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UK Plans To Link Criminal Records To ID Cards
Death Metal writes with this excerpt from ComputerWeekly.com about the UK's national ID card scheme: "Privacy advocates have reacted angrily to reports that the government plans to link national identity records to criminal records for background checks on people who work with children and vulnerable people. Up to 11 million such workers could be affected immediately if the plan goes ahead. Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of privacy advocates NO2ID, said the move was consistent with the various forms of coercion strategy to create so-called volunteers for national ID cards. 'Biometrics are part of the search for clean, unique identifiers,' Phil Booth said. He said the idea was patently ridiculous when the Home Office was planning to allow high street shops and the Post Office to take fingerprints for the ID card."
Just when I thought I had Job Security...
From the UK and don't like the ID card proposals? Then use your vote next year!
...and seen as UK government isn't exactly the most efficient thing in the world it will probably be another 5 years before they even try and introduce the cards for everyone..by then these plans for criminal records on ID cards would have been either forgotten or heavily campaigned against.
Just like they sold the DVLA database to car buying/selling services (with fucking annoying adverts) where you can text a registration number to a number and get a car history/valuation from it.
You pay the DVLA for them to process data on your vehicle so you can legally drive it. Then the government sells it to a private corporation, which sells it back to the people who paid for it in the first place for a profit.
As it will be for the ID card database. The government will not be able to resist selling access to it, and every business that can pay will know your criminal history. In a society that is trying to criminalise littering and file sharing, that is not a pleasant prospect.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Stop this shit. You're embarrassing yourselves and setting a bad example for other countries.
Like troll message boards ? Taking own advice fail.
Every time you have contact with the governments your name will land in a database to properly assign the bit of info to the correct person. Tax ? You are in the tax database. Crime ? You are in some police DB (print,possibly DNA, photo etc...). Identity ? You are in birth certificate, death certificate at the end. The alternative of not being in those database, is possibly to be mismatched to somebody else. So people get their panties in a knot when the government try to do a proper job to make sure they have identified the correct persons, but when they refuse them the tool to do so, and error happens, they get their panties in a bunch and accuse the government to be unprofessional, doing a bad job, then possibly suggest a private entity which will have possibly worst privacy or less oversight. Sure government should not willy-nilly be able to use or abuse such data, but it is the abuse which should be reprimanded. Not the normal usage. And the linking above, do not sound abusive. We call it here around a background check and it is done by checking your judicial database for sex offense.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The claim that they will be used for "background checks on people who work with children and vulnerable people" as just an extension of the earlier plans to issue the cards to foreigners, i.e. a way to try and make the deployment of the cards acceptable to the public by initially issuing them to disliked groups (Paedophiles, Immigrants & Criminals) so that by the time they get to the rest of society it's too late to do anything about it.
I'm all for privacy so don't get me wrong... But what is the point of having a criminal record system if the information is not easily available? A criminal record is a public thing, and it's relevant that a person can be matched to it.
I will not have biometric ID card, and I will resign over it.
I'm currently writing to my MP, my Union representitive, donating to NO2ID, and looking very seriously at becomming a member of the Pirate Party UK.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I'm willing to sacrifice a little privacy, in order to download the torrent of the database when it gets leaked.
The slippery slope really does exist!
(That is, while in logic, a slippery slope argument is a kind of fallacy [they aren't logically inevitable], in the real world, many kinds of political change do in practice resemble a slippery slope, where each successive change makes it easier to introduce the next one.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Surely this is irrelevant now that it's obvious the whole ID card scheme is going to be canned anyway. There is no way on earth the Labour muppets are going to win the next election.
What's ridiculous is the number of background checks these idiots now force people to go through. A friend of mine is a guitar teacher who occasionally works in schools but in order to do that he has to pay for a background check himself and then wait for ages whilst it is inevitably delayed and screwed up by whichever lazy and incompetent branch of government is responsible for doing it.
Personally I would be much happier to just ditch the background checks altogether and save an awful lot of money and pointless hassle into the bargain.
Fair enough you could argue that this might cause one more child a year to be brutally raped or tortured to death by her guitar teacher but thousands of children die horribly every day so I am quite happy to accept a couple more if it saves me money and the hassle of filling in a few forms.
The fact is almost everyone knows who the weirdos and scum are in the world, without pointless background checks, just by looking at them and talking to them for a while, if the government were to ditch all this idiotic equality legislation employers would be free to choose the right person for the job and not some borderline psychopath just because she ticks the black lesbian box on some form.
Anyone who "thinks of the children" when writing or promoting legislation will be deported to the moon.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
then maybe the answer is not to have such tracking at all..
In Sweden, where I originally come from (now working in the UK), data is heavily integratated like this. Special, independent, departments oversee the use of the data in order to prevent abuse. And everything just works! Sure, it means that the government has an easier time detecting tax and benefit fraud, but hey... that's not so bad, is it?
Since I came here to the UK, I've really come to appreciate the way those things are handled in Sweden. My girlfriend was unable to get a cell-phone contract, since a credit background check showed that somebody previously living at our address had had problems with debt. The idea of identifying people by their address is utterly absurd as it changes constantly as we move around - but in a country with no effective ID system, it is necessary. I've lost count of how many times I've been asked to bring a gas bill with my name on it to prove where I live - also completely crazy. Keeping accurate track of such information should be trivial. Actually doing it should be a no-brainer.
A measure which is supposedly not compulsory is effectively made compulsory for anyone who works in education. (The whole education background check thing is a mile-high pile of crap anyway. Why should people have to pay the police £60 to say that they're not a child molester?)
In fact, why not take it a step further? Why limit the use of this system to the protecting only of children and vulnerable people?
I propose a system where offenders are clearly marked using clean, unique identifiers, worn in a visible place. For example, on their lapels or coats. By marking people this way, it will be easy to pick them out to disallow access to certain areas and to provide for continuous easy monitoring of their ways.
Distinctions could be made between sex offenders, thieves, previously convicted enemies of the state, etcetera, by using a colour-coding system of sorts.
Stachel
My criminal history tells an long ugly story of human depravity, chemical dependance and pure spite.
I will not have it linked to some small perfect piece of silicon embedded in a high tech ID card!
Yeah, but the government has a history of leaving this data on trains, mailed second class between offices through Royal Mail, or dumped in a stack of boxes on a roundabout in Devon
Oh, and sent to Ireland by the DVLA where again, it is promptly lost.
You are correct that any action put you on dozens of different databases. The problem is combining them into a single giant database. The danger of a database rises non-linearly with the amount of different data sources in it.On the one hand, one bit of data contamination can harm every aspect of your life, rather than a single portion. On the other, there is only one single target for the malicious to attack. Having multiple databases is a great level of security. Would you want to put all your money in a single investment, however allegedly wonderful, or would you rather have it spread across the market so that you are not vulnerable to a single failure? This is the same: everything about you is in one place, and it only takes one malicious or incompetent person to ruin your life. Nothing man-made is as good as this database has to be. Surely on /. we do not need point out that technology fails. British politicians, technological illiterates nearly all, have a touching belief that the technology fairies (us) will do the right thing infallibly. A long list of fiascos has not dented this belief.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
The Home Office has announced new security measures for identity cards.
"The biometrics, chip and PIN, RFID transponder, fingerprint-reader, real-time spectroscopic DNA analyser and two-way radio that demands 'papers please!' in a cod-German accent inexplicably failed to completely eliminate crime or identity fraud or stop terrorism," said Home Secretary For Life Jacqui Smith, "so we're getting back to the basics of PFI-funded governmental identity management: magic beans, pixie dust and snake oil. EDS Capita Goatse's experience in these areas is unparalleled."
Identification procedures have duly been enhanced. Magic beans are squashed into the paper driving licence, producing a pixie-dust effect when inspected by the police. Day-to-day purchases are made smoother by the snake oil, with the pixie-dust glow authenticating the transaction. Frequenters of brothels will be able to require the prostitute to wave her identity card at them and be reassured by the pixie-dust glitter certifying her bona fides as a legal resident.
The requirements for getting a bank account -- a retinal scan, hair clippings, 250 millilitres of blood and three documents for every address change since twenty years before your birth -- remain unchanged.
The new identity card weighs thirty-five kilograms. All UK residents must carry it everywhere at all times and produce it on demand of council bin inspectors or any higher official.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
It's not so much the data collection, but the data collation.
Right now it it (or at least should be) easy to control who has access to what information about individuals, but if you start collating all of the disparate databases into one, linked off a single identifier and allow tens of thousands of people access to at least parts of it, then your asking for trouble. Especially when the current British government has shown both an amazing disregard for the wishes of the public and a level of incompetence that is frankly embarrassing for all concerned, particularly with regards to the collection, storage and dissemination of personally identifyable data.
As has been said before, the only thing of note that Gordon Brown has achieved during his premiership is to make Tony Blair look like a great Prime Minister.
Keeping accurate track of such information should be trivial. Actually doing it should be a no-brainer.
That's good, because the government has no brains :-)
You're dead right in that we need a simple, reliable ID system, and that (if done well) it would be less intrusive than the current silly, ad hoc systems currently used when it is necessary to verify ID (one favorite method is to ask for a gas or electricity bill - but all the gas and electricity firms are moving to paperless billing...).
Problem is, the gubment has such a stellar record on delivering IT systems that nobody in their right mind trusts them to do it. It doesn't help that they're loading on lofty and unrealistic ambitions about preventing benefit fraud, catching illegal immigrants and eradicating child abuse. I'd settle for being able to get a mobile phone without them taking a photocopy of my drivers license...
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Is there some kind of horrible joke going on in the goverment, like "Let's see how much we can destory democracy and piss people off before we're kicked out"? The the winner in the next election will have to try to set a new high-score....
It doesn't take much to see the Overton Window at work on both sides of the pond. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
Dunno how long you've been in the UK... (same back story here) after a while you realize how openly evil imperialistic and brutal the govenment is here. It's just no joke.
The Swedish faith in the state will go away after an extended stay in the UK I'll tell you that.
---
Svenne
Dudes, why are you voting for hitler clones?
Hitler would be having orgasms over how the UK is acting.
Are the UK govt following his papers?
What is wrong with all the old grey hair govt people, are they insane or are they puppets controlled by some master?
Is all that extreme pay packets blinding their judgements?
If your in govt, you work for the PEOPLE, not your manager or future career.
yeah lets hope the economy fails, we all loose money, then we can do a revolution and take over.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I do not really like the idea of mandatory Id cards but on this particular story I have a differing opinion.
Although this is not with ID cards you already need a CRB check to work with children, this uses a photocopy of your passport to check who you are. If Id cards are a safer identifier of a person biometrics and all and if they can be used to instantly give a CRB check (only to appropriate bodys local councils, schools ect)then I have to say it's a great idea.
A person can wait up to six months to get a CRB check at the moment which in most cases means the person cannot start their job if working directly with children or have to be supervised if they work indirectly.
Sources - Personal experiance
They fitted George Orwell's coffin with rollers so he could turn over more easily years ago.
"I completely agree. How is an extortion racket supposed to do everything it needs to do if it cannot accurately keep track of its subjects?"
Fixed
"sudo rm -rf your-face"
The Id card as proposed by the UK government is not a simple reference document, but it allows connection with any means of electronic media, including computer databases, of course. This opens a huge can of worms: forming a resistance movement against an authoritative power will become very difficult, or even impossible.
Here is an example: suppose that you are interested in the preservation of the environment and the climate change; you don't want to sit on your couch all day, and the next G7 climate change meeting is not far from your country. You take a holiday, and then riding the first plane to the city where the climate change meeting takes place, you participate in the rallies against G7 policies regarding the climate. Sooner or later, you are part of a street battle with the local police that wants you not to rally at all. They arrest you, they get your picture and send it to the London's police department along your ID card data. They open a record for you in the UK criminal database as a possible "environmental terrorist".
You then return home, only to find that you have been fired. Although it hurts your feelings, you try another job. But without luck...employee after employee connect to the UK's criminal database using your Id card only to find out that you are a "terrorist". You are essentially finished...
The problem is, of course, that this search for a ``clean, unique identifier'' is patent folly simply because people are involved. There will be noise, wrong records, and so on and so forth. The very pretense such a clean identifier can exist is an insult to our society. The result will be that the government will keep on trying and pretending against all odds it has found such a thing anyway, depriving its citizens of any redress. That is, they are going to say ``it's in the computer, the computer is always right''.
The database will be more important for them than the people in it. For my part the government can have its database, but then it can't have me. If enough people will say so, we'll just start our own government and ignore the one with the big fat database but no people.
The uk gov is and will keep going at it harder better faster stronger. Don't pretend you didn't see this one coming. It makes perfect sense from their point of view.
people who work with children and vulnerable people have to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA),
There is no mention of what the "ISA Status" that is visible to the employers actually includes and how detailed it is. It may be some arbitrary measurement of how much trouble you've been in or it could be details of your entire life history. Who knows.
Frankly, I find this quotation (ISA) quite concerning because it seems like this government body decides how much of your personal information is available to others:
Applicants will be assessed using data gathered by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), including relevant criminal convictions, cautions, police intelligence and other appropriate sources.
However, it seems to suggest that based on all of this data the ISA will only give a "thumbs-up"or a "thumbs-down".
(Let's also remember that this is just a "feasibility study" and seemingly not certain.)
KÃre vÃn, you are comparing a country where 64% of managers have engineering or technology degrees, where the customary approach to selecting options is to gather measurable facts and do some calculations based on those facts, with a country where 38% of managers have no formal qualifications at all (not even basic school leaver certificate), and almost all options are selected by dogma or whim.
Sweden is not perfect - the same id number has been allocated to a new born baby as is already in use by someone over a hundred years old (that's fun for the old lady when she gets called to the doctor for a post-natal checkup!). But in general it works because (a) most government and commercial business is run mostly on rational processes (b) the freedom of information laws and privacy laws have teeth. Most government naughtiness gets caught out.
Britain is by comparison chaotic and irrational. Most of us like it that way because we can get on with our lives without any central or local government snoop knowing enough about us to interfere (and believe me, they would if they could - just look at the frequency of local councils using terror laws to combat littering!). Our real objection to ID cards is just this - we don't want to be ordered around by petty jumped-up know-it-all officials.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
Ah Sweden. This is a discussion I ( English ) have with my gf ( Swedish ) often, and I think it's important to realise that Sweden is almost alone in having a paternal socialist government which is largely fair. In my experience a Swedish approach to living in England often results in frustration and genuine shock that people could live like this.
In England, personal information is very likely to be abused or used for profit by people who are effectively above the law, and it's unlikely that this information will have any positive effect on society, so people are naturally cautious as to plans like this, they feel ( correctly in my opinion ) that it's a loss of power for no gain. These laws tend to have clauses which exonerate the ruling classes, a lack of transparency which inspires contempt and a high likelihood that the data will be stored ( and used ) incorrectly.
England does not work. It's run by self-serving and generally unaccountable people who believe they are superior to large sections of the population, an opinion based largely on birthright. The class system I imagine was useful in an empire context where everyone knowing their place resulted in the entirety of the country ( questionably ) achieving greatness, but it is now almost impossible to dissolve, as this would require a reduction in power for a group of people who's entirety is based around not doing so.
You're right to say that in Sweden this would not be a problem, and is a good idea. In England not so.
The example you give is hardly something we would want, of course. The problem, however, is not with the data integration - it is with (1) you getting in a "street battle", (2) the police terming you an "environmental terrorist" and (3) your employer firing you on unreasonable grounds (unless you're working in an area where such things actually matter).
Police shouldn't try arresting peaceful demonstrators (because you were peaceful in that battle, weren't you?), said demonstrators shouldn't be termed terrorists and they shouldn't be fired. Those are the real problems in your story.
I used to live in London and I am from Sweden, I have gone through the pain of getting the initial bits and pieces set up and sorting out problems due to the previous tenants unpaid bills, which is a very awkward and unfamiliar process.
I am strongly opposed to the id system in Sweden. Yes, it works very efficiently. So efficiently that you have to provide it in any non-cash transaction and quite a few other situations to boot. So efficiently that the id number was all that was needed to steal my identity, sign up for 5 different mobile contracts, take out loans in my name and buying a whole load of crap using my name and credit history.
Here is the kicker - the credit rating agencies use the number of queries on your name as an indicator of how good your credit is. The more queries, the more likely you are to be in financial difficulties. Only they refuse to remove any references to fraudulent queries. Bad credit == can't rent a flat, get a phone etc. I was effectively banned from moving home for 5 years until this cleared from my record.
I don't get it.. were criminal records anonymous before this? if they can look up your name and get your record, it's already linked to your identity, isn't it?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Arguing that someone is already in one database is not an argument in support of their being included in another (bang goes half your argument).
The problem is not that the government need the tools to do a proper job. It is that if a system is put in place which allows the government to spy ever more closely on its citizens, it will do just that. If the rules prevent such close scrutiny now, they will be changed to allow it in the future, when everyone has become accustomed to the notion.
It is the implementation of the system itself which will drive ever closer scrutiny of the population by government, simply because it will be so easily available.
National id card is the need of time and must be implemented...in my land..here in india govt has intiated the project for issuing national id card. more info[http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=44711]
it has number of advantages for any economy such as, identifying the illegal immigrants, one dont have to carry 10 different identity proofs any more, and e-governance will be easy which in turn will curb the corruption to some level.
allthough linking it to the criminal records might not be a good idea as system-abusers will/might take advantage of it and again privacy of an individual is at stake..so i guess..govt should take a step down here.
[if we go mayan way..its just 2 more years[2012] to enjoy the life...so wont bother abt national card :P]
In case you might not grasp the reality of the mission creep which inevitably follows the implementation of any system which potentially trivialises the access to private data, see here how the use of the Oyster card system, ostensibly used to streamline public transport in London, has transformed over the years. Bear in mind that the same system is now being promoted for other cities in the UK:
2003 - Civil liberties concerns brushed aside
2006 - Police increasingly access Oyster travel database
2008 - Security service wants full access to whole travel database 2008
Once it is in place, the use of the system will be extended, and it will be well nigh impossible to get rid of. That is guaranteed - unless you raise a storm over it, and truly punish your MP for their behaviour.
Remember: your MP doesn't care what you think. Except for the two or three months immediately prior to an election, they only care about the organisations who lobby them.
Mod parent up. This has hit the nail on the head.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
UK Government website hacked by trivial SQL injection.
These are the people who want all my personal details on a database, and expect me to believe that it is safe?
The "If you have nothing to hide" lobby are missing an important point. We don't live in a full democracy. If we did, there would be no problem.
The difficulty lies in the fact that we have a tiered democracy (don't call it 'representative', it isn't.) We vote only for the people who will take the actual decisions; we have no say over the legislation itself. That system allows rich individuals and organisations to influence our 'representatives' far more effectively than our puny vote does.
In such a flawed system the only thing preventing our MPs from going completely off track, is the notion that should they go too far, they will have a riot on their hands and they would run the real risk of suffering retribution. The sheer numbers of the people who might be involved in such a reaction ensure that the state is kept responsive to the people's needs. Back in the eighties UK, the poll tax was abandoned only after extensive rioting in the streets, not because of polite letters sent to MPs.
Step forward Big Brother. With the technology available today, it is possible for fewer and fewer people to keep tabs on the population at large and identify malcontents before they have an opportunity to act.
In a world where protesters have to ask the police for permission to protest, where a person's location can be identified through the mobile phone records and the national motorway vehicle identification database, where email headers and phone traffic data is routinely held and scrutinised, the ability to mount an effective protest is rapidly diminishing.
Yes, I do want to retain the ability to riot (legal or not) because if we as a citizenry ever loose that ability, we might as well also give up the vote, because we will surely have lost any say in the running of this country.
There is every reason to avoid yet more databases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges
Funnily enough, I plan to also link a possible ID card.... but more usefully... with a cigarette lighter!
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I bet Thatcher was the devil and destroyed the economy too eh?
No, Labour screwed up badly last time and have done it again. Much as I dislike their moral standpoints, the Tories at least have some business sense and some sort of idea of privacy and individual rights, unlike the current lot.
The current labour party got there today by being the opposition after over a decade of rule by a single party. The Tories are about to do the same. This is because the largest part of the electorate is voting the way it (and it's daddy) always voted (tribalism), and those that do change their vote are lacking in both imagination and ability to change anything other than which one of the big two gets in. From next year you have a decade or so of Tory rule to look forward to. Try to enjoy it.
I'm betting they won't institute ID cards or fellate the next republican president in the way Blair did. That man was a national disgrace.
If it was to prevent only crimes then yes it's a good thing, but if everything is linked to you as a person... I don't know, thats how it started in the end of the 1930's aswell.
And while the government probably has the best privacy and good oversight, it's people who leak data or hack the database. Nothing is 100% trustworthy. And locking you up in a invisible cage to prevent 'terrorism' and the sorts aren't helping either.
The problem I have with your argument is its initial premise.
"How is a government supposed to do everything it needs to do if it cannot accurately keep track of its citizens?"
Once that statement is accepted, everything you say follows logically. But recheck your initial assumption. What exactly does government "need" to do? I am not asking what is your government currently doing. I ask what does it absolutely need to do. Detecting tax & benefit fraud for instance. If people relied on government for less benefits they would probably pay less taxes. There, I just reduced what your government needs to do by two things.
I don't live in the UK or Sweden so I don't know everything your government is currently handling. I would be willing to bet that there are many things that your government is doing that could easily be handled better by private industry.
Of course the government needs a way to quickly and easily identify people... It's doing so much for so many. Having the national ID will allow it do do even more, leading to ever increasing levels of information to be collected about you along with new and interesting ways for it to be used.
Despite the current economic conditions, times are relatively good now. Goods and services are readily available and the national ID is needed to better dole them out. How will the national id be used when / if times are worse?
I am from the US and we have our own national id legislation. What you have now, we will have soon.
Privacy and anonymity don't scare me, efficient governments do.
I don't know how I feel about this.
On one hand, if someone has paid their debt in full to society, then the goal is for them to be able to get a fresh chance to start over, and I tend to want to believe that people can be reformed to become productive members of society.
Yet, all too often, we hear about repeat offenders who seem to easily be able to hide their dubious past leaving law abiding citizens in danger of being a victim of repeat offenses.
Our system of justice does state, INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, therefore while I personnally don't know where I stand on this discussion, I think our legal system will combat this tooth and nail.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
The problem with an ID card is how easy is it for me to get one in your name ....
I suspect it is very very easy .... and once I have an ID card saying I am you then I have more proof that I am you than you do, Identity theft with no comeback ....
Just change you fingerprints, retina, and DNA
The real problem is the biometric tests they use are massively flawed and ludicrously easy to fool ....fingerprint scanners can be fooled by gummi bears
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
> Police shouldn't try arresting peaceful demonstrators (because you were peaceful in that battle, weren't you?)
You haven't been to many demonstrations, have you?
Someone almost always makes a fuss and a bunch of innocent folks get rounded up who happened to be too close to the action. Incidentally, note that I said "folks" and not "protesters." You don't even have to be a part of the protest to get arrested. You just have to be among the people rounded up.
And no, the police won't believe you when you tell them you weren't one of the protesters. At best, you might get off because it was your first time or something like that. And don't tell anyone you didn't commit a crime. They have laws like "disorderly conduct" and "disturbing the peace" which can be applied to anyone they don't like. If it's your word against a cop's, you will lose in court.
"How is a government supposed to do everything it needs to do if it cannot accurately keep track of its citizens?" Once that statement is accepted, everything you say follows logically. But recheck your initial assumption. What exactly does government "need" to do? I am not asking what is your government currently doing. I ask what does it absolutely need to do. Detecting tax & benefit fraud for instance. If people relied on government for less benefits they would probably pay less taxes. There, I just reduced what your government needs to do by two things.
No, you didn't. Just because people pay a bit less tax or get a bit less benefit doesn't mean that the goverment doesn't neet to keep track of it (unless you're proposing that we get away with tax and social security alltogether?).
I don't live in the UK or Sweden so I don't know everything your government is currently handling. I would be willing to bet that there are many things that your government is doing that could easily be handled better by private industry.
To be honest, I trust my government more than I trust private industry. Goverment is elected, and should be serving its citizens (key here of course is "should" - but this holds well in Sweden, at least). Industry, instead, is driven by monetary incentives.
Privacy and anonymity don't scare me, efficient governments do.
You're scared of an efficient government? Wow, I wouldn't want to be paying taxes in your country. If you would rather that your government run inefficiently, it sounds like you should try to get about a government change. Use your vote, and keep using it until you have a government that you actually trust to run the country. That's what it's there for, you know.
Am I the only person who thinks this is a brilliant idea? I mean, if you are going to have a national ID program, yes, by all means, link it to the criminal database. Gosh, think of the money saved on criminal background checks alone! And I am sorry, but if you do have a criminal background, you should be discouraged against. I mean, I think most people are going to be able to see that if you got picked up for speeding in 1977 does not make you subject to not get hired, where a molestation charge in 2006 or something may make them think twice about hiring you as a teacher or someone who is going to be going into people's homes.
The only thing about it is, there needs to be a program where citizens can see what is on their record, and dispute stuff mistakenly entered by inept data entry clerks.
The problem with an ID card is how easy is it for me to get one in your name ....
It doesn't need to be. I don't know where you're from and what's required from you for getting that card, but I assume that the way you get your passport is secure. Just use the same method for the ID card (around here [in large parts of Europe] the two are mostly equivalent anyway).
I notice you use "shouldn't", not "won't". People in the UK are already put off protesting because they're worried about the police's heavy handed tactics. Try http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7958198.stm and http://www.christianaid.org.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/August2009/public-put-off-protesting-by-heavy-handed-policing.aspx for starters...
Sweden? where you sterilised the retarded up to the late 1970s?
That's a nice government to trust.
To get a passport, up until recently in the UK I could get one with three bits of paper
Birth Certificate (which most people lose)
Two bills in your name (which are trivial to steal/fabricate)
Now we have to appear in person as well, well that stops it? ... except the person interviewing me does not know me, has never met me and what they know about me is only what is available in public records ....
But a passport is as you said assumed to be trusted as a form of ID, even though it has been shown they are easily forged, and easy to get under an assumed name ...
Adding biometrics does not make it more secure, it just makes it harder to refute
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
The title is grossly misleading. It's not about adding a national_id_number field to the criminal record database: it's about forcing everyone who applies for a certificate that they don't have a criminal record to also apply for entry into a "voluntary" database which aggregates far more data than ever previously stored about British citizens.
Once you're in you can't get out, and you become subject to a $1500 fine if you, for example, fail to update the database when you move house.
Moreover, something like 20% of the population need this certificate. Work with children (teacher, nurse, doctor, bus driver)? You need it. Do voluntary work with children (Boy Scout leader)? You need it.
So suddenly the government has several million people signed up and points at them to say, "Look! We told you people wanted to be in our database! Now we're going to make it compulsory."
.
And that is a problem with any number used as an ID. Same shit happens with the American SSN.
Germany has done it right for once: The number of the personal ID card is just a serial number and the date of birth and by itself meaningless. Only the ID card itself can be used as identification so to steal someone's identity the card itself has to be stolen (and it has got a colour photo and the signature on it) AND the thief has to be able to access the victim's mailbox (because his address is on the back side of the ID card).
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Why not do away with SS & taxes altogether? Is that so insane? People assume that if the government were not doing something that it would not get done. Things that need to be done will be done. I am simply saying that government is not always the best one to do it.
As far as taxes go.
Last year the federal government received $1.1 trillion in revenue from personal income tax.
The budget submitted by President Obama for 2010 is $3.6 trillion.
If you eliminated the personal income tax the federal budget would have to shrink to $2.5 trillion.
What year, you ask, was the federal budget last at $2.5 trillion?
Why that was way back in 2004. ($2.4 trillion actually but what's $100 Billion between friends?)
Does anyone seriously think that the size and scope of the federal government was too small back in 2004? No more personal income tax means less reason to track people personally. Not no reason of course, there is always a reason for governments to track their citizens, I am just saying the less the better.
As far as your thought that government is not motivated by money... I think that's naive. They are both equally motivated by money. At least with industry, you can vote it away with your money quicker than you can an administration. Most new businesses fail within the first year. They have to actually bring value to make it longer than that. Not so with governments.
And I would not want to pay taxes in my country either but I bet they are still lower than yours.
Strange, I assume that you think your government will be more efficient with the national ID card and mine less efficient without it. Do you think as government becomes more efficient your taxes will go down? USA mean personal income tax <30%, UK personal income tax - mid 30's, Sweden approaches 50%.
I prefer slower progress & inefficient government to outrageously high taxes.
Most US states already link the driver's license to your name and address and, in some states, thumb-print, Social Security numbers, or both behind the scenes.
These, especially thumb-prints, name, and date of birth, give access to criminal histories.
It's not "instant" access, but there is tying.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If you live in the UK and oppose this it might be worth checking this out...
http://freedom.libdems.org.uk/petition/
Things that need to be done will be done. I am simply saying that government is not always the best one to do it.
No government -> no authority -> anarchy. Of course, there are a fair bit of people who argue for such societies. It's more than a bit out of scope of this discussion, though.
Strange, I assume that you think your government will be more efficient with the national ID card and mine less efficient without it. Do you think as government becomes more efficient your taxes will go down? USA mean personal income tax <30%, UK personal income tax - mid 30's, Sweden approaches 50%.
I hope you realize that the tax level is influenced by other factors also, beside government efficiency? Such as, you know, their effective spending?
It sounds as if they want to require you to have an ID card to have a CRB Check.
CRB Checks are required to work with vulnerable groups, including children. As a minority, people requiring CRB Checks probably outnumber immigrants and perverts by a large factor. And they can justify it with a well-placed "think of the Children!".
My wife may be forced to have an ID card if this is the case. Most of the people affected by this will be teachers, medical personnel, and carers. Way to go, UK Gov... crap on the people who prop up your society.
Erm ...
The dealerships in North America already give me nasty looks when I tell them my vehicles have no VIN (Jap-spec vehicles) and I say that I can only give them the VIN of an equivalent vehicle if they must have one, now they're probably just going to press a button under the desk and stall me until the cops arrive.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You find the experience of belonging to the collective comforting, and see the logic of the collective monitoring its members. I find the collective stifling, and want as little to do with it as possible. Each way of living has its disadvantages and advantages, but I wonder if your Swedish way has limited your critical abilities to even recognize this.
>No, Labour screwed up badly last time and have done it again. Much as I dislike their moral standpoints, the Tories at least have some business sense and some sort of idea of privacy and individual rights, unlike the current lot.
So you've got one lot that has a lousy sense of morals, but good business sense, and another that walks all over individual rights in favor of a, shall we say... socialist set of principals.
If you threw some side-arms into the recipe, how would you distinguish this from living in the States?
OK - I like the idea of debating this topic with someone who actually lives under another government & tax structure but...
I suggest that the elimination of the personal income tax would set the scope of my government back a mere 5 years and you paint me as an anarchist? Seriously.
Think of the cost benefit analysis. 99% of the people in the USA would not even notice the change in scope but would gain over 20% of their income back. What would stimulate the economy more, bailouts and car purchase programs or $1.1 Trillion invested back into the economy at the local level?
And yes, I realize that tax is influenced by many factors. The effective spending point is debatable. Look up "the broken window fallacy of economics." Government is great at breaking your leg, giving you a crutch and saying "see, if it wasn't for government, you wouldn't be able to walk."
What I am saying is that taxes will go no where but up over the long term. More data means more programs can be refined, improved & expanded. More expansion means more taxes, which leads to the need for more data.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
In Sweden's defense, it worked a lot hell of a better than the US/UK approach of putting them in public office.
They didn't get to see the original document nor how it came to be presented.
They, like the rest of the UK, were lied to.
Myself, as soon as Tony said "Trust me" I didn't believe him.
well its a package deal..good+bad.
:)
but hey..what kind of system is that which relies only on an ID without a proper check to give out loans..crap.
if thats so in sweden..i like the red-tapism in india...i cant even get close to a bank..for 2 months from start of the process to get the loan...whew!!
and yes..we will be having national cards by next year..
In the real world, Police will accuse you of anything, if it serves their purpose, and their masters' purpose. Then it's up to the legal system to clean up the mess. In the mean time, your name is associated with criminal activities, and even if you are found innocent, no one would want to associate themselves with you.
Ahem, it turns out in britain they have been keeping a database of criminal records without possibility to identify the criminal? Sounds just great, how many fellas there's on the loose with name "Gordon Brown" that have committed deadly sins?
They couldn't possibly create a law governing usage of databases?? I know at least one country where this kind of legislation is already in place and among other things it simply forbids combining databases containing personal information if the databases were originally collected as separate entities. Cops then watch that the law is being followed.
Credit rating agencies really are paragons of bureaucratic evil. This is what government should be getting involved in, rather than ID cards.
i'm not getting the urge to launch something heavy at the set in frustration either!
Street Judge: "HALT CITIZEN! THIS IS A NON SMOKING AREA NEAR A SCHOOL! Lets see that National ID Card...*zip* I see this is your third infraction that makes you an automatic repeat offender."
Citizen: "oh come on...I just lit a bloody fag!"
Street Judge: "THAT'S ANOTHER CITATION FOR A HATE CRIME AND ANOTHER FOR ARSON...HOW DO YOU PLEAD?"
Citizen: "It's not my fault the bloody thing is called a fag...NOT GUILTY."
Street Judge: "I KNEW YOU'D SAY THAT. 24 MONTHS RE-EDUCATION AND 48 MONTHS OF INTENSIVE ANTI-TOBACCO THERAPY, YOU'LL COME OUT LOVING THEM SO MUCH YOU MIGHT JUST BECOME A FLAMING ONE YOURSELF."
You can't expect the authorities to get out of the car do you?
Just "scan" the crowd.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
In Belgium everybody has an ID. They also have a chip in it that you can read yourself if you have a reader. (Sourcecode is available for Mac, Win and Linux).
Obviously these can be linked to anything you desire, but so could anything else. Now you go into a store and say you want to take a two year subscription. Then the seller will most likely have some ID so that he can get his money. So you would need to give some sort of ID? You hand over your ID and if they write it down or put it in a reader and put it directly in the database does not matter. It is the process that is different, not the fact that your name ends up in a database.
In the above, people who would not want to pay, would try to trick you with a fake ID. With this it is much, much, much harder. Impossible? No, but so much work that it becomes useless for most crimes.
What the real worry is not that you end up in a database (that will happen with or without IS) but that these databases become linked. We work with this and with payment by Visa. After the transaction we can not see the creditcard number any more. Visa does not know what goods the customer bought.
there would arise a problem if we were able to get the credit card details afterwards or if Visa and could see what the customer bought. Mind you, they see where they bought it, but not what. They can guess, but they will not be sure.
So it is not the ID, it is the linking of databases that is the real problem.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Birth Certificate (which most people lose)
You are not, in fact, "most people".
You lost your Birth Certificate, and wish to alleviate your feelings of self-loathing by displacing your stupidity onto everyone else.
Now get over it, contact your local Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and get a replacement.
Amusing moderation continuing the denial of a possible reality that simply doesn't flatter the ego of the grandparent poster and his/her peers.
By all means keep fighting yourself :) If nothing else you're collectively continuing to create, recreate, and embellish strikingly beautiful dynamic mental mazes of ignorance, they're fascinating to behold and somewhat reminiscent of Conway's Game of Life.
-1 made my day, thank you!
This opens a huge can of worms: forming a resistance movement against an authoritative power will become very difficult, or even impossible.
Indeed. All tyrants fear the people they oppress, knowing that there are sure to be those among their many victims who would rise against them. All of these countries' governments, with an increasingly massive amount of surveillance looming over the citizens, show is that they have become or are becoming tyrannical.
I have mine ... ...replacement is not acceptable for proof of identity since you do not have to prove your identity to get one!
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
The "If you have nothing to hide" lobby are idiots. It's not about having something to hide, it's about having something to fear. If something here went awry, I certainly wouldn't want the government to have mountainous amounts of info on me in one handy database with a card that could be used to track my movements..
Sweden has its fair share of issues regarding abuse of power, and is hardly immune to corruption, like our politicians seem to believe since they rush new laws that threaten our integrity without consulting experts, then simply say something akin to "Yes, we are strengthening our power at the expense of your rights, but trust us, we won't abuse it".
Everyone is treated equally on paper, and while there are repercussions when abuse is evident, the elite get special treatment behind the scene. For instance, there was a mediastorm when tapes surfaced in which the "landshÃvding" of Gotland, who had previously, when she was active in the Green party, been outspoken about the need to enforce the protection of the beach that exists (so everyone can have access to unspoiled beaches), was heard speaking frankly behind closed doors about how she had intervened after an entrepreneur had rightfully been denied building golf-, and tenniscourts connected to his residence close to the beach. He was allowed to build where other citizens were denied.
Over the years, there has been numerous cases of corrupt policemen abusing their power, and of snooping officials who access the confidential files of people in their database. The boss of a biobank broke the law by giving DNA samples of a suspected murderer to the police, without any repercussions (if they were so sure the suspects guilt, they wouldn't have needed the DNA to verify it, which the defense in a trial then could have argued was planted, had the suspect not confessed beforehand).
Look up FRA, a law which gives the military branch with the same name the right to access communications that crosses the borders if they contain any "forbidden" words, which are decided by a court that is closed to the public eye (the requirement of a court wasn't even there before the massive public outcry regarding the retarded draft which was going to be hastily written into law without any discussion, the government itself wanted to decide the words and no thought had been given to integrity issues). The draft of our version of the EU:s data retention directive goes beyond the directive by requiring telecoms to retain positioning data. Our politicians wants to register our location whenever we make a call. Yeah, that will never be abused, and it would be silly to assume that telecoms or policemen are corruptible, right?
It's nice to think there exists a place where everything is all peaches and cream, but you are deceiving yourself. Sweden is writing new laws in the name of fighting copyright infringement and terrorism, at the expense of the right to privacy, the protection of the identity of whistleblowers, and so on. People with power will abuse these records, there is no doubt about it.