still mandatory for anyone who's not a UK citizen. So if you're planning to get a visa to live in the UK for any reason, you're still going to have to pay out the £1000-ish and get your biometrics taken, and then carry around a card which any official can ask you to produce at any time, and which is extremely likely to be stolen because of its black market value.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Informative)
The issues in point were not that it was ID, but that it was
1. Compulsory
2. Seen as being imposed without popular support or adequate consultation
3. Backed by a database of information, rather than "just another card"
4. Expensive
5. Being misleadingly promoted as an effective anti terrorism measure
6. of widely distrusted security, in light of recent data-loss scandals
7. Likely to become tied to the provision of other services
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)
Well I don't know about anyone else but I refuse to be told that I must submit myself to the sitting government so that they may provide me with identification to prove that I'm a citizen of MY country.
It's MY country, not theirs.
Any ID I have at this time I have because I choose to have it, for business that I choose to engage in.
Would you send someone to gaol for refusing to submit themselves to the government to get a government Identity Card?
If not then it's not compulsory.
If so, then you're an authoritarian and not worth speaking to.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Informative)
Important point about the database, the article neglects to mention that the database is not being scrapped. The database is the real privacy concern, not the card itself. All the card is a way of proving identity in relation to the database.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't keep your address and personal information up to date you have committed a criminal offence and you can be fined GBP1,000.
80% of the UK population own passports. In essence, anyone who wants to leave the UK must register with the ID database.
The ID database is primarily a scheme that enables the government to identify you, and that is made clear in a dubious little paper called Safeguarding Identity, produced by the Home Office last week, which describes how the ID database and the transformational government scheme mesh together in one glorious structure where data about the individual passes between departments. That is the prize and why they will use any argument and spend any amount to achieve it.
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)
I think half of that depends on your age group. I'm 25 and in the past few years I've needed photo ID for buying alcohol (which they're now raising to "if you look under 25 then prove you're over 18") as well as getting on to some works sites (although that's a more specialist case).
As for debit/credit, I don't have trust issues with plastic and rarely have cash on me. Supermarkets (even small Co-op stores) and most high street chains will take plastic for any value, but some shops have a £5 minimum spend. I've bought a 50p loaf of bread on plastic before because all I had in my pocket was a few coppers.
And not just that, but they were doing it for passports as well with biometric details. If you want a new passport now it costs extra because of the extra details. No-one has proved any use for those either, and it all seems a little excessive.
I think most people were complaining because the "red tops" (cheap and sensationalist newspapers, like The Sun) told them to rather than because they understood the excess of data being collected, the implications of carrying an ID card everywhere, the likely down-hill slope of what the government would push for next, and the problems with the inevitable loss of data.
Re:This is not a retreat. (Score:3, Informative)
The Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002, already requires photographic I.D. to be presented when you engage in certain financial dealings. The only valid photographic I.D. I've managed to use is a drivers license or passport, both of which are already government issued. Opening a bank account requires showing such I.D. I think I might've had to show my drivers license when I got a mobile photo as well. And drivers license obviously requires photo I.D. because it's printed on the card and held in the DVLA database.
Given that I already have had to show I.D. for all of the things that you mention, what difference would it make if I had used a single I.D. card instead?
They are only not optional if you want to fly or leave the United Kingdom. You can travel within the U.K. without a passport.
Re:The tide *is* turning in the UK (Score:3, Informative)
Even the right wing Daily Mail newspaper has taken to refering to "Jack Boots Jaqui"... our former Home Secretary with a CCTV obsession.
She resigned last month. [theregister.co.uk] New, same as old etc etc.
Re:I don't get it (Score:1, Informative)
Next, they can start stopping and hassling anyone who's a member of an opposition party.
After that, they can get on with the serious business of stopping black people for no good reason.
ID cards alone aren't the problem (Score:2, Informative)
The ID cards are linked to national databases and originally was going to store a massive amount of data on people, but now is *ONLY* going to include personal & biometric details, details of all other formal IDs (passports and licenses), Immigration data and a history of every time the id is used. The Home Office can also add to this list as they want.
Combine this with other eroded civil liberties such as:
Government pushing for 42 days detention without trial (down form the proposed 90 days, currently 28 days).
Our capital city, London has the worlds densest population of CCTV cameras with a nationwide average of 1 CCTV to 14 people.
A DNA database which includes anyone who is suspected of a crime (No samples purged even if later found completely innocent)
Restriction on right to protest through exclusion zones near parliament in which you require a permit in order to assemble
Legislation which will require ISPs and Telecomms companies to keep records of every internet and telephone communication
Anyone who says the UK isn't sleepwalking into an orwellian society is mad.
I appreciate that there are terrorists about who would like to do harm to our society, but we managed through the IRA troubles without all these laws. In fact when the government of the time tried to hold IRA suspects without trial in 1971 it only helped drive support for the extremists. Anyone think that Guantanamo endears western countries to muslims? If we erode our liberties we will end up in a society just as oppressed as those we oppose. The terrorists will have won.
Re:BNP has interesting side effects (Score:3, Informative)
I strongly disagree that the BNP are "the voice of a segment which didn't have a voice before". They would like to portray themselves as this, the platform they stand on is, although fairly extreme on some issues (immigration), not a nazi one.
The thing is the BNP are a bunch of lying nazis. Their platform is carefully constructed to win disaffected voters but bears little resemblance to their true aims. They are trying to attract people who have strong views on issues like immigration, but you only have to look at the personal history of the BNP leadership to see these are not people who are a little to the right of the mainstream, but actual fascists; however they try to clothe themselves at the moment.
For this reason I hope they sink without trace. We have enough evidence in Europe, within living memory, of where this road leads, to condemn nazis out of hand.