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Passport Required To Buy Mobile Phones In the UK
David Gerard points out a Times Online story that says:
"Everyone [in the UK] who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance. Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society. A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say."
We've recently discussed other methods the UK government is using to keep track of people within its borders, such as ID cards for foreigners and comprehensive email surveillance.
Are the USA and the UK in some sort of competition to see who can do the more thorough job of obliterating their citizens' rights to privacy?
Lately there's been a morbid tit-for-tat article exchange going on here on slash, like the USA and UK are trying to outdo one another. Just when you think the USA or UK is as bad as it gets, there's a reply.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
1. Buy a PAYG phone
2. Don't bother registering it
3. Buy top-ups using cash
4. Anonymity
Irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The most powerful vote you have is indeed to leave.
They're talking about pre-pay phones.
As a result, terrorists are going to run up some hefty roaming charges as they buy foreign pre-pay phones, or just stolen/cloned ones.
Cell phone theft and street robberies are about to rise very rapidly in the UK.
Someone once asked a while ago how much freedom will we be willing to surrender for a false sense of security.
It seems that in the US and UK this very scenario is playing itself out and all we can do is sit, horrified and watch in spite of ourselves.
It's like sitting in the passenger seat of a car that is being driven by a lunatic - you squint your eyes closed but keep peeking because you know what is bound to happen, but you cant help but look and hope you will be somehow wrong.
And safe.
One thing proponents of all this gathering of data on people keep forgetting is that data gets lost, stolen or otherwise compromised on a daily basis.
The UK is a shining example of data getting lost.
How long before a terrorist hacker steals the info and spoofs a phonecall to a bomb that is detonated via cellphone?
Suddenly the possibilities of being wrongly implemented in a terrorist plot is so much more possible.
This is a bad idea all around.
I am glad that I do not live in the US or the UK - if my country implements this kind of policy I would start browsing using the TOR network, set up my own mailserver to do direct relay and eventually fall back on using older means of communication - snail mail and pretty much nothing else.
Who is it that said "As soon as we change our way of living the terrorists have won"?
I tell you now - terrorists are holding the citizens of the US and the UK captive via proxy, and the proxy is ironically the very governments they are battling.
They win on all fronts at this moment.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Criminals will go back to using payphones and face to face meetings to discuss their criminal activities.
And stealing phones, since they're already criminals having to steal a phone isn't much of a deterrent.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Why is NO ONE from UK protesting against this monstrous humongous assault on rights and freedom?
I mean this UK government is incapable of fulfilling everything that people yet is perfectly capable of converting everyone into a criminal and shooting innocent people in subways and the like.
Why doesn't the stupid holier-than-thou BBC question the government over this massive haul?
First it was ISP snooping and 3-strikes law, next it was throttling, next it was email provacy gone, next it was bedroom privacy gone, next it was laptop privacy gone and now it is this.
Everyday we hear massive new amounts of such assaults against human rights in UK, which puts China and even Korea to shame.
Pretty soon to walk down the street with your dog, the cops would require a passport; for the dog.
And instead of US where privacy and freedom is enshrined, UK depends on courts which seem more likely than ever to side with the stupid government which can't look after its own employees who visit prostitutes and lose their laptops.
Why doesn't the Lords do something?
The commons is made up of Common riff-raff which are more concerned with nailing down the next highest-priced whore who comes their way, while public servants regularly lose private information and then ask us to check our bank accounts.
Why isn't there a law which imposes mandatory criminal jail sentences for people who lose private information.
If an employee loses a laptop, he goes to serve bubba in prison for 12 months or more with free lube given by people.
Why isn't there a law which prevents people from entering a home or accessing someone's private property without authorization from Lords or the Queen herself. in that way if something goes wrong and an innocent person is shot dead because he jumped over a ticket barrier, she is forced to face jail.
Dumb ass citizens! Wake up!
70 years ago, a failed austrian artist did the same thing and propagated Reich. He was atleast intelligent and brilliant.
Your current crop of leaders can't spell their own properly let alone build a reich. The max they can build is what Viagra builds for them!
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
...in recognizing fake passports?
That being a low paying job, I am guessing it employs many immigrants.
From like... I don't know... Nigeria?
And what are the current UK laws on creating and carrying around a obviously fake passport?
You know... kind that would have big red letters saying "FAKE PASSPORT! NOT REAL! NOT A FORM OF IDENTIFICATION! FOR JOKE PURPOSES ONLY!" on it?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This is modded as "Funny", but the serious undertone is the same as the whole piracy argument. It only makes it more difficult for the legitimate customers. :-/
Others have pointed out about PAYG, etc, but:
The new part is the national surveillance database.
Indeed, and just to explain to others why this is quite significant: a "passport" will soon be morphed into the National ID Card and Database system. Although they ultimately want it to be compulsory for all, this is proving controversial, so they're trying to sneak it in the back door by increasing the number of occasions that you'll need an ID card / passport.
Giving up the right to have a passport is a big sacrifice for people in the UK, as many travel abroad (I'm not sure of the latest timeline, but very soon it won't be possible to get a passport without paying the full cost of an ID card, and being placed on the database), but with these plans, you'll need one just to get a mobile phones.
You'll be required to pay £93 (at least) for a card, to entitle you to buy a £30 phone.
Let's also not forget that this ties in with Government plans to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage. They want you're details, so they can keep track of everyone you call or text.
See http://www.no2id.net/ for more info on ID cards and the database.
Bwa ha ha.
There's been plenty of protests. It's just that it's morphed from the somewhat political outdoor party to an outdoor party with somewhat political overtones. It's still just an excuse for people with too much time on their hands to get together to bang on bongoes, shout, and kinda' move around in motions that are almost, but not entirely, unlike dancing, wear stupid clothing, go let hygiene slide, and sell overpriced herbs, incense, and the occasional "dose" of "medical" marijuana.
Some are organized, some are stupid, some are vulgar...
But they're about as helpful as they've always been. A caricature of the real demonstrations and protests that HAVE been effective for reasons that the organizers of college protests will never understand.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Someone needs to tell the PM in England that Orewell's book 1984 was never meant to be a handbook on how to run a country. It was intended to be a warning against such control.
Sigh.. it's a slippery slope until those in the US begin looking at these with genuine interest, with the intent to deploy these measures within our own borders.
However, if you're planning $LARGE_SPECTACULAR_JIHADIST_ATTACK, and you steal a phone, it makes you a little more likely to be caught/fail.
You don't. You get a sympathizer to buy one for you, and then claim it was stolen. Enough phones are stolen anyway that this won't look suspicious.
Open societies are going to be vulnerable to terrorism. We can accept that, give up our freedoms, or be so scary nobody will want to mess with us.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
When signing up for a new mobile phone contract, you're pretty much asked for two forms of identifications, such as a driving license, passport, utility bills, etc. so this is nothing new.
That's because the mobile phone contract will be collecting money from you for the next 2 years and if you disappear they lose out so they want to know who you are.
By contrast, you can buy a SIM card with cash with nobody asking who you are (unless the shop is trying its chances at getting an address for their spam mail) because you pay in advance therefore you don't owe any further money to the shop, therefore they don't need to know who you are.
So...
(1) THIS *IS* NEW (contrary to your attempts to deny it by comparison with what private companies choose to do when they give you credit)
(2) Why in every civil-liberties story is there always someone to pop-up with a justification based on government's previous bad behaviour?
* "this isn't so much worse than what they have already" - one step at a time
* "they were already doing that but illegally, so this isn't new"
* "some other government is already doing this, so it isn't new"
* "the other political party agrees with them, so anyone who complains is a hypocrite"
* "the government did this before [during a war], so it isn't new"
Just because something resembles authoritarian behaviour of the past doesn't mean it should be accepted, quite the opposite.
Anyone remember when typewriters had to be registered in several Eastern European countries? Being mechanical devices, each had its own unique signature (character shapes, weights, and so forth). The idea was to be able to track the origin of unapproved newsletters etc. which were typically produced via typewriter and stencil or carbon paper. This was all rendered irrelevant by the arrival of PC-based communications (a rear-guard action was fought over printers, faxes, and so forth).
Looks like the UK has just revised those old Soviet-era laws for current technology. Anonymous communication must be considered to be really subversive in the UK.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
When it finally happens it will be just another argument for the electronic chip identity cards that the UK government has been wanting to introduce.
The government, and businesses, will say: it would be so much simpler and more efficient if we had a unified ID standard. After all, you need to show ID to get a phone <strawman>(and Internet access, and airline, train, and coach tickets, and to vote, and to get health care or buy medicines at a pharmacy, and to stay at a hotel)</strawman> and everyone needs that!
The first people to get these ID cards, starting next month, will be foreign students and foreign spouses. Gradually they will be rolled out to more categories of foreigners.
There are actually four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Use in that order. Starting NOW.
I agree with you that this is a stupid measure, but I'd like to remind you that much Islamist terrorism has been committed by people who are squarely middle class and grew up in nice homes.
I'm not understanding why Britain wants to be so much like North Korea. Britain is trying to create terror in its own civilian population and yet claims to be fighting against terrorism. There's something not right here.
Is there an English speaking country left on this bloody planet which has a sane government? I'm about ready to vote with my feet and quit the UK, assuming I can find anyone stupid enough to take me.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.