Greece, UK Go Different Directions On Biometric ID

An anonymous reader submits "David Blunkett, the UK's labour Home Secretary, today announced plans to fingerprint and iris scan all British citizens by 2013 for a new compulsory ID card. The majority of negative feedback to government consultation on the scheme was discounted because it was sent via an online service." On the other hand, securitas writes "Greece's Data Protection Authority - the national privacy watchdog - 'banned Athens International Airport from checking and recording passengers' fingerprints and irises as part of a pilot security program saying it was in breach of local privacy laws.' (That's 'pilot' as in 'trial,' not the people who fly the planes). The scheme, funded by the European Union and the Swiss government, involved embedding the biometric data on smart cards issued to travelers on a voluntary basis."

Comments

popularity.

[perlyking]

A (non online) poll indicated about 80% of people in the UK were in favour of mandatory ID cards.

Re:popularity.

[WolfWithoutAClause]

That's actually not entirely atypical; if you just ask people cold whether they think they are a good idea. Which is presumably why the government chose this route. However when people are actually forced to look at the issue in more detail; they mostly change their mind- the statistics typically end up more like 60% against.

Noteably, this was roughly the result of the consultation period (presumably the people that bothered to reply to it had thought about the issues to some extent, and so were mostly against it) and there have been debates on TV (polling before debate: most people think it's a good idea, polling after: most don't.)

All in all, police state here we come.

Re:popularity.

[turgid]

All in all, police state here we come.

Sad, isn't it? And if you object "you must have something to hide."

Re:popularity.

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Something to hide? I prefer to think of a police state as somebody to hide from.

The gits are very probably already recording who and when I call, recording my internet usage, shopping items, email headers and so on. And they probably scan all transoceanic phone calls for keywords, and may well be recording them now the cost of storage is so low.

And I say this without any trace of paranoia- they record these things for the whole country pretty much anyway.

Re:popularity.

[Tim C]

That's meaningless, without seeing the questions, details of interview techniques used and sample selection procedure, etc.

It's very easy indeed to skew a poll to give the desired outcome, just by carefully wording the questions and choosing the people you ask.

That said though, I'd well believe that a majority of people here are at least not against them - they'll have been told that it'll help tackle illegal immigrants, benefit fraud and other crimes and terrorism, without a mention of anything to be concerned about. If there's an outcry at all, it'll be because of plans to charge us for them.

Re:popularity.

[tiled_rainbows]

The poll showed that 80% of the 2,000 votes that they counted were in favour. They did not count an additional 5,000 votes, nearly all of which were against.
So in fact the results were, of 7,000 votes: 23% in favour, 77% not.

The reason given for disregarding most votes made is that they came from an anti-ID card website, so they were biased.
I swear I couldn't make it up.

semantics

[klokwise]

a small, but possibly signifigant point. british people are subjects, rather than citizens.

so... from merriam-webster

citizen - 1 : one that is placed under authority or control: as a : VASSAL b (1) : one subject to a monarch and governed by the monarch's law (2) : one who lives in the territory of, enjoys the protection of, and owes allegiance to a sovereign power or state

subject - 1 : an inhabitant of a city or town; especially : one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman 2 a : a member of a state b : a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it

and to finish: "citizen" is preferred for one owing allegiance to a state in which sovereign power is retained by the people and sharing in the political rights of those people (the rights of a free citizen). "subject" implies allegiance to a personal sovereign such as a monarch (the king's subjects).

Re:semantics

[Pogue Mahone]

I'll bet HM the Q (or K perhaps by then) won't be carrying an id card.

Re:semantics

[Wanderer2]

Well would you need one if your face was on every stamp and note?

Policeman: "Evenin' all! Papers please"

Queen: *hands over ten pound note*

Policeman: "That'll do nicely Mrs... Charles Darwin?"

Re:semantics

[Murson]

(I assume you deliberately got the definitions the wrong way around, BTW...)

In any case, it's perhaps worth pointing out that I (along with most of the rest of the British population) am both a British Subject and a British Citizen. So, not only am I a Subject of HM Queen Elizabeth the mis-numbered (sorry, I'm a Scot), but I also have the right of abode in the UK.

A point sometimes missed is that being a British Subject does not, in and of itself, grant you this right...

Re:semantics

[klokwise]

of course i purposefully put them the wrong way round, otherwise i would look like a total fool...

Re:semantics

[Pogue Mahone]

So, you reckon you can identify HM the Q from that silhouette on the stamps?

Re:semantics

[DjReagan]

> british people are subjects, rather than citizens

Funny.. it says "British Citizen" in this passport that I'm looking at.

Re:semantics

[kalidasa]

I assume you realized that those two definitions are reversed? Anyway, though historically one has said British subjects, more recently creeping Republicanism (this is the British version of "Republicanism" I'm talking about here) has dictated the use of "citizen." The distinction is most important in French history, at a time when the French crown was far more controlling than the British one had been for decades.

Ho Hum

[turgid]

As technology advances, those in power expect to be able to use it to keep tabs on us all, for reasons of safety and security and economics. Very few people will object to the state having complete knowledge and power over us since "obviously" those who object must have something to hide. Me, I think that the system will implode under its own beurocracy following the inevitable farce it will become.

Currently you need several forms of identification to get anything important. When there is a one-size-fits-all solution that is officially deemed perfectly secure, the fraud and deception will take off, and the whole thing will collapse.

Re:Ho Hum

[MikShapi]

That's a rather unscientific doom'n'gloom approach.

Why would it collapse under its own beurocracy? Yes, ID's _are_ meant to keep tabs on people. They proved their usefulness well and beyond in allowing governments to control the populace (for the populace's own good). How would you like to drive around a place where anyone can print out a phony driver's license, kids with no driver training just go sit behind wheels, and people get killed daily by the doesen?

What is being said here about bio ID's invading your privacy is just as relevant about your regular ID today. In spite of the privacy invasion, the benefits of such a system outweigh the penalties by far. Don't forget it goes the other way around too - If you didn't do something bad, keeping bio tabs on you makes framing someone innocent or wrongful accusation harder. Furthermore, we already live in a world where you can be tracked quite easily with your credit card, given a court warrant.

Law-abiding people actually want the "right to be able to commit a crime and be hard to track" (though they don't intent to ever excersize that right). Sorta reminds "The right to have children" that the guy wanted in "Life of Bryan".

Going bio will actually make ID-faking harder, hence more expensive, hence less accessible, hence make crimedoers more easily trackable, hence reduce crime and be good for us all on the end count.

To your point of it being a "farce" and falling apart due to that - highly unlikely. Same could be said for card ID's - nobody will take it seriously, and it'll just be a pain that will inevitably be repulsed. Yeah right. Hell, I could have said that when someone came up with the idea of money. But Woe and Behold! people _do_ take the idea of money seriously and it is anything but falling apart. Why should bio ID's be any different from ID cards, drivers licenses or money?

Cheers.

Re:Ho Hum

[turgid]

No, I still assert that it will fail.

You see, many people think that biometric identification is fool-proof and that the ID cards will be perfect and unforgeable.

Both of these premises are false. Try finding out what the reliability of DNA fingerprinting is. The probability of a flase match with someone else's is not infinitessimal. Fingerprint readers have already been fooled, people have made copies of fingerprints left on surfaces and used them to fool machines, and iris scans have been duplicated as well.

Anyway, I'm white, male, middle-class, of moderate political views, have been in continuous education or employment since the age of 16, I haven't committed any crimes and I pay my taxes and bills.

On the surface, I have nothing to fear.

However, this is a flase sense of security. Biometric compulsary ID cards will be an expensive failure open to fraud, abuse and miscarriages of justice.

But what do I know? I'm just another ammateur pundit.

Re:Ho Hum

[turgid]

I did not say that it wasn't any better than what we already have. As for proof, Google is your friend.

My point is that the politicians and beurocrats want us to put all of our eggs in one basket, so to speak. Currently I must provide several forms of identification. In the future, this shambles will be all that is required to get access to all services. That's a single point of failure. Anyone with any sense knows that this is dangerous. No engineer would build such a system. So why should the politicians get away with such shoddiness?

Re:Ho Hum

[BrokenHalo]

One of the main things that bothers me about the retinal scan (this is not my area of expertise) is how they conduct the scan. Given how delicate eyes are by comparison with most other organs in the body, these guys would have to have a pretty damn good line of evidence to support any claim that the equipment is not dangerous, and furthermore cannot be made dangerous either wilfully or otherwise.

There's no way I'm letting anybody fool around with my eyesight, thank you very much. And I, for one, won't be prepared to accept the line that "It's perfectly safe because I tell you so".

Re:Ho Hum

[Steve Cox]

I agree that the fraudsters will only be a few months behind the technology, but what we have at the minute is far from perfect.

There was a BBC news item on a couple of months ago that stated that the 'several' forms of identification required to obtain a passport are unfortunately simple for criminals to obtain and have been for years due to a flaw in the system. In the report even the passport office acknowledged this, although they dismissed it since they reckon that only a small number of them are obtained in this manner.

Once you have you passport, no one really questions anything else.

The report was quite good. They obtained a passport issued by the passport office in David Blunketts name (all the particulars were correct too) along with a driving license (and he is blind - you would have though someone might have noticed this!). Just to note - they gave the obtained ID
to David Blunketts office after the report so that it could be destroyed....

It is important that the ID cards be seen as no more important than other forms of ID and that the current process of using multiple forms of ID should still occur when we do get them. I dread the day on which the ID card is considered safe enough to be used by itself....

As for my own opinion on ID cards? I have to say that I am in favour of them. One of the initial uses will be to stop benefit fraud. If we stop people fraudulantly obtaining benefits even for a few months (until the fraudsters catch up with technology), it will be a good thing.

Steve.

Re:Ho Hum

[pmz]

Why would it collapse under its own beurocracy?

My take is that the victimization of innocent people will be so rampant that the government won't be able to cover things up fast enough.

If you didn't do something bad, keeping bio tabs on you makes framing someone innocent or wrongful accusation harder.

Actually, it will be harder for juries to see the logical holes in the database schemas. It makes it easier for lawyers to sway juries into believing what the police say, because it takes much much more intellectual effort to understand a database query, what it is actually gleaning from the data, what is missing from the query, and what data was overlooked. Database queries could literally be crafted to make biased reports that only information and statistics experts could see through. I pity the person who's defense lawyer is incompetent.

hence more expensive, hence less accessible...hence reduce crime

Oh, the fallacy. Petty crime becomes organized crime. Politicians and businesspeople fall prey to racketeering. Corruption becomes an everyday way of life. Think Prohibition, for example.

Your complacent reasoning along with most everyone else's is what is tearing this country apart at the seams.

Re:Ho Hum

[CJF]

So you really think its worth 3.5 billion UKP to stop a few months benefit fraud? (And that just the cards, not the card readers and other infrastructure.)

Me thinks there are _many_ better things on which to spend the money than setting up the infrastructure of a police state.

Re:Ho Hum

[ahodgson]

>populace's own good). How would you like to drive
>around a place where anyone can print out a phony
>driver's license, kids with no driver training just
>go sit behind wheels, and people get killed daily by
>the doesen?

I don't know about Britain, but here in Canada all those things happen every day despite our mandatory drivers' licenses. /shrug. Clearly a national ID card will do much better, though. Terrorists are so much more likely to obey the law than teenagers.

Re:Ho Hum

[ahodgson]

Unless what you REALLY want is a police state, and everything else is just a smokescreen to convince the sheep^H^H^H^H^citizenry it's a good idea.

No Contest

[ratboy666]

The main problem with biometric schemes is that it is (almost) impossible to contest.

The card holds your biometric data (say finger-print and iris scan). If card production is cracked, the cards can then be forged -- making the biometric data useless. This is comparable to pasting in another picture on a drivers license.

To prevent this, the biometric data can be stored elsewhere. One copy (the one that can't be repudiated) is on the person. One copy may be on the card (if the card is secure). Typically, one *more* copy is on a computer.

The "client" is scanned, and biometric data is compared against the stored copy. Hack attempts portrayed on movies have the "bad guys" using cut off fingers, etc. to beat the system. But this isn't the attack point of choice.

If the biometric data is modified in the stored computer file, we have a problem. Someone makes a change saying "this person is a terrorist". Or another identity change. You CAN'T change your biometric data, and governments aren't likely to reveal what is in the "secret" files.

So, a hacker seeds data in a computer somewhere, and the next time you travel, BAM, you are arrested with no way of proving that it ISN'T you. Of course its you, the biometric data matches.

Any compromise in the system is very bad. This is a very bad thing. The privacy thing is a canard -- not being able to repudiate the biometric data makes it almost impossible to correct records, and reclaim identity through government layers.

Ratboy

Re:No Contest

[turgid]

Since when did scientific fact, reason and common sense ever stop a politician or the "great British public?"

Is Britain a testbed for the US and EU?

[pmz]

"The majority of negative feedback to government consultation on the scheme was discounted because it was sent via an online service."

How convenient.

Biometric data & surveillance society

[Garry Anderson]

The Telegraph newspaper said in Leader today (12 Nov), "Opinion polls show that a majority of the public supports ID cards, as long as they are paid for by somebody else".

The main problem is that people's opinions are being shaped by the false distorted view, that ID cards would solve our ills of illegal immigration, crime and terrorism.

The carrying of these biometric ID cards is a red herring - there is no need to carry a card - you carry your data on you at all times.

Your eye scan and/or fingerprint data will be on a national database.

FACT: it will be very simple to identify you anywhere with a portable scanner.

Once data is transmitted to base - they can have your identity within seconds - ask Blunkett to deny that fact.

The ID Card itself is totally irrelevant - it is a means to an end.

Just as the Nazi's did to the Jews in 1942 - the New Labour government have your number branded to you.

The analogy is correct - or does anybody deny that you can be read like some barcode on the till at Tesco?

Even without being scanned, the 'stop and search' will be a dehumanising experience for those undergoing it.

More trouble ahead.

With this and RIP Act - it is clear to me that the New Labour Government wants a surveillance society.

www.SKILFUL.com

Re:Biometric data & surveillance society

[SdnSeraphim]

Can anyone say Minority Report?

*ALL* British citizens?

[grotgrot]

This British citizen lives in the US and has never been back. I'll be very impressed if they manage to issue anything for me. And I was born and lived in 3rd world countries most of my life so all attempts at tightening up birth certificates etc issued in the UK won't achieve anything.

And of course all the tourists plus citizens of other European countries working in Britain (as allowed by EC rules) won't have them either.

So if someone is supposed to check your biometric id and you say you don't have one, how can they check that is true? Well, if they knew who you are then they could verify that you don't have one. And how do the know who you are? How about a different form of id? Well, the bad guys will just go ahead and forge that.

In general almost all the forms of id fail in the above way, unless you close your borders. There isn't any need for all this new waste of money. If *existing* laws and regulations had been enforced then things like September the 11th wouldn't have happened, or with far fewer hijackers.

Bio ID makes framing easier...

[bagofbeans]

What will happen is that the courts will accept certain evidences as un-contestable.

So persons with access to the evidence trail/databases can more easily prove someone guiltly (who isn't) because the forgery is percieved to be difficult.

When the storage methods for evidence etc are themselves subject toi screcy, proving tampering will be very difficult for the defendent.

There is a solution: prosecution must prove that the evidence was not tampered with.

the French far more controlling than the British?

[falconwolf]

Are the French more controlling than the British?

I thought it was the other way around. In the nanny state in Britain a person's not able to defend themselves. Why, I read an article recently about how a woman was going home from her knitting circle when she was attacked and to defend herself she used her knitting needle. Because she used a "dangerous weapon" she was charged. I haven't as yet heard that a person isn't able to defend themselves in France.