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?"

Comments

i was thinking about them today...

[johansalk]

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.

Re:i was thinking about them today...

[TuataraShoes]

With ever increasing requirements to have your identity recorded by government, shown on demand, and your actions tracked... there is a fundamental shift in the relationship between the people and the state.

GOOD

• Government must serve people
• Policeman at door must identify himself to citizen
• People left alone to prosper - no presumption of guilt
• Government accountable to people

BAD

• Government monitor people
• Policeman require people (doing nothing wrong) to identify themselves
• People tracked to see if they are doing anything wrong
• People must justify themselves to government

Ask yourself, who serves whom?

Re:i was thinking about them today...

[TuataraShoes]

I appreciate your comment, and I believe you about your experience in Sweden.

The threat does not necessarily come from the current government. It may be the next government, or the one after that that targets you.

In Britain we have a British National Party which wants to stop a lot of the foreigners getting in. It is not a very tasteful policy, but it is a legal expression of a political view point. People are now loosing their jobs as police officers and school teachers if they are associated with the BNP. This is just one step away from having your career prospects damaged if you are NOT a member of the ruling New Labour Party.

You see, governments are led by people who love to exercise power. In Britain, there is political pressure from these political leaders to exercise power over what we can say and think. There is talk of laws against 'hate speech'. Of course, hate-speech is defined by current moral fashions.

A national identity database can hold details of who is a potential terrorist, who speaks out against the government... All this can be brought up on someone's screen without my knowledge. This is what is so different from drivers' licenses, etc. You don't know who has access to that information about you, or how it is used.

So, Tigress from Sweden, you may have a benevolent government in Sweden now, but beware how much power over your life and privacy you cede to it!

Re:i was thinking about them today...

[biglig2]

We have a contract with the state; we give it power over us so it can improve our quality of life. But states are made of humans, and humans are failable, and corruptable. So we put curbs and controls in place to the state's power.

Now, the current Govt. in the UK seems to have made the thought process:
"unwritten constituion=we can do anything we want" and has gone beserk with vague and ill thought out constitutional change.

Look at Hunting. They intend to use the Parliament act to force it through the Lords. Think about that for a moment. The Lords is a mechanism to prevent Parliament enacting bad law. The Parliament act is a way to overrule that check in an emergency - for example if the Lords is blocking a Finance act and so preventing the Govt doing anything. The hunting bill isn't an emergency. Regardless of it's merits either way, it's not an emergency. What it is, is politically necessary for Tony Blair to keep control of activists in his party. Not the same thing.

Anyway, dragging myself closer to the topic:

Is it pretty unlikely to be added to the list of terrorists? Ask Ted Kennedy about that one. ;-)

Is it going to be compulsory? You yourself insist that it should be needed to get health care or to buy a beer in a pub or to get a job. That sounds pretty compulsory to me.

The expense will be huge. I cannot recall a major computer system implementation in the UK that has not been a complete disaster. Air traffic control? Disaster. Magistrate Court? Disaster. Passport Office? Disaster. Criminal background checks on School employees? Disaster. and on and on.

In fact, my objections to this scheme are almost entirely theoretical because I don't reckon they have the ability to implment it. ;-)

Here's another point: what about the guy who just got jailed for providing information from the DVLA databases to terrorists? Or the temp, who used to work for a newspaper, that got employed by the Cabinet Office, and is being investigated for leaking to the press? You trust people with that kind of hiring record?

We must envisage worst case scenarios. Hitler was democratically elected. to return to my first point: every Govt. is corrupt in one way or another, because it is full of people.

This doesn't seem like a new conclusion

[MagicDude]

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.

Re:This doesn't seem like a new conclusion

[aaza]

Reminds me of a conversation between Sir Humphrey and Sir Desmond (both of "Yes, Minister")

Sir Desmond Glazebrook : Surely once a Minister has made his decision, that's it, isn't it?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : What on earth gave you that idea?
Sir Desmond Glazebrook : Surely a decision is a decision.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Only if it is the decision you want. If not it is just a temporary setback.

I want to know if this decision is a decision, or a temporary setback.

quote found on imdb's "Yes, Minister" quotes section

Moral: Liberty

[BrianGa]

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.

Re:Moral: Liberty

[vijayiyer]

Alas, this is a dying concept. Ask your average person on the street about a national ID card, and they use the "if you've got nothing to hide..." justification. Nowadays, people like to err on the side of perceived safety rather than liberty, and I fear the days of true liberty are numbered (or perhaps already gone). The unfortunate fact is that the pioneers of personal freedom would nowadays be branded as extremist [right/left] wing ideologues.

Differs from a drvier's license, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

I already have an ID that I carry everywhere. It is called a driver's license.

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) ... well, then F' that.

But I fail to see how this is the end of the world or the world's saviour.

Re:Differs from a drvier's license, how?

[mogglestein]

Because if you dont drive, you dont need a drivers licence. I walk around every day and don't carry any document that can legally prove my ID. Those rare days that I need to legally prove who I am (opening a new bank account for example, something I've only done twice in my life, or flying to some place, usually about twice a year) I take my passport. The police have (as far as I know) no legal right to stop me and demand that I prove who I am. Even with drivers licences I believe that if you get stopped without yours whilst driving you have 5 days to turn up at the police station with your licence in hand. Most people I think want ID for conveniance, since they percieve more and more places are requiring legal ID (how many bank accounts do you open a week?), security and fraud protection are rather woolly issues most people seem to see as more of a nother argument for rather than a personal pressing issue, where is conveniance is more personal issue. If this makes sense.

Re:Differs from a drvier's license, how?

[TuataraShoes]

You don't mind having to identify yourself on demand?!

Then why did you post as an Anonymous Coward?

Re:Differs from a drvier's license, how?

[Oddly_Drac]

"The police have (as far as I know) no legal right to stop me and demand that I prove who I am."

They do, depending on the circumstances.

"Even with drivers licences I believe that if you get stopped without yours whilst driving you have 5 days to turn up at the police station with your licence in hand."

A 'producer' is a slip of paper that has boxes ticked to indicate what documents you have to take to a police station within 7 days of being given it. I've gotten away with 10 days and a telling off.

"Most people I think want ID for conveniance, since they percieve more and more places are requiring legal ID"

No, generally they want proof of address; this then links to the Experian credit database and the electoral register (which Experian have full access to, but most other companies do not...a recent change to mean 'opting out' of the sold copy of the electoral register is now possible). Proof of address is as simple as a utility bill. You'd be surprised how many times a Passport is refused as ID.

As for 'ID as convenience', this is a fairly daft idea that completely ignores the problem of government misuse of databases, or even the idea that the government _can_ maintain a very large database after the style of Envision, the TV License people. Who, incidentally, evade the Data Protection Act.

"security and fraud protection"

Of course, the chip and pin proponents completely fail to realise that it shifts liability from the merchant to the consumer, so instead of the supposedly superior method of having someone check the signature on the back of the card with the actual signature (which is still the accepted method for cheques worldwide), they've gone for 9^4 combination with a private key that relies on nobody shoulder-surfing in a store.

Likewise, the Biometric card identifies the person holding it. To suggest that the technologies used in such a card wouldn't be duplicatable within a couple of months of rollout is to ignore the fact that our 'new' passport design was faked within 2 weeks of unveiling, and you can _still_ obtain a chain of documentary evidence for a false persona given the desire, money and tools.

This is essentially the backdoor to the desired gene/fingerprint database that gives Blunkett the giggles and it's this that has earned him Big Brother awards galore. The man has _introduced_ 270 offences over the term of the present government, and is one of the reasons I'm questioning my socialism.

Re:Who am I?

[nels_tomlinson]

Most people already carry multiple forms of ID anyway. A standard would make it easier.

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.

National ID cards are a distraction!!!

[logicnazi]

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.

The database is the problem, not the card!

[Timo_UK]

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...

Why are ID cards a bad thing?

[Moderation abuser]

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/

Re:This is the 8th try...

[jd]

Actually, it's about 60 million, and it has been tried almost yearly since the 1950s. After the Poll Tax fiasco, though, the British are more confident about defeating unpopular Government measures through mass protest. Also, the British tend to regard national ID as an open invitation to dictatorship. (It gives one central authority far too much information about far too many people.)

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, ... Oh.

Re:Who am I?

[tigress]

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.

It's not just the govenment.

[clare-ents]

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.

This headline is all wrong!

[lga]

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.

Re:Why?

[mcpheat]

Can someone explain why there is a push for ID cards of this sort?

The explanation is that David Blunkett is a facist control freak in a department of facist control freaks.

The justification given for these cards has varied over the last 5 years with the current bogey man e.g. asylum seekers(codeword for illegal imigrant), benefit fraud(at one point they were trying to pass them off as "entitlement cards"), terrorism, identity theft etc. but they have not produced a coherent explanation as to how any of these problems would be solved by their cards.

A real "nightmare scenario" might be different

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

What you are proposing is doing without something now, that has benefits now, just in case of some nightmare future scenario that probably won't happen, where doing without the thing wont help you much anyway.

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.

1. The first I knew about it was on pay day, when my pay cheque was short. No-one from either the tax office or my employer's accountant had questioned the change or asked me to confirm it.
2. It took three months to clear up, luckily just in time for the end of the tax year or it would have been much more complicated.
3. When I rang the tax office to report the problem, they would not talk to me because I couldn't confirm my current details as seen on their computer system. They had no record or my current or past employers showing, nor of my current or previous addresses, because the error had mixed up my records with someone else's. Without that information, they stonewalled me.
4. It was only when I mentioned the change in my tax code, which first caused the problem, that they realised what might have happened and looked deeper. It turns out that the new code I had been given is used automatically in cases where someone has two jobs, and obviously it combined with my story to trigger a mental alarm bell in the person I was talking to at the time.
5. The accumulated records of all the tax offices I eventually had to deal with put me living in two places on opposite sides of the country, working two full-time jobs simultaneously, one at each place. The system hadn't noticed this, and didn't even flag it for their operators to investigate.

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.