U-Turn On UK ID Cards

An anonymous reader writes "The UK appears to be watering down its national ID card system, with the revelation by the government that it will now only check the cards against a central biometric database in a minority of cases. Critics are saying it not only renders the whole scheme pointless, but will pose a security risk by making it far easier to use copied or cloned cards. 'But an Identity and Passport Service spokesman denied the system would be vulnerable to fraud: 'The majority of instances where people use their identity cards will be day-to-day situations where the cards offer a convenient method of proving identity such as a young person proving their age to buy alcohol,' he said.'"

Comments

What a waste

[tripdizzle]

Ha, it said this system cost 150 million pounds to the gov't, and now their purpose is for a

convenient method of proving identity such as a young person proving their age to buy alcohol

Re:What a waste

[ShieldW0lf]

No, the purpose is selective enforcement.

Re:What a waste

[Nursie]

The funny/tragic thing about that is that we already have a scheme for that :

http://www.citizencard.com/

It's government approved but run by non-profit. This statement is just yet more bullshit and hot air.

Re:What a waste

[TubeSteak]

I'm going to quote an old post from the "DMCA Abuse Widespread" article:

Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying . They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible.

Without transparency or oversight, who the public really doesn't know what their government plans to do with those ID cards.

Re:What a waste

[mdwh2]

Indeed - and it's worth noting that passports were far cheaper before the Government started upping the price in order to combine the passport with the national ID card scheme.

So all these people whining they support ID cards because they want a convenient means of ID - they could have just got a passport, which would've been cheaper, and less hassle (no having to be fingerprinted, and pay for the privilege, for example). But if they want to be stupid and support a worse system, that's up to them; the most annoying thing is that they use this argument to support a compulsory ID card scheme, and thus their idiocy forces this unnecessary system onto the rest of us too, who already have perfectly good ID.

Re:What a waste

[gsslay]

Just how many reasons for this card have we gone through now? I've lost count.

It was to win the war against terrorism. No, wait, it was to prevent illegal immigrants flooding the country. Errrm, noo, it'll stop Social Security spongers. Your key to a seamlessly integrated health care system? No? A fun techno gadget that everyone will want? Oh, come on, still not going for it?! Ok, how about a way for 18 year olds to buy alcohol?

I mean, how clear an indication do we need that this is a project that's not so much gone of the rails, but never had rails in the first place and never knew where the hell it was supposed to be going and what it was supposed to do once it got there? Either those driving it forward are fumbling cluelessly in the dark towards the inevitable large pay-off bonuses, or someone somewhere, has a very definite plan for this ridiculous waste of money that they really don't want to tell us about.

Re:What a waste

[RegularFry]

Yes. The correct response to this is "if the law is never going to be used like that, and we agree that it would be wrong to do so, why is the law not framed to make it illegal?"

Re:What a waste

[AntiDragon]

More than this.
It's hard not to be a cynic when you live in a country that pulls this off so many times. What we have here is a not a U-turn but a well-used method of having your cake and eating it.

• 1. Propose outlandishly extreme system, preferrably with nice fat government contracts for companies you/your spouse holds shares in.
• 2. Stand firm while public outcry commences.
• 3. Replace outlandishly extreme system with watered down system that still costs far too much money and still does what you actually wanted.
• 4. Pretend to look sheepish as the public thinks they've won and stops fighting.

Don't take this as the truth but unfortunately I'm beyond the point of accepting "incompetence" instead of "malice" when it comes to my (ha, "my"...) government.

Are copied cards really that much of a concern?

[viking099]

Personally I'd be more worried about some junior level government worker losing my data along with that of everyone else in the country when he goes digging through his pocket for enough change to buy lunch at the pub down the street.

It's not Stupid, it's Advanced!

[snspdaarf]

So, this system will not be susceptible to fraud because young people will use it to buy alcohol, an activity known to create a black market in fraudulent identification. Brilliant!

Obvious tactics

[Anonymous Coward]

They feel the resistance so now they roll the IDs out as an inferior version of the original proposal. As soon as they push them through, they will turn around and make them mandatory in every possible situation, blaming it on worsening terror and crime situation.

ID, Democracy X509

[omb]

Not if they loose the database each week and screw up _both_ the biometric data signing and
UID, which given the history of UK government seems most likely.

While a Brit, thank God I live in Switzerland, where the populace is educated, public data secure and FOSS is ever more popular while the Bundesrat can't pass laws the people don't like.

What the USA and UK need is Universal Democracy, and the Internet would allow large populations to get there.

What the democracies also need to is to issue X509 certificates, free, to everyone at birth
keeping the key card till children come of age.

Don't worry guys!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Our Spiffy, Shiny, Radically New(tm) system that is horribly vulnerable to fraud isn't vulnerable to fraud because we will only be using it to do what the old and busted system was perfectly capable of doing! (Is there some aspect of this that isn't completely insane that I've missed out on?)

Not vulnerable to... HAHAHAHA!

[jimicus]

If they're seriously proposing this as being used primarily for things like proof of age when buying alcohol with no means to confirm the validity of the card, how exactly are they going to protect against things like this?

Re:But, I thought "People 'can't wait for ID cards

[Skuldo]

Reprehensible woman. Put her in the stocks.

Re:But, I thought "People 'can't wait for ID cards

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet she weighs the same as a duck.

Not a U-Turn, just boil frog more carefully now...

[MindKata]

"No, the purpose is selective enforcement"

...and selective enforcement, is a slower way to boil a frog. The point being, once they have a basic system implimented in law, they can then introduce new technology, controls and additional laws over time. So at first, introduce selective enforcement, then over time, widen the scope to much greater levels of enforcement. This way, they slip the full idea past opponents as opponents, *at this time* only have to agree on small parts of the overall idea. The control freaks who want this system, are starting to tread more carefully, now they are getting more (unwanted) attention on their plans. They still intend to have the full system, but they are now bring it in bit by bit. Don't want to heat the water too fast, or the frog will jump out the water.

But its wrong for the opponents of this system to say this is a U-Turn. "U-Turn" is political talk for implying a back down. This isn't a back down, the control freaks still want this system, no matter how many times they are told it will not work.