Slashdot Mirror
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."
From the UK and don't like the ID card proposals? Then use your vote next year!
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?
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.
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.
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
There you go ladies and gentlemen - the most powerful man in our country, our effective head of state for some issues - voted in by 24278 people in Scotland who, due to the devolved parliament there, will not be affected by many of his decisions anyway.
Furthermore, he wasn't leader of the Labour party in 2005, so those people did not elected him as PM they elected him as Chancellor.
This is about as democratic as Iran. Yes, there is technically a vote - but the context of it and result are so warped you cannot really consider it a democratic election.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
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
Flamebait? Seriously? Has a random number generator been given mod points or something?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
No shit, because we don't elect the Prime Minister. We elect the government.
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...
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.
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.
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.