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Biometric ID Cards Trialled in Glasgow
StuWho writes "The Register is reporting a trial of Biometric ID Cards in Glasgow, Scotland. The trial is one of several tests prior to the implimentation of a universal UK ID card. It also carries reports of how you can evade the sensors by doing something as simple as crying. 'It costs the UK 1.3 billion a year, and facilitates organised crime, illegal immigration, benefit fraud, illegal working and terrorism,' Home Office Minister Des Browne said. He then said that the ID card would fix all this, but did not say how. It's not only in the US where governments are using the excuse of terrorism to infringe on civil liberties."
cryptogram article talks about an american ID card in the works (and why its a bad thing )
If you are in the area and want to help protest against the ID cards, Defy ID is organising meetings against it. Go to the main website to get more information, as well as pointing your friends to it. Everyone needs to know!!
its "Revelation" (not plural)
personally given the reputation of the 'enemy' (devil) this seems too obvious. i think the 'mark' will be something totally left field(a flank manuver) that people don't give a 2nd thought to.
for example the watch/the time.
in any non-third world country, try going a week without knowing the time and still keeping your job. how much business can you do without knowing the time. and see if you get mocked/persecuted for actively not wanting to know the current time.
time: hour=4*6:minute=10*6:second=10*6
or even date month=2*6 if you don't like seconds.
and then the wearing it on the right hand - literal or metephore for 'working by the clock'
of the forehead - metephore for thinking.
sure you can take off a watch, but then its possible that 'on the forehead' is a phase like the USA's 'butterflies in my stomic' (nervice/uneasyness, not a bug eater)
i'm not saying 'this is the mark' but it has some of the properties of it. from what i understand it doesn't actually have to do with money, just 'business'
Like Anonyomous Coward says, you can live your entire life without making any allegiance to the country. So far, I've never had to swear alleigance to the UK in any form.
'It costs the UK 1.3 billion a year, and facilitates organised crime, illegal immigration, benefit fraud, illegal working and terrorism,'[Quote from Des Brown] Home Office Minister Des Browne said. He then said that the ID card would fix all this, but did not say how.[Quote from The Register].It's not only in the US where governments are using the excuse of terrorism to infringe on civil liberties.[Quote from StuWho].
"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson
Identity is only a small factor in benefit fraud in the UK (just the same as it is in crime, which will also be largely unaffected by ID cards.)
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
The post anonymously option you are [not] attempting to use is one that isn't available to your user.
Allegedly you can "burglarize" someone's house, though, at leat in the colonies ;)
no taxation without representation!
Every modern country needs to keep track of its citizens for various things, from banking to medical insurance.
Well then have the banks issue me whatever they want to identify me (prior to ID cards they have perfectly good internal cusotmer identification systems.)
Medical insurance is an odd one. But, if everyone in a social health care country has automatic insurance, then why do they need a card anyway?
Here in Belgium we have had ID cards for as long as I can remember, and it has never to my knowledge been a privacy problem.
One of the main lessons about ID card issues is that each country's experience with it is different. Of what I know of Beligium's ID card experiences I would characterize them (as I would a lot of the Western European ID card experience) as being bureaucratic. A lot of the bureaucracy that a Beligian would use an ID card for would be done differently in the US or UK. Honestly, several european nations really don't need them (I would put Beligum into that category.)
It's an odd paradox, but if you don't have rampant ID card fraud, you really dont' need the card in the first place.
Now, as for why the British government thinks ID cards will solve illegal immigration, let me explain why this would be the case.
Other posters answered this question pretty well. Once again, the Western European model of ID cards is fairly uninteresting and benign, as well as entirely unnecessary.
Take a look at Latin America though for some great experiences. You got everything good, hard to forge ID cards, biometrics, national database, blah blah blah.
And you have the most amazing ID fraud ever. I would say it's a sport in Costa Rica, but that would be singling out just Costa Rica. I think a lot of the problems are bribery (which is the case in the US as well, but DMVs go out of their way to make sure that internal bribery is covered up. Here in Ohio, I happen to know that criminal charges are often not carried out so that the scale of internal bribery is not fully realized.)
Check out Israel for a really odd ID card experience. It's a completely worthless card--not even used for bureaucratic purposes for the most part. It's not even used in security contexts.
It is however used as a way of hassling Palestinians. Stories abound of Israeli guards taking away Palestinian ID cards so that they can be fucked over (something which the UN intervened on several years ago)...or throwing them onto the as a show of force. Honestly, you could write several books about ID cards in Jewish history.