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UK Can't Read Its Own ID Cards
An anonymous reader writes "Despite the introduction of ID cards last November, it has emerged that Britain has no readers that are able to read the cards' microchips, which contain the person's fingerprints and other biometric information. With cops and border guards unable to use the cards to check a person's identity, critics are calling the £4.7bn scheme 'farcical' and a 'waste of time.'"
Is anyone really surprised? There are people out there who still don't believe that Dad's Army was an early example of reality TV. Government competence levels have not improved in the ensuing years.
Will you PLEASE F off with the Fing beta now?
Right now most bookmakers will give you very good odds on the current government actually being in power by the end of 2010. Since the other lot are supposedly going to get rid of the scheme, and there's been no large-scale rollout of the cards to the general population, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to buy all the readers just now. Not that 'sense' really comes into this, of course.
It was about biometric databases, computer-recognizable photographs and humongous amounts of fingerprints.
It's easy, and quite tempting, to react to this news with patronizing contempt - and think, "Well, at least we're fairly safe - such a bunch of bunglers couldn't do any real harm".
Unfortunately, a look back at history reveals that appalling inefficiency and incompetence have usually gone hand-in-hand with authoritarian government. But whereas we can still laugh about it, the time may come when doing so is distinctly unwise. People made fun of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini throughout their careers, and some got away with it. Others were arrested, beaten up, imprisoned, tortured, shot, or hanged with piano wire.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Well, at least with BluRay and DVD, there were people who actually wanted them. Yes, really, these people did exist.
Now show me one border patrol person that is eager to get yet another thingamajig into their hands that means more work for the same pay?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Do you know the funny thing though? My girlfriend is Brazilian, and she resides in the UK through her father having dual Portuguese/Brazilian nationality. By European law, she can't be required to have an ID card (and no-one seems to have asked, either) and unless she goes for UK citizenship, never will. This amuses me especially because both Portugal and Brazil do have mandatory ID cards.
[FUCK BETA]
It's actually worse than that, because they are so rare no one really knows what they look like!
On two seperate occaisions I've seen someone trying to use national ID cards as proof of age when buying alcohol. Both times they were refused because the staff didn't recognise the card.
The whole thing is a total waste of time and (our) money, all with the goal of filling a void that does not exist!
The Act is really good, and you can tell that because it is annoying the fuck out of the present government.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."