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Card Makers Say UK Citizens Want Biometric ID Cards
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Feb 03, 2003 02:31 AM
from the what-a-coincidence dept.
from the what-a-coincidence dept.
ArsonPanda writes "ZDnet is running a story on a recent survey in the UK showing overwhelming 80% public support of universal, biometricly enhanced citizen ID cards. Everybody here's fine with supplying the gubmit w/ your retinal scans and fingerprints, right?"
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Card Makers Say UK Citizens Want Biometric ID Cards
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yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, as quoted in the article:
"UK citizens support ID cards, according to a report commissioned by the world's biggest smart card maker."
I wouldn't be surprised if their survey questions included "Do you support the use of foolproof iris scans to protect your security and stop hackers from stealing your identity?" It's very easy to manipulate survey results in this manner.
and anyone supporting their fascist ideas.
I doubt this company holds secret business meetings where they ask, "Gentlemen, we believe in fascism. How can we force it on the world?" This company just made a very smart business move by conducting their own study, and having other people (ZDNet) who are desperate for stories publish it. Free advertising!
Re:yeah right (Score:5, Informative)
The state of the UK today, I quite believe that if the "researcher" had asked the participants, "Would you support ID cards if it meant illegal immigrants/asylum seekers [the two seem to be interchangable in a lot of people's minds] would be shot on sight?" about 75% of those asked would have said "yes!" and a further 50% of that sample would have added, "but don't kill them staright away, let them suffer a bit."
It's fucking scary is what it is.
We have a programme on Channel4, called "Without Prejudice" where a bunch of people decide whether one person from another bunch of people get £50,000, and one of the "tests" is asking about their beliefs, and usually the subject of illegal immigrants/asylum seekers comes up, and from the answers of about 95% of these people, you'd think we'd lost the war and the UK was a Nazi fucking state.
It's somewhat depressing.
Re:yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't like the idea of ID cards... (Score:4, Informative)
There was recently a story in the Register (and BBC news) on how there was a large amount of negative feedback using a web-based fax gateway (FaxYourMP.com I think). The government are doing a separate study on this as well, which the stand.org.uk campagn is against. They have received assurances from the government that any web based complaints will be treated as seriously as regular letters of complaint (much easier too).
If you don't like it though, there is a quick and easy opportunity to register your displeasure at it: www.stand.org.uk [stand.org.uk].
Re:yeah right (Score:5, Interesting)
"Do you want crime to be reduced?
"Do you think the Police should be able to check criminal's identities?"
"Do you think ID cards are a good idea?"
As opposed to:
"Do you think the government holds too much information on UK subjects?"
"Do think people have a right to privacy?"
"Do you think ID cards are a bad idea?"
Damn those retinal scans.... (Score:5, Funny)
Whew! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whew! (Score:4, Funny)
expected results (Score:5, Insightful)
MS passport (Score:5, Funny)
passport.NET could handle this without any major changes.
[/sarcasm]
In other news.. (Score:5, Funny)
CCTV anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Ben Franklin Adage still applies, doubly so:
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty or safety. Nor, are they likely to end up with either."
People need to wake up and realize that they are slowly removing their own rights.
Re:CCTV anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst thing about CCTV *isn't* the fact there are cameras, it's that they have hours of footage stored away for long periods of time. If you were *seriously* in suspect by the police, they'd go and dig up weeks old and perhaps months old footage of you.
What if you were a citizen that had some undue interest (celebrities, financial types, etc) and some CCTV footage of you meeting with someone turned up? What if you went someplace out of the ordinary to meet this person for whatever reason, yet you were on CCTV?
You give the police far too little credit. Every time you watch TV shows in which footage from a camera is shown, the british CCTV footage always shows the most extreme high-tech. In the US we don't have CCTV which will follow people around. We also don't have databases connected to them.
The UK is still ahead in CCTV technology, and finding ways to further intermesh it with various goals.
Re:CCTV anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Good grief, if someone snatches my wallet I'd be quite glad if CCTV helped to catch the thief. Wasn't CCTV evidence used to catch the killers of Jamie Bulger?
Re: The Ben Franklin Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I respect Ben Franklin, I have to completely disagree with this. Even if someone is stupid enough to want to give up liberty for safety they still deserve liberty. If you start determining who liberty is for based on what they "would give up" or whatever other box you want to check off (skin color, political views, etc) for who "deserves" it, then no one has liberty. Everyone has to have full liberty, or 100% of it is an illusion.
Perhaps you should check you facts (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, for those who are interested in the truth, are the facts:
1. The overwhelming majority of CCTV in the UK are privately owned and maintained.
Stores, shopping precincts, bars, airports, train stations, etc are, just like in the US, privately-owned premises. And, just like in the US, they have CCTV cameras installed for security and safety purposes.
Where's the problem here? Shouldn't a store owner be entitled to put a camera up in his shop to deter would-be shop-lifters? Shouldn't an airport or a train station have cameras installed to monitor passenger traffic flow and thereby ensure passenger safety?
Would you be happier if the store owner felt less secure whilst earning his livelyhood or if the occassional passenger fell onto the tracks because a station platform was dangerously overcrowded?
2. The majority of government-owned cameras are watching the roads.
Again, these are mainly concerned with the safety of road users. Monitoring traffic jams and detecting motorists speeding through red lights isn't exactly a Big Brother scenario - so why make it out to be?
3. A minority of government-owned cameras are installed in and around high security installations and other potential terrorist targets.
Number one on this list is the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. The area around that building is CCTV city, and has been for some time. Gee, I wonder why? Is it because the British goverment is obsessed with what the US Ambassador is having for lunch, or is it because it's a terrorist target?
Gee, let me think...
(Not too long ago, you could drive around all four sides of Grosvenor Square. But, some time in the last decade or so, some bright spark decided it was far too tempting to a potential car bomber and the side that houses the US Embassy was blocked off and protected with anti-tank measures. Not even Buckingham Palace or Downing Street are that secure. Next time you're in town, check it out - it makes Fort Knox look like an open air picnic camp.)
It's worth bearing in mind that Britain's been a terrorist target for over 30 years now. The IRA has been blowing up bombs, killing men, women and children all over Britain whilst freely raising funds in the US since before I was born. We can't (and won't) live in a society where there's someone watching you on every street corner so the security forces use CCTV cameras where they have to to ensure public safety.
(For the benefit of the "cameras can't stop terrorists" brigade, I'll point out now that IRA members rarely try to martyr themselves on suicide missions. They prefer to go in, place their car bomb, etc, and get out. Naturally, being spotted and caught is something they try to avoid, and evidence has shown that CCTVs do help curtail such activities. Suicide bombers are a different breed.)
4. Most CCTV footage is very poor, even when enhanced.
Most cameras are very low quality, black and white monitors. Getting a positive identification from one, even after the picture has been forensically enhanced is very difficult.
How such cameras (even if every single one of them was interlinked, actively manned, etc) could track my movement day in, day out is ridiculous to contemplate. There isn't a camera within half a mile of my house, and I live in a densely populated suburb of London, so where would they start?
So before you yanks (and sorry, but it is mainly yanks) go spouting off about how CCTV obsessed Britain is and how 1984-like our society is, why don't you examine the data? The real picture is a far cry from the sensationalist BS being spouted here.
So, "people need to wake up and realize that they are slowly removing their own rights", huh? US Patriot Act anyone?
Here is the survey (Score:3, Funny)
let's be practical (Score:3, Insightful)
If anything, requiring fingerprints or retinal scans will make these ids more secure and trustworthy.
or do you like the way id theft is so common in the US that there's a form you can fill out when yours has been stolen? look here [ftc.gov]
Re:let's be practical (Score:5, Insightful)
Retnal scans, for example, could be used to filter out suspects by race (based on eye color), or provide insight into the quality of someone's vision. While this may seem trivial, this type of information, especially medical information, is _supposed_ to be protected by the Constitution (at least here in the U.S.) and any such system mandiated by the government will threaten those constitutionally protected freedoms. Would you be comfortable giving a DNA sample to the government for identification purposes, knowing that they could analyze it for genetic defects? This is the first step on the path to a day where you can't have a driver's license because you're genetically pre-disposed to alcholism.
Re:let's be practical (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, requiring fingerprints or retinal scans will make these ids more secure and trustworthy.
A photograph gives some way for the PERSON to validate the ID -- so does a signature. With a retinal/fingerprint scan, you are totally at the mercy of the machine. The cop isn't going to ink your finger and doublecheck against what is stored on the card.
Finally, what happens if someone DOES steal your identity? Exactly how are you going to "invalidate" your thumbprint or retinal scan? If someone steals your ATM card and PIN, you get a new one.
Latent fingerprints can be enhanced with superglue fumes, scanned, touched up and reproduced with latex or gelatin. VERY low cost.
The big problem is that people think biometrics are inherently more secure than traditional methods of identification but that isn't necessarily true.
People trust the machine, and the machine isn't reliable enough for that type of trust, yet.
Re:let's be practical (Score:4, Insightful)
How? How do you identify yourself to the bank so that they issue you a new card and PIN?
Compare apples and apples. A bank card isn't a means of identification (in general), it is a system-specific identifier that is intended for use in conjunction with authentication (the PIN).
You are right that people have the wrong perception of biometrics -- often very wrong (confusing identification with authentication). I would not support any ID card that didn't have a picture, preferably a fingerprint, AND encoded biometric information. At the least it defeats the object of making the system easily usable -- you would need a machine.
The idea of an identity card is to identfy you, not to authenticate you. You produce the card to prove your claim to your identity; the accept checks the photo and whatever biometrics are required. Authenticating yourself is a different issue, and normally uses a singature (or PIN for electronic purposes). This separation needs to be maintained. If I don't sign a withdrawal slip for $10,000 but just stick my eye on a scanner, I don't know if the teller has withdrawn $20,000.
I don't think this is going to happen... (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2688697.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2657143.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2583651.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:I don't think this is going to happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, in Italy I cannot remember any situation where my card was asked which was not very well justified... In general it happens when you request official documents (and not always), maybe it happened once or twice at an university exam with a more paranoid professor fearing "friends" coming to do the exam for you. I suppose that if they catch you with a smoking gun in front of a dead man they'll ask you, also. When driving they ask for driving license, often they don't care about the ID card.
If I were asked to list 10 times when my card was asked I'm not sure I'd be able to reach those 10 times....
What is true is that it will be asked when crossing the border (you don't need a passport to move inside the EU, the ID card is enough), and even there, not always. When travelling by train or plane between France and Italy there have been times when I could travel without showing my ID to anyone (after 9/11 they are more paranoid, on planes they always ask you for the ID card....even if they tend to look at it for 1-2 seconds...). In France, some shops want to see your ID card when you pay by cheque or foreign credit card. I don't feel much threatened by this: my name is already on both of them, so the ID card does not add any information. If I don't want questions I just pay cash.
Overall, I think you can understand while, even carrying an ID card at all times, I really don't feel "watched". I feel much more watched through the credit card, for example, because that is associated to buying habits, while the ID is not.
UK doesn't want ID cards. (Score:5, Informative)
The government claim only 2000 responses have been received, yet Stand [stand.org.uk] know that nearly 5000 people sent in concerns about ID cards via their website.
All British Slashdotters should Fax their MP [faxyourmp.com] and complain about this.
It worked last year when the stand/fax your mp campaign made the government change their minds about letting every UK agency have access to our private data. [guardian.co.uk]
It worked last time, and it will work again, spend 10 minutes writing a fax, and make your views and opinion of this whitewash heard.
Re:Interesting Reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
The home secretary has been embarrassed by the reaction to his plans; having "consulted" the public (and broken the governments own rules by not doing it properly), then announcing the support of the public, he was surprised by the backlash. Look at the BBC website for examples of the reaction...
Er, I don't know where you get that from. Britain has the largest ex-pat community in the world (Britons living abroad), and you've just tarred 59 million people with the same brush... There are similar 'accusations' made against the American people