Slashdot Mirror
UK MPs Approve Compulsory ID Cards
Idimmu Xul writes "BBC News is reporting that the UK House of Commons has approved legislation making identity cards compulsory." From the article: "The plans, rejected by peers last month, will now go back before the House of Lords. Tories warned of "creeping compulsion" and Lib Dems said the "fight against compulsory ID cards" would go on."
Actually it is only compulsory when applying for a passport. It will not be compulsory otherwise.
But I have to ask. Is there any legal recourse if this is passed into law? Any equivilent of the US Supreme Court?
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety are probably British and should be shot at."
I'm all for anything that will stop terrorism. I think people who are afraid of this are only those with something to hide. Honest, law-abiding citizens have no need to fear this legislation passed by our benevolent and wise MPs.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
>
> "And with the real problems people have today with identity fraud, which is a major, major issue; illegal immigration; organised crime: it's just the sensible thing to do."
Because having an identity card - that you have to carry with you at all times - is the sensible solution to the problem of identity theft. Because we all know that nothing you carry with you 24/7/365 can ever be stolen.
To be fair, in order for them to become compulsory, they'll have to go back and get legislation passed through both houses. Of course, anyone who gets their passport renewed will be required to get an ID card anyway (which in the UK is a large percentage of the population) so they'll be compulsory in everything but name.
Either way, it's a massive blow for civil rights in this country - they'll be storing obscene amounts of personal information, including the buzz-word of the moment, 'biometrics' in a central database that will need to be accessable by essentially every government department. Given this government's record for IT projects, I'm almost looking forward to the ID cards being introduced just to see how spectacularly the whole system fails.
"Sir, may I please see your ID?"
-Umm, I forgot it at home.
"Did you forget it at home or are you an illegal immigrant?"
-No, seriously, I forgot it at home!
"Right."
Officers club down suspect and drag him to jail.
I can only assume this is to counter illegal immigrants- and homeless people? Any regular citizen cannot not have an ID (job, bank transfers, rent etc).
Three rings for the Elven-kings in the sky
What the hell is wrong with England?!? You people invented modern democratic society and civil rights, and you've been happily flushing it down the drain, piece by piece, ever since the end of WWII. (Would you really be any worse off at this point if the Nazis had won?) Gun control, CCTV, now ID cards--every time I look at America's problems, I can always cheer myself up by remembering that whatever we're doing wrong, you're guaranteed to do something worse.
And what kind of politics have you got going now where the Conservatives are for civil liberties and Labour are the fascists? That's just bizarre.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
I don't get it. Did the British learn nothing from World War II?!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Isn't Britain's House of Commons somewhat akin to the U.S. House of Representatives, in that they are always passing lots of ill-thought-out, brain-dead legislation that their wiser, older brothers in the other house (Lords for them, the Senate for us) has to vote down?
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
They have already and mainly (from the debate that I heard) on the basis of this 'creeping compulsiom' - ie if you apply for a passport your name goes on the register, and then after a while a compulsory card is issued.
The British public were told this was an 'opt in' system. I have to travel abroad to work effectively. This gives me no choice at all.
I have already signed the No2ID refuse pledge, and I will do everything in my personal power to prevent myself from ending up with one of these.
I feel disgusted that my government feels free to treat me like a criminal in my own country. They want ID cards, they want to take my DNA if I'm arrested for a crime I haven't committed, cameras on the roads tracking vehicles.
If the Tories pledge next election to scrap the legislation altogether, I'll vote for them on that basis alone. And.. I just don't vote that way... but the Blairite government deserve a kicking for the way they've treated the electorate since they arrived.
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
ID Cards for the Brits, wait, here's why they can get angry!
From the Association of British Drivers press release: "The EU is already planning to use Galileo to enforce continental-wide road tolling, and the car-hating British government wants to be first. You won't be able to drive anywhere without the EU knowing where you are going, who you are travelling with, and what speed you are travelling at."
Animoog.org
.. and it looks great. What's this antenna sticking out of it?
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
ID cards? How pleasantly old fashioned. Wouldn't compulsory RFID implants make so much more sence?
It's not the card, it's the vast amount of personal data that the government is going to be linking to the card.
That's about 100,000 card updates per working day.
Does anybody think that there will be any kind of real checks performed on those updates?
I've not been paying attention to this piece of government legislature, and I don't feel like pouring through news archieves to get the whole store.; can someone get me (and those in the same situation) up to speed on exactly what this is all about? The article stated some sides, and that people are protesting, but not what exactly they found bad about the ID cards.
Personally, I don't see a government ID as a bad thing; while it would be another piece of information to worry about, it would allow people to dissassociate themselves with their SSN (at least, in the states,) to companies. This would greatly decrease identity theft; if someone got your National ID number and went to town getting credit cards, there would be some process where they'd have to prove to the government (perhaps through the companies, perhaps not) that they are who they claim, using the SSN (and, upon failing, would be arrested). If someone did swipe your NID, then you'd prove that you're you, get a new NID, and have the old one invalidated.
While it wouldn't be impossible for someone to get both the National ID and SSN, it would add an extra layer of personal protection, and be that much harder. To add to this, SSNs would only go on important government documents; non-public military files, tax forms, FBI records, etc.
Unless they're implanting RFID tags or something into these cards, I don't see where the great harm is coming from. It would be no different than having your drivers liscense or SSN now.
"What's changed?"
American Express don't throw you into jail if you cut up their card and throw it away.
An ID card has nothing in common with a credit card. They just happen to be the same size.
It's the nature of governments to continually increase their power, and it's the responsibility of the people to limit a governments power to the absolute minimum required to fulfill its function.
Remember as well, when you give a government that you trust powers, you aren't just giving them the powers, but also all the future governments that you may or may not trust.
Why should I need to show papers to authorities when I'm walking down the street? Is the street theirs and I get to walk on it only at their sufferance, or are they my servants that exist to make sure that I can walk down the street freely?
What the hell do US and UK people have against a national ID card? It's just a mean of proving your identity, here in France we've had it for well, decades before I were born. A driver license can be equally used. At least, unlike in the US, people without driver license have papers.
Perhaps it's because many of us grew up with movies depicting SS guards demanding to see the papers of French citizens in order to stomp out resistence.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Have you read Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution? England lasted as a Republic for only eleven years between 1649 and 1660. King Charles II took care of that little rabble rousing "social experiment." All hail the King!!!
We have had compulsory ID cards for years and frankly, I find it rather artificial that such a fuss is made about the principle of introduction in the UK. In reality people already need to carry some document that allows them to identify themselves, if only to their banker, even in the UK and USA. The practical difference with having an official "identify card" is minute.
This is all about symbolic value. Both the US and UK government have summarily granted themselves the power to lock people in jail without any form of trial, or at least restrict their movements; to snoop in people's communications and to fill the streets with security cameras. These are far more outrageous attacks on civil liberty than a compulsory ID card. The reason civil liberty groups focus on ID cards is simply that they are both universal and material and therefore have the potential to concern everybody; not that they are enormously problematic.
But this focus on matters of principle and symbolism is highly counterproductive. While libertarians are wasting their time fighting a lost battle, the British government is quietly getting away with storing vast amounts of information on the chip in the identity card -- no less than 49 different types of information, and vastly more than is necessary just to ascertain someone's identity; the UK legislation opens the possibility to store a lengthy record of all interactions someone has had with the government on the card, from work permits to health insurance. It even includes, lugubriously, "date of death" -- apparently even the corpses will have to carry an identity card!
It is there that the real matter for concern rests.
My card carries my family name, first names, gender, nationality, date and place of birth, address, photograph and signature, identity card number and date of expiry. That is really all such a card should be allowed to hold. When I get a digital card this will include an electronic signature, the government having had the idea -- on which diverse views are possible -- to issue every citizen with an electronic signature for computer transactions.
Actually, because of its insistence on machine-readable codes, arrival and departure records, pictures, fingerprints, and in the future biometric data as well, the US government probably holds a far more intrusive dossier on me than my own government, and without any opportunity for me to have a say in this.
Article clearly states, right of the bat, that it's when you apply for a passport. So that's a point against hysterics.
:D.
However, it also states "...and will be put on a registry," so might as well leave the 1984 alarm running. Let's see:
Some random thoughts, concerns, questions for the crowd and more than a bit of polemic inspired by this latest tidbit in the Tony Loves George show:
This is effing ridiculous. Why not just rebuild the Berlin Wall, only turn the gun towers around t'other way? As Carmichael says in the linked article, "the only way to opt of the system is to give up your right to travel abroad."
Here's another amusing bit:
"Tony Blair was not able to attend the debate after his plane was grounded by engine troubles in South Africa."
Is this "engine trouble, wink wink nudge nudge"? He still found the time to utter that gem about it being "just sensible," and never mind all this Liberty rubbish... but maybe they felt it'd be easier to pass along without him there for opposition to focus against... or maybe he just didn't feel like getting yelled at today
(Before you object to any of the above speculation, please convince me that at any given moment, a plane actually cannot be found for the Prime Minister of Anywhere, and it is more secure to be a known grounded sitting duck? Right. If so, fire your entire staff now please, your life is in grave danger...)
Anyway. Interesting that the US and the UK are making two halves of the citizen lockdown; we talk about a US ID card, but first went ahead with the RFID passports. The UK looks like it stands a good chance of having the ID cards first. From there, it's pretty easy for each to point to the "success" of the other, and respectively pass their missing halves. Yum, compulsory RFID Citizen Cards.
Do you have a reason for crossing the border, Comrade? Why did you spend 3 hours at that truck stop, Comrade? Did you know you've been travelling with an Enemy of the State, Comrade? Please step out of the car now, Comrade.
Think that's BS? I wish. Sadly, only when more and more people who consider themselves the "normal" folks are being stopped and searched will they start to realize that maybe this isn't Liberty after all - if, of course, they haven't completed their indoctrinations into thinking it is.
As long as it looks like just black-wearing tattoed freaks and foreginers are being harassed, that's still Liberty, right?
Final, desperate plea/question to those who still doubt how this is going: Since when, in the history of Ever, has information been collected and compiled - and not used? Since when has power been sought and gained - and not abused? Explain to me how, exactly, you can collect and correlate so much data on so many private citizens with increasingly efficient and effective means of making it meaningful, finally - but when it comes to suspect uses of that information, oh don't worry, just trust them with no accountability or oversight.
"They wouldn't do that! They're the good guys!"
someone kindly wake up the great sleeping mass in the center of the country - they're used up all their Snooze button hits already.
That which does not kill us makes us... st
Every time ID/privacy/RFID comes up I am completelly baffled by the slashdot response. And if I write a comment they mod me down. So, please, don't do it this time, I really want to know what is behind this.
Basically, my question is, why do people bother if their personal infromation is stored in a computer somewhere? Forget about possible abuses - it seems that this is an argument that is always pulled up later, the real problem is deeper. There seem to be a deep irrational anxiety in majority of people (epecially brits and americans) about releasing their private information. Is this the case? I would like that at least someone admits it is irrational. I personally don't have a problem if a someone knows who many times I day I shit, what kind of tea I buy, what party I vote, etc. so I have real trouble comprehending this strange fear... Elaborate, but don't mod down! Plus, again, don't come with silly abuse arguments - at least in principle the system can be made secure (though UK doesn't seem to have a good track record with IT projects, but that is a different story).
I'm fairly certain that the Queen does indeed sign legislation, and the Prime Minister is required to consult her. She is certainly privy to almost all if not all state secrets, for instance.
Of course Labour would love to get rid of her, but an odd thing happens every time the republican movement gets going again. The goddamn subjects of HRH Elizabeth II pretty much demonstrate they don't want her gone. I don't think, for instance, that even at the monarchy's worst moments in the 20th century (Edward VIII's abdication and the death of Princess Diana), that the republicans were ever really all that close. The closest I think they ever got in modern times was Queen Victoria's near-absolute seclusion after Prince Albert's death.
I don't necessarily know if the romantic notion that Cromwell's short-lived experiment is the cause of English anti-republicanism (it was, after all, a long bloody time ago), but it certainly seems that the English at least, entertain republicanism as long as it's in no risk of actually coming about.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In the UK, we are suspicious of:
(1) The cost - that this is going to be a cash cow for the biometrics companies. The majority (if not all) of all UK government IT contracts, have costs that end up spiralling out of control, and have hefty cancellation fees. There is a fear that the government will charge an administration fee every time your address changes, and fine anyone who fails to update their address. Consider students, homeless people and contract workers who change address regularly.
(2) The invasion of privacy - governments departments such as the DVLA are already in trouble for selling personal information (names and addresses) to questionable private car clamping firms (with owners who have criminal records) who have sent threatening letters to car owners.
(3) The arguments for the need for ID cards have included: the ability to fight terrorism (although the home secretary admits it would not have stopped the London bombings), and the ability to fight social security fraud (although certain members of the public will be allowed to have two ID cards). If fraudsters are able to forge utility bills, passports, bank cards, what is going to stop them from faking ID cards?
(4) A good percentage of the population believe that the UK government has lost control of illegal immigration and is spending money on ID cards because they can't control the borders. And they can't target non-Christian religions, because that would be racist.
(5) Function creep - that the ID cards will be used for more basic services, such as booking flight, national train journeys and maybe even shopping purchases.
In any case, it would seem that France is also getting French ID cards
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
are terrorism, surely?
Wikileaks, no DNS
If you truly do believe that the various western goverments are not answerable to the voter then what exactly is the difference between living say in the US/UK and the Soviet Union/China? Either the west has democracy and then anything the goverment does is by the will of the people OR you liven in a dictatorship. Remember, the soviet union did have elections. Just you could chose between a communist and a communist, not at all of course like the US where you can choose between a capatalist and a capatalist. Or the UK where you can choose between a corrupt party, a party that doesn't matter and a left-wing party so right-wing it makes the right-wing party look left-wing.
If you believe that it the west is a democracy then shut up. This is obviously what the majority of voters want. Democracy can only work if the minority accepts the rule of the majority. The only difference between dictatorship and democracy is really the size of the group that does the telling.
The older I get the more I come to believe that democracy is fundementally flawed. The majority of voters are to stupid to truly consider the results of their voting (voting for parties that are for policies the voter is totally against), you got only 1 vote for a generic candidate so screw you if on some issues you lean to the left and other you lean on the right. Myself I am dutch. I am pro socialism when it comes to helping people who are in trouble but I am right wing when it comes to people leeching from the system. Or put another way. A single mother with kids should be able to get good social security to raise her kids but uni graduate who can't find a job in whatever useless field he studied can go sweep roads. Wich party do I vote for? Tax me for the needy but put the whip on the lazy.
Of course with just 1 vote every four years how can I make my views known? Do I vote against the mess that is the current health care change over (left) or do I vote against the current mess with imigration (right)?
This move to compulsiry indentification is nothing new and is happening in various stages throughout the west. The reasons are simple. In the view of the currently elected goverments it needs to know who its people are and what they are doing. Simple stuff like knowing who is holding what job so you can collect the taxes. Oh sure you can rely on the honor system but apparently that ain't working well enough.
Who has judged it not working well enough? Well us the voters it seems. If you voted for tax cuts then you voted for the taxman needing more powers to make sure that everyone pays the reduced taxes. 1 person not paying taxes equals another person paying double to raise the same amount after all.
Same with imigration, if you ever complaint about illegal immigrants then you vote for indentification since that is the only way to find them.
At times it is easy to feel that the goverment doesn't listen to the voter but when you spend some time trying to understand what the voter wants you start to realize that the goverment has no choice.
Everyone wants cheap electricity, nobody wants a powerplant in their district. So what choice has goverment got? Build no powerplant and upset everyone a bit, build one and upset whatever district it is in a lot.
The whole discussion about identification needs to get out of the "the mean goverment is forcing me' moaning and into a debate about what we are willing to live with. Do we want anonimity even when it costs us a lot in taxes because of fraud OR do we want to be tracked througout our life?
Considering that the best election result still goes to the guy who promises he is going to cut taxes I think the answer is clear. We may moan about id cards but seem unwilling to live with effects of not having them.
Put it simple, your driving license is an ID card. We as a soc
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The national health number is not for identification, but for health-care purposes. The absence of a warm and fuzzy feeling towards security? The lack of control by politicians?
The scary thing about this is not the card itself, it is the database that will be set up.
The bill calls for an Identity Register that will contain not only all of the information that is provided at signup, along with biometric identifiers such as fingerprints and iris scans, but also a record of every access of that information. Think about this - the database will know that your identity was checked by the doctor, the hospital, leaving the country, maybe even your bank or your employer. A corrupt official with access to this information could build up one hell of a profile about you. Got nothing to hide? Are you sure? This database could unocover whatever it is that you don't think you have to hide.
Before this bill there were specific laws that prevented government departments from sharing information in their databases because of potential abuse of it by government or otherwise. The Identity Cards bill demolishes those laws and establishes a database containing all of the information that was previously scattered around and impossible to link, and it shares that database with every government department there is.
A few months ago I pledged that I would not sign up for an ID card and that I would give money to fight it in court. Given that Passports renewed after 2008 will be accompanied by an ID card, the question I now have to answer is whether I should renew my passport 5 years early to avoid registration, or if I should become one of the first cases to fight in court as far as I can.
A latent existence
We like our gun control, thanks very much. Not many people are shot in this country. Some, not many - the number is very, very small. The UK population has never had a history of carrying offensive weapons, certainly never any form of gun, and as far as I know the only people who were affected when handguns were totally banned were a few people in gun clubs who had to find a new hobby. And it buggered up our Olympic shooting team of course.
Overall, not much was taken away, but the one or two nutters who used to get their guns from the gun club and go mad have been deterred. Criminals still get guns, but criminals can get anything, legal or not.
Watch my YouTube atheist video blog (user NickGisburne2000) for arguments against religion
It's how the jews were identified for extermination. The nice thing about a computer system though is they can mark the identity on the computer and the person doesn't need to know they've been singled out. Very handy.
Deleted
Perhaps you should read this story on the Register.
The proposal is to monitor the location of the car at all times to charge variable prices depending on the road used and the level of congestion. The Galileo system will have some feedback, it can recieve and locate distress signals for Search And Rescue. Of course it would probably be swamped if every road vehicle transmitted to the satelites at once. Whether the plan is to use a "black box recorder" or some new system making use of Galileo, the government do want a record of where you have been.
A latent existence
Yes, actually.
Currently government departments are prevented by law from linking databses and sharing data. The Identity Card bill not only establishes an Identity Register, it also changes the law so that it can be shared with every branch of government.
A latent existence
As I wrote on another forum: they will make ID cards compulsary by clever manipulation of thicko MP's and public.
n ews&showtopic=671&st=0&#entry16962
At the time it is brought back to Parliament for compulsion, they will say, "The many billions we have spent so far is wasted and ID cards are not fully effective - unless the database is complete with entire population - as the thieves and terrorists are not registering".
You can see it coming a mile away.
http://www.hosted-forum.com/index.php?boardid=not
There's a valid association in this case, though. South Africa issues "ID books" to all its citizens, a practice which started way back in the apartheid days, to be able to better keep track of who should be considered a first-class citizen and who shouldn't. By the late '80s, they were fingerprinting everyone and keeping that on file. It's not a coincidence that the most draconian regimes love to maintain detailed databases on their citizens - it helps them maintain control in all the wrong ways.
When legitimate, democratic governments start wanting such tools of control, no matter how noble the alleged purpose, it's worth examining all the ways in which they can be abused, and the regimes which have abused them in the past. All it takes for abuse to start is a few bad people.
I read the LA Times - it was rather interesting to hear how all the city mayors in SoCal were asked to play a trading game. All the city mayors with expected population growth were given blue chips. All the city mayors who had land available for housing were given red chips. The two had to trade chips so that six million new residents had to find a house each.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Exactly. I don't understand the protests about that ID card.
In Hungary, I had an ID card since I was 14. In the last TEN years I've never been asked by a police officer or any law enforcment personnel to show my ID (In Hungary it is required by law that you have at least one document officially capable of proving your identity and to carry it with you).
I have an ID card, a driving license, a passport, a student ID card, a tax ID card and a social security ID card oh and I have an online account which I can use with an online portal to deal with my official business like filling in taxes, etc. (I could use any of the first four to identify myself).
I don't understand the people recalling WW2 and nazi death camps and SS when talking about ID. It is perfectly normal for me to have one.
I most certainly understand if you are worried about the abuses with a computerized database, but it is a whole different issue! Fight the huge Orwellian database handling and not the ID cards...
Here is a snippet from wikipedia that sums up my view about the issue: "Argumentation about identity cards is largely limited to anglo-saxonic common-law countries. In most countries where an ID system is present, it is seen as a commonplace item that nobody argues about."
I have never even heard before of abuse related to ID cards in Hungary.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
British constitutional arrangements have always been moderately hard for outsiders to understand, and are now even more difficult. The Union parliament (in Westminster) happens to be the same institution as one of the National parliaments (for England). It isn't the same as the parliament for Scotland or Wales, and it doesn't (in general) make laws for Scotland or Wales, except with regard to things like foreign policy.
In principle Northern Ireland also has its own parliament. In practice it doesn't, because the Loyalists won't co-operate with the Republicans so the province is governed from Westminster - but nevertheless has its own laws.
So while it is true that 'UK MPs approve compulsory ID cards', this only applies in England, because 'UK MPs' don't have legislative authority over the rest of the UK. Of course, England is by far the largest of the nations of the United Kingdom. It's also by far the most authoritarian and right-wing nation of the United Kingdom.
The Scottish Executive have already said that Scotland will not have compulsory ID cards; I don't know what the position is for Wales and Northern Ireland, but in any case this law won't apply there. What will happen if someone from Scotland (who does not have to have an ID card) is stopped by police in England (where people will have to have ID cards) isn't clear, but doubtless this will get sorted out by the courts.
So this is a bit like the Texas legislature introducing compulsory ID cards, and the headlines saying 'US introduces compulsory ID cards'. It is true, sort of, but... only in Texas.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I have a passport. That's all I need to prove my identity. In order to open a bank account, you also have to provide a proof of address, which I find is always more of a pain to get hold of.
Is it ID-Phobic to ask why I need an ID card, when I already have a passport?
Is it ID-Phobic to ask what problem would be solved with ID cards, that cannot be solved with a passport?
Is it ID-Phobic to ask who will have access to my biometric data?
If you are a citizen of the United Kingdom, you can apply for a passport, which is considered proof of ID everywhere. (Except liquor stores in Pittsburgh,PA.. but that's another rant). If you are an asylum seeker in the UK, there is already an ID scheme in place for you. If you are visiting the UK, you already have ID issued by your country of citizenship.
I oppose ID cards, and will continue to be so until someone can tell me why they are a good thing. The burden of proof is on those who wish to introduce something that costs umpteen billion pounds.
Look, the cards are not a major problem, so please stop saying 'I have one and we have no problems', it's the huge database (the National Identity Register) that sits behind the cards and holds lots of information on the card holder (which can link all existing government databases on the card holder, something which currently tends to take a court order, or the security services and an awful lot of manpower due to people being known by slightly different names, addresses etc.) and an audit trail of all transactions using the card.
No Government in the world has done anything like this before! Although the French are now thinking of doing it. This is the big problem, the law is mainly about the creation of this register, and the Government have been trying to avoid people realising this. If you think about the implications of this register it truely is something out of an Orwellian nightmare!
Here are some of my issues with this scheme...
1. I've heard a lot about WHAT this card would do, but no HOW. Apparently this will stop illegal immigration. How? Most employers of illegal immigrants are in on it anyway, so this won't stop them. Apparently his will stop terrorism. How? The bombers on 7/7/2005 all used their own identities. The bombers in Madrid all had ID cards. Apparently this will combat crime. How? If they are so sure of this, why don't the police commit to an X% reduction in specific kinds of crime over a certain period?
2. The government refuse to be transparant about the costs. Their argument for ID cards is that if you have nothing to hide then you won't mind having one. On this basis, they MUST have something to hide.
3. The card is backed by a database containing all of your information. This WILL be used inappropriately. Even if you totally trust our current government (in which case, please contact me ASAP - I have this money from this deceased dictator that I need to move and only you can help!), by agreeing to this, you agree to trust every future government from now onwards to not abuse this system. Just see the illicit and immoral investigation into the lady who led the action group for rail crash victims. With all of this data in one place, it will be easier for them to run these 'dirty tricks' campaigns, and we are less likely to find out about them because with less places to look, there will be fewer leaks.
4. When I lose a number, I can get a new one. When I lose the digital representation of my right index finger, I can't get a new one. So if the data that represents my finger is compromised and used by someone else, how do I combat that ?
5. If I lose a finger, am I going to be treated as a pariah because I can no longer use your official identity scheme? Will I be treated with suspicion by know-nothing till operator morons who think I lopped my finger off just to beat their system? My wife recently lost a digit in an accident, and just travelling to the US while her hand was bandaged (lost finger, multiple stitches across hand) became a nightmare. I've never seen anyone treated so badly in my life, and I've spent time behind a South African police station counter.
6. Many experts in various intelligence, military and criminal fields have made public statements that this card will not address the issues that the government will say it will. Who should I believe? Experts who have proved themselves through their work, or MPs who lie to me about major issues on a regular basis?