Slashdot Mirror
Blunkett Backs Down on UK ID Cards
Anonymous Brave Guy writes "Some people don't like the civil rights concerns. Some think they'll cost too much. Some think they'll lead to more identity theft than identity verification. Some think governments can't manage big database projects and there are bound to be mistakes and over-runs. Any way you look at it, compulsory ID cards have a lot of potential drawbacks, so is the UK's Home Secretary, David Blunkett, starting to back down from the idea? Combining ID cards with passports and driving licenses was the key way to force them on an often unwilling UK population, and seems to have gone for good, but apparently legislation to bring in some form of ID card is still likely in the next Queen's Speech. Is it the beginning of the end of a bad idea, or just more spin to dodge the remaining concerns?"
Well, ever the thinker, I was thinking about them as I was admiring our little society today as i walked through a typical UK small-city center. No, keep ID cards and militarized police with their guns away from our peaceful, naturally liberal spots.
There was an old british show called Yes Minister. It was on the air from 79-81, and it was about a newly apointed minister in the british government (like a cabinet secretary in the US), and satired how politics ran, with pandering and incompetitant politicians and the civil service who really ran the show, but had to make the politicians feel like they were in charge and so on. It's quite funny. Anyways, back in 1980, they were discussing the creation of this national database and they had already run though how it was going to be a disaster and nobody would like it and such. It's interesting how when they could see the problems that would arise from this system 24 years ago and spoof it on TV, that it would take to long for the government to catch up to the BBC.
It just goes to show that there are a lot of nice sounding reasons for us to give up some freedom and have it nickled and dimed to death, but there is one main reason to keep freedom and that is freedom. Unlike these other things, liberty is an end in itself - it derives from the fact that people are creatures of choice and not like the animals. There is no such thing as too much liberty ... it would be like saying that science is too rational.
I already have an ID that I carry everywhere. It is called a driver's license.
... well, then F' that.
I don't see how an National ID card changes anything. Especially for a country like the UK where the driver's licenses are issued by the national government.
So one want to explain (in relation to driver's licenses):
1) How this costs me any freedom I haven't already given up?
2) How this is supposed to stop terrorism?
OK, if you want to solve other problems like (a) long haul truck drivers having multiple IDs to avoid insurance/ticket issues, or (b) the fact that we are running out of Social Security numbers and will have to assign babies the numbers of dead people, I am OK with solving things like that.
And, if it is just one more card I have to carry in my already crowded wallet (thank you gorcery store loyalty cards)
But I fail to see how this is the end of the world or the world's saviour.
While I'm sure you enjoyed bashing Kerry, the fundamental difference between the US and Western Europe is that in most countries over there, the individual still has control over his/her data, meaning a company cannot resell the data without the individual's consent so having some form of national ID is not such a problem over there as it doesn't open the door to big corporations tracking your every move...
With a single form of ID, there is a single point of failure. When the One True Database has bad data about you, you will be screwed. If the One True Database says that you are a sex offender, then you are.
Furthermore, since the One True Database is always right, by definition, you will find it harder than ever to fix those mistakes.
Government inefficiency is the most immediate bulwark of our freedoms in the U.S. We don't want to risk eliminating it.
Here's a useful litmus test: if something would make life harder for would-be terrorists, it's going to take away freedoms we can't afford to loose, and the government wins. That's worse than letting the terrorists win, since the government has the ability and moral authority to kill far more of us than the terrorists could ever dream of hurting.
See what I've been reading.
From the article....
Plans to combine new compulsory identity cards with passports and driving licences have been dropped by Home Secretary David Blunkett.
and then it goes on to say that .....
The legislation to allow ID cards is widely expected to be promised in next month's Queen's Speech.
So, all they have done is backed down on plans to combine ID cards with other forms of ID.
We will still have to get ID cards, and *pay* for the prililage!.....
But the Home Office said the prices remained unchanged: people would pay either £35 for a stand-alone ID card or £77 for a passport and ID card together.
WTF! I have to get this by law, *and* i have to pay for it. So it's a TAX then?!
ID cards are unnecessary. They are just jumping on the 'Total control prevents Terrorism' bandwagon, and we all know that's a load of BS.
This is why no one in the UK trusts labour anymore. The sooner GW's lap dog is kicked out of office the better.
I keep hearing concern over things like a national ID card or other mandatory identification system. However, these sorts of worries just distract us from the real privacy concerns.
Pragmatically we already have national ID cards. Between drivers liscensces, passports and social security cards we have all the disadvantages of a national ID card. I can barely get through a day, much less a lifetime without these IDs.
The fact that I *could* theoretically get along without these cards doesn't mean anything. If I created a national DNA database (full DNA which could be tested for diseases) it wouldn't be okay if I allowed people to pay $100 to opt out.
Continuing to crow about things like national ID cards distracts from real issues of privacy. Defating national ID schemes gives us empty victories that make us think we are maintaining our privacy.
--
Personally I think maintaining privacy, at least in the traditional sense, isn't a viable option. Even if we win every legislative victory it is too easy to give corporations access to our personal data for a minor convenience. The fact that a few privacy minded individuals might avoid this net makes no difference in the big picture. Any societal harms will still occur even if 1% of society is not in any database.
Privacy, despite the name, is not a personal issue. The harms are not individual, accuring to you because your information is in a database but rather societal resulting from the fact that a large enough percentage of people are in databases.
Instead of fighting minor skirmishes against ID cards while our privacy is eroded behind our back we should try and minimize the negative social effects of privacy. The primary danger that erosion of privacy provides is that effective privacy will be availible only to the rich. This is already happening....cameras aren't put in well to do suburbs.
I contend this is the primary danger from losing privacy. Everyone does socially unacceptable things behind closed doors, be it smoking joints or having kinky sex. If we don't make sure privacy is lost by the well-off at the same rate it is lost by the poor we risk exagerating the problems we have in the war on drugs. Namely, where the poor and minorities are targeted, either legally or just by insurance companies and public opinion, for their 'inappropriate behavior' while the rich get a free pass.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Can someone explain why there is a push for ID cards of this sort?
Sure, we do have driver's licenses and passports, but are people wanting to combine them just in the name of efficiency or what?
On the other hand, what's so bad about having a card like this?
All the biometric data will be stored centrally, so the cops don't even need your card to find out who you are, the simply take a fingerprint. This is COMPLETELY different from German, French etc, cards and goes way beyond them. Why the media don't point that out is beyond me...
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
The "If you've nothing to hide" and all that argument. Well, ask the Jews in Germany with the J stamp on their ID cards, or the Rwandans who were massacred because their ethnicity was mentioned on their card whether they thought they had anything to hide.
You may well think you have nothing to hide today, but tomorrow ID cards are the perfect discrimination tool, that is after all the whole purpose for an ID card.
Why ID cards are useless, or at least, the arguments given for them so far are bogus:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/A2561834
UK campaign against ID cards:
http://www.no2id.net/
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Mind you, the British have changed their minds in the past. The reason Nynex laid all the cables in Britain is that British Telecom were banned from doing so in the 1940s. The reason for the ban was that cable networks were seen as dangerous, as in the event of a dictatorial Government, the media would be controllable from a central point. (It was also argued that if people didn't have radio receivers, it would be harder for resistance groups to communicate unobtrusively by radio.)
Today, of course, we wouldn't dream of having an unelected foreign Government dictate British policy, control British troops, invade British businesses,
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And if you're having a small car accident somewhere and both parties don't want to bother calling the police you can quickly exchage your (authenticated!) name.
In effect, the ID card is a downsized version of the ID card that is already part of EU passports (the plastic, machine-readable part). And there's no secret information stored on it either, because you can tell how the information is encoded in the two machine-readable lines of text:
- The lead string "ID" to calibrate the card readers.
- Surname
- First mame
- Number of the ID card
- Country issued
- Date issued
- Expiration date
- Checksum
Say Cowboy Neal was born in Britain on 1 January 1977 and had an ID card that expired on the UNIX epoch (just making this up), then his entry could read (assuming the British card follows the European model):(X, Y, Z being check digits I can't be bothered to compute right this morning, and the spurious blank is inserted bySo it's very simple and transparent, no Orwellian tech built in. That's why I love my (German) ID card and always carry it (even in Britain) to give evident that I'm me (and not Elvis), fly around without having to remember did I forget my passport, and yet nobody can easily abuse the system.
A biometric passport, on the other hand, would be a completely different matter...
--
Try Nuggets , the first UK SMS search engine. Answer your questions via simple text messages, all across the UK.
And what makes you think that you can't get screwed over even if there is no "One True Database". In the UK, people are still being mistaken for criminals, in the states, even Senators are being stopped as terrorist suspects.
Here in Sweden, there's been a standard for ID-cards for several years. Any SIS-approved ID-card (such as, for instance, my drivers license, bank ID or postal ID) is valid for identification.
I have yet to see any lack of civil liberties resulting from this. On the contrary, our ID-cards, along with our personal numbers (think social security numbers, except better) make it easier to make sure who's who. And that's the point if it all, anyway. To let you tell others that you're the one that your ID-card says you are.
As for databases, well, there'll never be a "one true database" anyway. Different organizations will always have their own databases. A standardized ID will let them make sure who's who though, so that you won't get confused with that terrorist guy on the floor above, who just happens to share your last name.
Is it the beginning of the end of a bad idea, or just more spin to dodge the remaining concerns?
No silly - there is an election coming up.
He's not backing down on ID cards - in reality, we're moving away from voluntary and towards compulsory!
He's backing down on the idea of a combined card to serve as a drivers licence, ID card, etc. Instead, we will have to carry separate cards for each of these functions.
And the clever thing is the way that he is forcing them on us. When you renew your passport you will be forced to get an ID card as well. And you will have to pay GBP35 for the privilege! If you don't want an ID card, the only way to avoid it is to not get a passport - this is a problem for many of us who have to travel on business.
I've said this several times before in slashdot id card discussions, but I've yet to have a sensible explanation for it.
Why do I need to carry biometric data about my eyes and fingerprints with me, when I'm already taking my actual eyes and fingerprints?
If we are going to be identified by biometric data, how can looking at a forgable, breakable, swappable, stealable card be more reliable than looking at the actual evidence?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/3 951945.stm
A man who worked for the driving licence authority misused his access to their database to pass details to Animal Rights protestors about people who may be involved with Chris Hall - a breeder of guinea pigs for medical testing.
The details of 13 people were handed out and a variety of offences of criminal damage were conducted against them, including smashed windows and pushing a hosepipe through the front door to fill the house with water.
It's not just the government who'll have access to the database, it's every employee too.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
And interestingly, the Home Office haven't even begun to cost for all the biometric readers in all those places that will be necessary for the Blunkettcard to work. I suspect that if they do, the Treasury will squash the whole thing dead in an instant. They'll probably try to hold off revealing the full cost until enough money has been spent already that it would be more economic to carry on.
David Blunkett is not backing down on ID cards.
The headline is misleading. The change that the BBC is referring to is that the the government will not make the ID card the same item as the passport and the driving license like the government was originally planning.
What has not changed is that anyone applying for a passport will still have to submit to biometric data collection, pay an extra fee for a new card, and be issued an ID card. The Register is more informative on the subject than the BBC in this case.
David Blunkett is still ignoring criticism of the scheme from the Home Office Affairs Committee, the public consultation, and thousands of people writing in to object. Not only that, but he knows that most of the members of parliment object as well so he has lied constantly about what the card will be and do in order to get parliment to accept it. It started out as an imigrants entitlement card, then an NHS card, then a voluntary ID card, and now it's to be compulsory to be issued a card but not to carry it. Expect that to change soon after everyone has one.
A latent existence
- no2id
- Stand
- Liberty
Also, I should point out the the Liberal Democrat party is the only major UK political party that's against ID cards.I recently returned to the UK from the continent after nearly a decade in France, Holland, Germany and Switzerland.
Mostly in Germany and Switzerland, nothing happens without your ID but it makes life easy getting an apartment, opening bank accounts, getting mobile phone contracts and so on. In the UK, in the absence of an ID card, opening a bank account was a complete pain.
I am British, with a passport and NI number. But these are no good for opening a bank account in the UK (unless you already have a UK bank account...). The rules are that you have to show a recent utility bill (or equivalent) with your name and current address plus other forms of identification. Of course, to get such a utility bill, I had to get an apartment but a lot of landlords want your bank account so that they can be assured of regular and timely payment. A vicious circle which proved frustrating to break.
The banks do offer to write to your foreign bank but the British, being such insular little islanders expect everything to be conducted in English, even if you have only just arrived from a small island off Japan. They will not attempt to communicate even in another major European language. In contrast, European banks often conduct their operations in several major languages.
To survive, I had to use the services of a friend's bank account (gotta be someone you can trust implicitly) until after several months, I was able to get an apartment and then, after having a utility bill, open my own account.
I've spoken to other foreigners (Swedish, Spanish, Bulgarian etc.) who all had to go through the same farcical process. All come from places where ID cards are the norm and wonder why the UK has to make life so difficult.
I note that 'Blind Man' Blunkett (the current and, one fervently hopes only temporary, Home Secretary) is possibly rejecting the notion of an ID card, not because it might make things easier for ordinary citizens but because there might be workarounds for crooks and terrorists. This is typical of the horrendously authoritarian Blunkett, nothing he does is for Joe Soap but only to simplify (to make more 'efficient') police powers and processes. See, for example the US-UK Extradition Treaty 2003
Did he inhale?
I submitted the article. One of the reasons I feel strongly about this issue myself is that I was once left hundreds of pounds short in my pay cheque after someone in a government tax office mistyped a National Insurance number (similar to a SSN, for those who have them instead) and entered mine instead. I've mentioned this here before, but here are a few scary details in summary.
The problem with this sort of database isn't just malicious use for things like identity theft or government interference. Good old user error is just as big a danger, and probably a lot more likely.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.