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."
Not a complete waste (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a trap! (Score:4, Interesting)
No really, they are publicly scrapping the ID card compulsion, but they are still planning to build and populate the back end database which was the real bad idea behind the ID cards anyway. I imagine they will make it a requirement of new passports or renewals that you have to give the same information they would have requested for the ID cards, they're just hoping enough people fall for the con that because they don't have to have an ID card anymore the problem has gone away.
Test your liberties every day (Score:5, Interesting)
A bit offtopic, but allow me to use the (halfway topical) reason to post something.
I spent some time in the US, and wherever I went, I took my passport with me. Mind you, this was in the days before 9/11, when the land of the free actually was a lot more free than it is today (in today's climate, I'd take my passport and my visa EVERYWHERE as a foreigner, just to be sure...).
Asked why I stared blankly. In my country, you're required to carry means to identify yourself (passport, ID card, driver's license or someone who can identify you and can produce said papers for himself) with you all the time. Essentially, any police man can stop you for no reason and ask you for your ID card, and arrest you 'til he can find out who you are if you can't produce any.
I never questioned it. Only when I took a moment to think about it, I wondered why we simply accepted it as fact. I guess when you're used to something from the moment you were born, when something has become the norm, you simply accept it as given.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm from the UK, just to clarify things.
I can't remember the last time my photo ID was *required*, except possibly to put on my driver's license (so, by a government-only department that already had all the information about me it required), and my driving license has *never* been requested or required for anything. I don't have *anything* else with my photo on, at all. I'm pretty sure the only other "photo ID" I've ever had was a student card, because it got me student discounts. Even that was optional.
Additionally, credit/debits cards are *not* as big over here as over countries and a lot of people only "trust" cash. Cheques have only just stopped being accepted in most stores (as in, the last year or two). Although, inevitably, their use will increase over time.
Also, the problem with ID cards *isn't* either of the above. The problem with ID cards is that we were going to be required to pay for them, that they would "link" several disparate databases together and that there was *no* demonstrated need for them at all. There was also going to be a legal requirement to carry them (such a requirement doesn't exist in the UK at all and is, in fact, very alien to us... the nearest equivalent we have is that we have to produce a driving license at a police station of our choice within 48 hours if a policeman so demands it in connection with a driving offence) and therefore a requirement to HAVE them. It was a £100 "compulsory-voluntary" stealth tax to make us carry a card we would never use unless "needs" were created for it (anti-terrorism crap, basically). It was never required before and nobody could justify why it was required after (terrorists normally have valid or plausible ID, for example).
The stink wasn't about "ID Cards" so much as the pathetically poor method of introduction: Hey, you. I want you to carry a card around for the rest of your life for no reason, and I'm going to "invent" excuses to make you need to have it on you. And now you owe me £100 and a day filling out forms in order for me to give you that card. Cough up.
Re:Not so fast! What about passports? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Guardian is reporting:
British citizens who apply for or renew their passport will be automatically registered on the national identity card database under regulations to be approved by MPs in the next few weeks.
The decision to press ahead with the main elements of the national identity card scheme follows a review by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, of the £4.9bn project. Although Johnson said the cards would not be compulsory, critics say the passport measures amount to an attempt to introduce the system by the backdoor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/30/passport-details-id-card-database [guardian.co.uk]
I wrote to my local MP, but he's a useless cunt, and didn't even bother writing back.
From further down that article:
He also denied that there were any significant public spending savings to be made by cancelling the project saying: "This scheme pays for itself. If you cancel all you will get is diddly squat."
This is a reference to the self-financing nature of the project under which it is to be paid for through increased charges for passports and the £60 cost of a biometric identity card.
I had hoped that the new Home Sec would at least have a bit of sense not to emulate his predecessors, but it seems that was misguided. Did Labour even look at the last election results? They have no council mandate, little popular support, they've lost Scotland, and are losing the north, yet they still press on with misguided schemes like ID Cards that are universally unpopular. They've lost all touch with reality.
I remember hearing that Jacqui Smith said that people had approached her saying that they couldn't wait to get ID cards. Even worse, in the long term they've brought back unpopular people like Mandelson, in the hope that nobody would notice or remember how insidious he was.
Sad thing is that I have no faith in the Tories to do any better. No wonder people are voting for UKIP and BNP. If Nigel Farage is seen as more honest than Labour, things are grim for them indeed.
The tide *is* turning in the UK (Score:3, Interesting)
The tide is turning I'm pleased to say.
The screwing over of our civil liberties is nearly all down to the current, rather authoritarian government we have had since 1997. Our current government is well aware of how unpopular they are, that there is a general election coming up in the next year and that they expect to loose
Consider, every other major UK political party has been against ID cards. The Lib-Dems and Tories have always been against the idea, and even the uber right wing UKIP party were questioning how much it cost. Consider also, both Lib-Dems and Tories (who are expected to make gains and probably win the next election) have always been much more in favour of civil liberties, questioning CCTV spending etc. Even the right wing Daily Mail newspaper has taken to refering to "Jack Boots Jaqui"... our current Home Secretary with a CCTV obsession.
Yes it is all down to the current government, and most dudes under 30 in the UK (and couldn't vote in 1997) have never known life under a less authoritarian government.
For what it's worth, I do rather like our green and pleasant land, and I (and many others) will be voting and fighting to take it back.
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Now your whole life is tracked.
But you forget the equally annoying problem, similar to the phenomenon of "Universal Default"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_default [wikipedia.org]
Basically, universal default means if you're having "a problem" with one financial institution, all other financial institutions are legally allowed to pile onto you and attack you along with the problem institution. Currently our financial lives are a gang fight, you fight one you better be ready to fight them all at the same time.
Anyway, I suspect something similar to universal default, but larger, is a major purpose of a national database. In theory, currently if you don't register for the draft and keep your address current, you can't get college financial aid. This kind of "reasoning" can easily be expanded with a national ID system.
If you have a late library book, your garbage man will not be legally allowed to haul away your trash. Also you'll be unable to buy anything at any retail establishment until your account is cleared up at the library. Basically any establishment will be able to very publicly subject you to a society-wide "consumer death penalty". Like wearing a big scarlet "A", or one of those yellow stars, except it'll be an id card in your pocket so that's OK.
Customer service dispute with one gas station? Blacklisted, No gas station will sell you gas under any circumstances, even on a cash and carry basis. Being blacklisted for the duration of the memory of the bouncers at one bar is bad. Being blacklisted from all bars forever based on the arbitrary decision of one individual, is quite a harsh penalty, especially when you might be targeted for nefarious reasons (dating some bar bouncer's ex-girlfriend, or made a fool out of someone more powerful, etc).
Late return of a rental DVD? No library books for you! Bought alcohol? No medical services for you. A a "service death penalty" if you ever did something politically incorrect. Shop at the adult toy store (and I don't mean the local computer store)? That means no entrance to church (except maybe confessional session)! Once bought a gas guzzler car? Random targeted punishment for the rest of your life.
Bought "Budweiser" beer at the quickie mart? No admittance to "Miller Park" stadium for you! A very strange merger of private activity and corporate owned public spaces is about to arrive.
Basically what used to be individual problems between you and one entity, while you and the rest of the world were all good, will soon be punished as you against the entire freaking world.
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a passport, driving license, bank account, I pay my taxes, I pay my council tax direct to the local government, I'm registered to vote, I have multiple phone lines, I have utilities supplied to my home, I use public transport, so they know where I go, the list goes on. Point is, the government already knows who I am, where I live, where I work - a national ID will give them significant oppressive power over me, and will give me absolutely nothing, except for a £100 bill every few years when I'm forced to renew the card. The national ID card gives me nothing, and the government everything.
I'll adapt a little phrase you might have heard: When freedom is outlawed, only criminals will be free.
Re:BNP has interesting side effects (Score:3, Interesting)
"The "solutions" they propose are as sharp as a brick, but the problems they raise are real."
They are? I suppose that depends if you dislike foreign immigrants who often work harder (particularly the Polish) than 90% of the native British population simply because they're not British. If you think stirring up sectarian violence in Northern Island is a good idea and if you think having no idea about running the budget of a country but decide it's a good idea to have a French style subsidised agricultural system and a massive military with no regard for the rest of the worlds opinion on how and when you decide to use it are all good things.
The BNP doesn't really raise any problems that aren't raised elsewhere and better dealt with unless you have a racist or xenophobic mindset and think the rest of the world is inferior and want to blame other races for the problems rather than realising that there are millions of white, British born chavs that are far more of a problem for the country than most immigrants.
Re:ID cards alone aren't the problem (Score:3, Interesting)
My problem with ID cards is EXACTLY the cards themselves. I don't want one cluttering up my possessions. I don't want to fill forms in to get one. I don't want to pay for a piece of plastic I have no use for. I don't want people to tell me what I have to carry around with me. I don't want to have to reapply for YET ANOTHER compulsory piece of red tape shit if ever I get my wallet stolen.
In summary, I don't want to encourage anyone to imagine for one second they have any designs whatsoever on my personal space.
Don't waste time arguing the pros and cons with me. If you're pro you're arguing I should bend over, and I'm intransigent that I won't. If you're con, I don't need any additional arguments, thanks.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem was Gov originally tried to make ID cards a LOT more than just your name and photo, to just list some of the things they were talking about putting on them
* Home address
* Telephone number
* National Insurance number (the equivalent of the U.S. Social Security number)
* Medical records
* Criminal record
* Iris scan
* Fingerprint record
And to boot they wanted to put in on pretty unsecured RFID chips and build a massive central database that would also contain all this info and that god only knows how many 100's of thousands of public sector employee's could access (oh yeah lets not forget other countries like USA were already rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of getting all that info on foreign nations that crossed their borders)
If they had just tried just to do what most others countries do, just a name and photo there would have been only a tiny fraction of the opposition against the whole thing and it would have been rolled out years ago at a fraction of the cost
Classic case of the major IT outsourcing company's telling IT illiterate officials what is technically possible (and massively understating the costs/risks) and the officials turning around and saying " we will take everything" without once stopping and asking "just because we can do it does it mean we should do it?"
And to be honest, anyone who thinks this is the end of the ID card fiasco is dreaming, they will still push it though the back door, first by targeting "soft targets", like by requiring foreign nationals living in the UK to have them (already under way), then once it is done they will move to other target sectors (most likely next will be those claiming social security, no ID card? Cannot pick up your dole), before we know it those without a ID card will be a minority and then it will be easy for them to change the law