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Card Makers Say UK Citizens Want Biometric ID Cards
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?"
If given the choice, would you prefer:
[_] That your ID card be enhanced with the latest technologies, which make identity theft and fraud with your name nearly impossible, a 50% income tax break for 10 years and the privilege of being knighted by the queen, or
[_] To keep your current ID card, allow our country to fall behind the times and encourage the worlds mot notorious criminals to move here to avoid getting caught by everyone elses superior identity technology, lose your job, and be shot, or deported, or both?
The other 12% chose option #2
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Well, I'm Italian and I can offer you my view on the "compulsory" ID card thing. In Italy you are supposed to have an ID card on you at all time, but in fact nothing too bad happens if you don't (you may have to talk a bit, but you most definitely won't be arrested :). I admit that I don't understand the concern of people about the ID card, but I think that this comes from the fact that what's more important is not the fact that you MUST have an ID card, but rather the fact that you must show it when doing this or that. I mean: if you must have it, but you're never asked to show it, you don't really feel Big-Brother'ed.
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.
The Survey probably said:
"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?"
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