UK ID Cards Could Be Upgraded To Super ID Cards 197
An anonymous reader writes "Gadget lovers are used to punishing upgrade cycles but now it seems that the British ID card could be replaced with a 'super' ID card just a couple of years after the first one was released. The new card could be used to buy goods or services online, or to prove identity over the web. It's a bit of a kick in the teeth for the people who have already paid £30 for a 1st gen card that can't do any of these things."
Re:Most people are not bothered (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't really care if the guys who sell me cola profile me, their motive is simple- profit.
I do care if the people who have guns and the power to have me locked up profile me, their motives are complex and involved power, politics and money.
Re:Or not (Score:2, Interesting)
It probably should have some kind of Chip. Now this would be perfect day!
Re:Most people are not bothered (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't really care if the guys who sell me cola profile me, their motive is simple- profit.
and they sell your profile to the government... for profit
Re:Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh god, the horror. We've had that since forever on VISA cards here in Norway, the banks have authority to issue government approved ids so some banks will issue a double function card with id on the back above the magnetic stripe. It's quite practical for people that don't have a driver's license or one card less if you're getting drunk and won't be driving anyway. Unless you really have anonymous bank accounts putting the information the bank has on file on your card is a convienience, not a problem. The money flows via the banks not the government though, pretty important point.
Re:Paranoid libertoon garbage as usual (Score:2, Interesting)
You do know the UK ID card and it's backend would be illigal in Germany.
THe UK government has a very poor record in securing data. These cards have already been hacked. They are unsecure. Oh and the plans are for fingerprinting to be tendered out to private companies. Do you want to go to Tesco to hand over your fingerprints?
Re:Not really (Score:1, Interesting)
LOL - this is pretty much my thinking. Its only people Manchester who actually have them, and from what I remember only about 8000 people took them up. Even the pilots for whom the cards were mandatory refused to take them!
This just sounds like another "incentive".
wrong, (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200601/df20060116.jpg [ibiblio.org]
Re:ID cards are so yesterday (Score:3, Interesting)
Millions? I think not.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/09/id_card_numbers/ [theregister.co.uk]
The area of North West England listed there includes two major cities with a combined population of 3.5 million alone. And how many cards have they issued in this area up until the 3rd of March this year?
Four thousand three hundred and seven. Yes we Brits are banging down the doors to get our ID cards.
Re:Most people are not bothered (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if you silly 'subjects of the crown' do this, but I've never had a loyalty card for over a week. I swap them around and get new ones all the time.
Re:Not really (Score:3, Interesting)
That's charmingly naive. You seriously think that Cameron will hold to his promise to cancel ID cards? [google.co.uk]
Not a Tory*, but "Dave" was absolutely right that a referendum post ratification would be pointless. They were idiots for promising one in the first place.
On the issue of the ID card; both opposition parties have pledged to drop the card and it has stopped being a vote winner to the extent that even Labour have rolled back the extent of the scheme. Now that cuts are needed it's an obvious, symbolic, target, but I'll keep donating to no2id [no2id.net] to keep the pressure up to try and make sure that the NIR [wikipedia.org] is dropped as well as the card.
*I live in a lib-dem\tory marginal & am a member of the Pirate Party UK [pirateparty.org.uk]. I'll probably vote Lib-dem.
Re:Or not (Score:3, Interesting)
Two problems. Firstly, define, and prove, "difficult-to-spoof" for all time. People have already shown the ability to spoof fingerprints. And all you have to do is to clone the identity of one card onto the biometrics of another, and you have a card that describes the criminal but accesses the victims data.
Secondly, much access to the data is not with the card but without. If people have access to one part of the data it is all to easy to access other parts. So the clerk who can legitimately check, say, that I have paid my property taxes may all to easily be able to access my medical appointments - including the one with a specialist in embarrassing diseases.
Re:It's always been my dream ... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is actually how I use my Oyster card: never register, always pay in cash.
I also change it for a new one once in a while.
£3 every couple of months is a great price to pay for a little bit of insurance if Britain ever goes the final bit down the way to Police State.
Re:Not really (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, sorry, you're completely right. You won me over with your awesome trolls and insults, they gave such a compelling background to your comments about how it'll cost more to drop the contracts than pay the get-out compensation, I just didn't know how you could possibly be wrong afterwards.
Your ability to see the future is amazing, you're right, I just know it now, I will vote Lib Dem, you're totally right, I mean, why didn't I see it? It couldn't possibly be the case that someone would be capable of changing their political affiliation through time depending on how different parties act or anything could it? I mean this is the UK, we don't vote for parties based on their policies or actions do we? That'd be stupid! We do it because we pick one, probably the one our parents supported, and support it like a football team, and who wouldn't support their favourite team no matter what right?
No, really though, the National Identity Register contract has been awarded to IBM and paid for already, the enrollment contract has been awarded to CSC and paid for already, these two contracts totalled £650m. The contract to produce the initial cards for the trial (which is due to last around 3 more years under a continued Labour government) was awarded to Thales, at £18m, this has also already been paid for. The total cost of the scheme until 2017 has been filed by Labour as £5.7bn, thus, any incoming government can save at least £5bn on the scheme by ceasing it, it is only the remaining £0.7bn that would be lost at most- money that could really be used to help cut the deficit right now, but still not enough to deter cancelling the scheme and enjoying the £5bn over 10 year savings.
Regarding the "ID card industry", of the three companies that won the contracts, 2 are American, 1 is French, so there's no more than a negligible benefit to UK industry from pursuing the scheme.
Spain .... (Score:1, Interesting)
ID cards and most of policing procedures are inherited from the Fascist dictatorshi[p of Franco and heavily influenced by the need to fight separatist terrorists (and given how many people have died in Spain in 40 years we can see what heck of a job ID cards do to protect the population against terrorist attacks).
The Spanish population is too busy worrying about other things but sooner or later they will get rid of such abomination (as they have done with most of the Fascist infrastructures of government).
The problem they face is that every time a relic of Franco's dictatoship is touched a sizealbe minority protests against all logic and better judgement. But this will stop when the generation that was brainwashed to eulogize the dictator passes away.
You really chose a bad example (this is the country that legalized gay marriage, got out of Iraq, and kicked out a President of Government, allied to Bush, what a surprise, for lying during the Madrid terrorist sttacks.
Sooner or later the ID cards will have their last day under the sun there, young people hate them with a passion, because, again, surprise, surprise, they are often used as a means of control.