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Biometric ID Cards Ready For Trial In UK
0ctal writes "Looks like us lucky Brits are getting ID cards no matter what... A 10,000 user trial starts next week. There's been a fair amount of debate on this recently, and it's been coming for some time, but live trials are sooner than expected. The trial is set up to evaluate three competing biometric products. Qinetiq, quoted by the story, are a government backed company set up to use MoD tech in civilian apps."
Here - not sure if its linked off the main article or not, but discusses a lot of the reasons why its a good and bad idea.
Glad to see that privacy concerns, and not having to prove that you are a citizen are on that list.
To be honest, i'd be for ID cards in a way - we do have a bit of a problem with illegal immigrants in this country lately, who are totally abusing the system - the current trend is buying cheap cars, and then they just drive around the city in them with no tax insurance or anything.
Having ID cards would mean these guys could be instantly checked out, as many don't speak English and the police forces don't have the resources to be able to question them in any of the many different languages they use.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
...crap out of me.
Ok, so add biometric identification to the ID we already have; passports, driving licence, etc. but why on earth are we having this centralisation? Surely everything we've learnt about security technologies says a layered approach is needed?
What happens when someone beats the system? Everyone will trust it completely because nutters like Blunkett say biometric id is unbeatable. What about the human element of the system? If someone exploits this database they can write themselves a few new lives, delete other peoples lives, etc.
It scares me. Ah well, I'll just move abroad with my girlfriend and take our 30 000 of student loan with us.
How much longer until they implant GPS devices into everybody, so that the data can be used for proving they're telling the truth about their whereabouts. (Why they couldn't work, why they couldn't have committed a crime, that they didn't stop anywhere on the way home, etc.)
Does this mean that if a cop stops you on the street you must either be able to produce a valid ID card or take a trip to the police station so that your identity can be confirmed?
Where I live a government issue ID (or at least a valid social security number) is practically required if you wish to drive a car legally, open a bank account, get insured, get a job, benefit from the public healthcare and so on. Yet, we do not have a legal obligation to carry an ID and show it to any cop on the street. Sounds rather draconian to me.
"What has anybody to worry about having their true identity known?" he said.
Ah. Yet another version of "If you have done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear".
The owls are not what they seem
It's true what they say, we don't live in a democracy, we live in a dictatorship where we get to choose the dictator every five years.
The EU constitution, presumably soon the Euro, identity cards... The government seems intent on its "progressive" schemes no matter what the public opposition.
#define struct union
If the brits think that a nationalist in the occupied North of Ireland is going to carry around a bio-metric ID card, issued by the British State and adourned with a Butchers' Apron (Union Jack), then they're dreaming.
80% in favour clicky which to me is rather worrying. Interestingly these are being phased in by the Government due to concerns about terrorism, whereas the typically xenophobic British public is far more interested in them as a method for keeping immigration "under control". These are supposedely going to be compulsory by 2010 and the Government wishes to change the law so that carrying falsified papers leads to a HEFTY (10 year IIRC) maximum sentence. Blunkett scares the crap out of me, every week there is a new story about how he wishes to erode our civil liberties. I don't wear my tin-foil hat that often, but I have always said that as soon as ID cards become cumpulsory, I would take my citizenship, and my skills elsewhere.
Are there similar pushes for this in the USA? - who lets face it (along with Spain) were on the sharp end of the current terrorist activity.. not the UK..
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
A fair amount of debate yes: and all of it indicates a) it will be very expensive and b) we don't want it.
But Herr Blair and his propaganda minister Josef Blunkett (aka the blind facist) have decided that that is what we must have, and have it we will.
I think we Brits are getting to the point where we're as desperate to get rid of our right wing Prime Minister as you are to get rid of your right wing President.
The ironic thing is that Blair is the leader of the Labour party: which was historically established to protect the rights of the working class (ie Socialist, left wing). Blair however seems to see his mission to kiss the arse of Corporate Britain and fuck the workers because if they disagree they're probably don't understand what he's saying.
The scarey thing is a comment by Roy Hattersley (a leading old-school labour politician) that Tony Blair has a second rate mind: ie he's as thick as pig-shit. yet another thing he has in common with Bush it seems.
Both Bush and Blair strike me as shining examples of why Universal Suffrage doesn't work. Personally I think you should have to pass an exam before you can vote. Only simple stuff like: "Who are the leaders of the 3 main parties?", "Who is the Constituional head of state?". Let's face it, if you can't answer questions like that a) you're not well enough informed to vote and b) you don't fucking deserve to be able to vote.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Is there? Personal anecdote aside, I honestly don't know anyone who likes the idea at all.
Apart from anything else, the rationale behind the scheme just doesn't make any sense. According to Blunkett, it will help "combat terrorism". I want to know how it will do this exactly.
An often ignored factoid in the this debate is that Spain has compulsory ID scheme and it's just endured a major terrorist atrocity. I honestly can't see how ID cards help anybody but the Government and the health of its coffers.
Many people in the UK feel like this.
Frustration at the autocratic actions of the government is widespread. The lack of an effective opposition makes it even more frustrating.
(Sorry, I know it's lame to follow up my own post)
Shrykk.
oh yes, we all know nothing can go wrong and no democratic government ever fell, being replaced with people like hitler... oh wait
Maybe you're not old enough to remember what happened in Germany in the early 1940's, but this was the common consensus of just about everyone at the time. People seriously thought, "This kind of thing would never happen here, our government would never show their true face and prune out all those with [insert difference here]". Similarly, today Americans believe that "our government would never imprison people based on their race, because we live in a free land, and our goverment would not get so currupt." They probably don't remember the internment camps after Pearl Harbor, and most of us are unaware that our current administration is planning more such camps right now: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision
Such an ID system allows Big Brother easier access to these taxpaying, legal, citizens whenever public fear is hightened.
The problem is this. First we have the cards issued, and everything is nice and fluffy. No you don't have to carry it with you etc. etc.
How long before it's compulsory to carry the card?
How long before everyone's DNA is required and index linked to the card ID?
How long before it's illegal to not carry the card at all times?
Who can demand to see it? ("Papers please.") and when can it be asked for? ("Why are you out at this time of night? Papers please.")
How long before they are index linked to the IMEI of your mobile phone and periodic logs of your location taken and an easy to access system provided to civil servants?
How long before banks are required to log all your financial transactions provided in an easy to access system provided to civil servants?
How long before all your telephone, SMS, email and web access logs are indexed to your card and provided in an easy to access system to civil servants? (Note to Americans - all of the above is already logged by law under the RIPA Act and the government will be making available to bodies such as the Food Standards Agency and the local council).
How long before someone starts a side development to chip children (to protect them from all those pesky paedophiles) and integrate this with location technology to allow parents to see where they are at any time?
How long before it becomes law to have children chipped at birth? (don't forget the paedophiles!)
How long before it's illegal to remove the chips?
How long before someone gets the "bright idea" that they can be used instead of those pesky ID cards?
How long before we are treated like nothing more than cattle?
Either read Orwell's novel 1984 or bone up on database admin - both should leave you feeling concerned.
So, you don't mind the government installing cameras in your bedrooms and bathrooms then? Because, after all you've got nothing to hide.
I thought that during Blunketts public consultation most of the people who responded were against the idea.
I too don't see how on earth this is going to help with anything, the various methods of ID people have at the moment; birth certificates, passports, driving licences seem perfectly adequate to me. If they are worried about the security of these methods then they should spend the money on sorting out the existing systems.
Whatever ID card they do come up with won't be 100% unforgeable but as soon as someone does assume your identity with an ID card it will be a nightmare for you to prove it wasn't really you doing all those bad things.
In the end this is a fairly huge IT project and the British Government hasn't yet ever managed to run one of those successfully. This is going to be a massive waste of money and in the end, being as it is apparently not compulsory anyway, no one will bother anyway.
...is that they don't solve the problems they claim to solve.
Their only real use is to track ordinary, average people.
What has shocked me about the ID card scheme isn't that new labour have introduced it - they seem hell bent on removing as many civil rights as possible - but the unquestioning way in which so much of the public has accepted it.
When the subject comes up and I express my feelings against it, the two responses I always seem to get are "Well, why not have it?" and "I've got nothing to hide".
Firstly, the question isn't "why not", it's "why". It will cost a fortune, make a whole new layer of beaurocracy, upset a lot of people etc etc and no one has yet given a good example of what we really gain, so, why bother?
Secondly, *everyone* has something to hide. Everyone. It may not be something criminal, it may not be something wrong, it may even be something you have no logical reason you want to keep to yourself, but you still have a whole raft of things you don't want the policeman who has just randomly stopped you to know.
I could (and previously have) go on and on, but I'll spare the gentle reader and leave it at that. If you are a halfway intelligent person who bothers to think for yourself you'll be able to come up with a dozen more reasons against introducing ID cards in no time. You don't need me (or anyone else) to tell you what to think.
Yeah, I know this has nothing to do with biometric data, but it has something to do with conducting survey after survey and playing around with statistics until you get what you want. This includes surveys showing 80% of the UK population in favor of national identity cards containing biometric data.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
If you've got nothing to hide, then why worry about it, and if you've got something to hide, then it's something you're just gonna have to deal with.
Who says I've got nothing to hide, and who says it's the police I wish to hide from. I could be a battered wife who wants to adopt a new identity, or I could be a witness to a crime that criminals wish to intimidate. Organised criminals are going to love these things because it will make tracking their victims so much easier. I bet loan sharks will now remove them from people, as collateral. Stand back and watch identity theft soar.
They're called driving licences. I already get asked to show my ID quite often: When going to certain pubs/nightclubs, when buying a mobile phone, verifying my identity when the signature has faded on my debit card, and probably a lot more that I can't remember. I don't see how having an Identity Card with just that purpose could hurt things.
As for why ID cards and not the current system of one of several forms of ID (for things like buying a mobile phone they require two forms of ID from a very short list - an my provisional driving license wasn't on them), it would give a form of identification that everyone would accept. Sure, they could be faked. But so could _every_ _other_ form of identification currently in use.
So I ask the question, why not?
Most responses seem to be along the lines of 'we don't know what they could do with the data', or that the police could stop you and demand ID. The police could stop you now if they suspected you, and ask for some form of ID, and if they thought you were a known criminal and couldn't prove otherwise, you would still be taken to the station for questioning.
All the worry about privacy concerns seems to be way too overexagerated. It's just a card that says who you are, not something that broadcasts to the world that you slept with your mates girlfriend last night, or whatever it is you don't want everyone to know.
How the hell do you think the NAZIs identified the Jews?
Or the Hutu identified the Tutsi. Just 10 years ago FFS!
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
If it records data,
and stores a copy,
how hard can it be
for someone to copy that copy?
Isn't their an axiom about every measure has a countermeasure?
And what about ID fraud?
It's bad enough
someone could take your credit card...
But if they took your thumbprint, blood type and retina scan...
geez!
...will they do. the next step in this obvious progression is forced implantation of ID chips along the design of digital angel, or maybe with even more advanced "features" that you won't really like. I've read what they are working on, and it isn't hard to imagine what the controllers really want, is it? So what then? Just take it? This isn't a joke anymore or any sort of gee whizz might be coming in the real far away future, this could be here any day if they feel like implementing it by law, the tech is here already.
How do you say NO forcefully enough if it's illegal and you have a population that is effectively disarmed completely and has a police and military force that will follow any orders given to them without question? Sometimes the law is just so blatantly wrong that you have no recourse.
I mean, just about anyone can smell this coming next, in GB, in Canada, in the US, eventually everywhere by governments. Governments may be slow, but they eventually get around to using every sort of advanced technology for the "command and control" aspects of society. Well, just run a very conservative extrapolation here, you can see what's coming next.
There are many downsides to ID cards.
One attraction for Blunket is having fingerprints from everyone. Then it becomes easier to arrest people where you have a crime scene with a fingerprint.
Except it doesn't. Currently fingerprints are a major weapon in crime. If fingerprint evidence gets compromised, then a major weapon is lost.
One scenario is as follows. The DB is hacked. This is certain to happen. Even the UK government cannot keep people's heath records private. There were 200,000 known cases last year of medical records being fraudulantly obtained.
Secondly, the fingerprints get turned into gummy prints. Total cost less than 100 for the materials, plus photshop or an equivalent program.
Now you leave Tony Blairs fingerprints etc all over a crime scene.
When the Crime scene lot arrive, they have a very strong audit trail. They don't analyse the prints until later. It is very difficult to hide the fact you found Tony Blairs prints at the scene of crime. Particularly if the lawyer is tipped off to get the records of all possible matches from the prosecution.
The end result, fingerprint evidence is discreditied. A major weapon is lost. Every defence lawyer when presented with fingerprint evidence would bring up the case time and time again.
As an immigrant living in the UK, I don't mind that these cards are being discussed and introduced.
But what I do mind is how certain people's arguments for the introduction of the ID cards are just seething with xenophobia and racism. And before you start to scream about how these are just labels used by anal-PC types, I ask you this:
'Do you really think that immigrants enjoy living in the parallel society within your own country ?'
'Do you honestly think that they choose to be marginalised from the mainstream society or do you think your attitudes towards them have forced them to such a life ? '
You want them to accept your values and way of life ? Show them how, don't just scoff at them expecting them to _obey_.
I could be mistaken, but acording to Fridays Today programme, this was a Mori telephone poll.
Perhaps Mori would have seen a different result if, every time someone told them to fuck off and slammed the phone down, they treated as an 'I value my privacy' responce.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
If I (as a Britain) am going to be identified by my iris and fingerprints, what do I need a card for?
I already tend to carry my eyes and fingers with me at all times.
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