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I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
What's all the uproar about ID cards? It's not like you don't use photo ID (and credit cards) everywhere already. This looks like it just standardizes the process.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
When they aren't required, it is harder for the police to force you to show them. In the US, if you aren't driving a car, then you don't need to carry anything showing who you are.
I am currently living in Japan, so I have an ID that has my identity, and I am required to carry that (or my passport) on my person at all times. This means that if a police officer stops me, they can require my producing identification documents.
Having a standard format for an ID maybe be useful, but then the next step is to require people to carry it, and then making it a crime to not present that to a police officer when requested.
Parent
Re: (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.
Just time to boil the frog more carefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its a shame their deviousness isn't as inept as their technical knowledge, but then they are more interested in manipulation and power games than they are in specific details of technology.
They are still bring in ID cards. This move isn't stopping the cards. But now they are bring them in more slower over a long time scale, at first voluntary. Its bring them in by exploiting feature creep. It starts off as its voluntary for this and its voluntary for that. Then it becomes it helps this and it helps that. Then it becomes its important to this and its important to that. Then it becomes its required for this and its required for that. Then finally it becomes its mandatory for this and its mandatory for that and then eventually you can't do anything without the ID cards. Then finally they get what they aimed to do all along.
They know ID cards are very unpopular and so now they are starting to tread more carefully. They know their ever present power grabbing nature is very unpopular, (in this case power grabbing via information grabbing on people for their own gain (after all, information is power)) and so they are now treading more carefully.
So now they are just boiling the frog more carefully. Yet now many people are initially fooled into believing its not going to happen. Exactly what the control freaks want, as it means over time they will now face less resistance to them bring them in more slowly.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re: (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 wh
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The ID card won't - as you say, they already have a huge amount of information on me anyway.
The problem, is that the UK government wants to link each and every database that has information on me together. It is that seemingly innocuous act that makes so much difference. With it, the ID cards goes from a single method of identification to the single way that the government gains all of that power over you. Take for example, the governments use of anti-terror laws to press criminal charges against citizens w
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ID cards are not a security measure that means anything.
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Only in the course of their duties. Japanese police cannot stop you for the purpose of checking your ID, but if you are a foreigner over the age of 18, then you are required to carry it at all times and show it to police if they have another legitimate cause for s
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I replied:
Next they'll add DNA records to it, and there are already convictions based solely on DNA evidence. DNA is easy to plant, easy to share, impossible not to leave you DNA everywhere. Still happy?
Next they'll say "This little chip could do so much more". All your money will be linked to it.
Next they'll refuse to let you borrow a library book without it. And you'll need to show it on the bus. When you buy alcohol. When you enter any public place.
Next, instead of s
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
To those who modded this up, rather than the original troll: do you understand the difference between voluntary and obligatory? Between free trade and force?
As it happens, I do have a credit card, but I only use it where I want. And I don't walk around with photo ID. In fact, the only form of vague ID that I do make a point of always carrying is my organ donor card, because, you know, unlike state ID, that's actually going to help "protect" my fellow countrymen from the real scourge of organ failure, as opp
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B) There was going to be a database behind it that allowed the government to data mine and track what you were up to in numerous areas. With a reasonable government, not neccessarily a problem but they could enact any number of new laws making something you did illegal such as reading political books, fishing or importing DVDs then use the system to scoop up the 'bad' guys.
C) As you say, there are already any number of w
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.
Parent
Re: (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.
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I'm from the UK, just to clarify things.
I can't remember the last time my photo ID was *required*
They want my passport to leave the country ;-)
I'm young (or at least, young-looking), so sometimes I'm asked for photo ID when I purchase alcohol (or certain medicines, knives and chemicals).
Some nightclubs demand photo ID to enter them. Some even *scan* the ID, I don't know how common this is as I don't go to the big mainstream clubs.
I'm pretty sure the only other "photo ID" I've ever had was a student card, because it got me student discounts.
Most university/college-issued student IDs now have a photo. Whether you need to carry it depends on the university's rules though -- I needed to carry mine to unlock doors.
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.
Ex
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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.
I take it you don't open bank accounts too often, travel internationally, or buy cigarettes and alcohol. Being a smoker kind of made it a necessity when I started travelling around. The £100 really is fucked up though.
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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 s
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Maybe not requested directly from you, but all of that license information, including home address and the photo, is stored in the DVLA database. You have no idea who has access to it, or what they have done with it.
Perhaps you don't, but most adults will also have a passport.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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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: (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 authorit
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What the UK government want is to assign a compulsory primary key to every UK citizen and then make the hand-over of that key compulsory. What the anti-campaign wants to do is be allowed to leave that as 'null'.
Giving ever UK citizen a primary key is tremendously useful to a government. It makes a number of administrative tasks much simpler. Unfortunately in the hands of an oppressive totalitarian regime, ownership of the database becomes a nasty weapon against freedom.
On a more pragmatic level. The scheme
Awwwww (Score:2)
What's betting that as soon as the sheeple have picked up on this they cry for Labour to stay, and the whole scheme comes back in 18 months?
With so many CCTV cameras watching the populace (Score:3, Insightful)
they don't really need ID cards.
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 questi
Re: (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.
BNP has interesting side effects (Score:3, Insightful)
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I once asked a BNP member (Red-Tie meeting in my local pub) what he thought of Polish immigrants. He didn't even know they could work here legally.
Re:BNP has interesting side effects (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (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 sys
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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 dis
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i think the collapsing economy and public purse has something to do with it too
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.
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Ihre papiere, bitte.
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Yep. And the key word there is "publicly". There are plenty of ways of making it extremely difficult for people to get products and services without ID cards. Compulsory by stealth, in effect. This is even easier where one of the principal areas where people need ID is banking -- especially when your Government owns most of the banks -- which they currently do. It's very easy to make it hard for anyone who doesn't have an ID card to get any serv
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.
Not so fast! What about passports? (Score:4, Insightful)
Whilst this is a great step forward, one of the big problems with this scheme is that over the last few years, the Government has been basically turning the British passport into the ID card (the plan was that anyone getting a passport would have a "combined" passport and ID card).
So my fear is that we'll still end up with the same problems for anyone who wants a passport:
* Being put on the National Identity Register database (which is actually what the ID card criticism is mainly about - it's not about the physical "card" as such), along with regulations such as being fined £1,000 for failing to notify authorities of change of address [bbc.co.uk].
* Biometric passports. TFA says these have "cross-part support" - it's unclear if this means fingerprints (currently we already have "biometrics" in the sense of digital photos, which I don't have a problem with, but fingerprints are another issue).
* The cost. Passports have risen from around £30 to £72 in recent years [wikipedia.org], much of this is due to basically turning the passport into the ID card. This is expected to rise to at least £93.
Even though a passport is not compulsory for everyone, for those of us who want to travel to another country (and remember, the UK isn't a big place like the US - most of the population have passports, and a lot of us like to travel), so my fear is that unless you are giving up your ability to travel, it will still be a compulsory ID card in everything but the name.
Does anyone have more info as to whether the National Identity Register itself will be shelved, or is it simply stepping back the plans on who will have to have one?
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.
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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.
This is not a retreat. (Score:3, Insightful)
All they have said is that they won't make it compulsory.
In the same breath, they said that it would be optional 'like a passport'
Passports are not optional if you want to travel
They could well make id cards not optional if you want to
-open a bank account
-get a drivers licence
-get a mobile phone
Unfortunately, the current british government has a history of such cynical manouvers. Like saying that they are stopping the giant email/call database, then instantly announcing that the private sector will be required to build much the same capability for them.
The ID card project is not cancelled until it is cancelled
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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 DV
Re:VICTORY! (Score:4, Funny)
VICTORY for those ignorant enough to think that this would lead to a 1982 orwellien dystopia or some other BS
Do you know what irony is?
Parent
Re:VICTORY! (Score:5, Funny)
Do you know what irony is?
Isn't it like Goldy & Leady
/baldrick
Parent
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Re:VICTORY! (Score:5, Funny)
1982: Because a totalitarian state always seems 2 years away.
Parent
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Who said anything about that except the power worshippers who try and paint the average man as "ignorant" and "kooks".
As far as I and most of the people I know are concerned the government works for the citizens and has no moral authority to demand that we submit ourselves for identification purely for *its* benefit.
Most don't put it like that but that's what it boils down to in the average persons mind - "Who the hell do they think they are?".
That's how it worked here in Aus when they tried it last time an
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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 spa