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UK ID Cards Could Be Upgraded To Super ID Cards
An anonymous reader writes "Gadget lovers are used to punishing upgrade cycles but now it seems that the British ID card could be replaced with a 'super' ID card just a couple of years after the first one was released. The new card could be used to buy goods or services online, or to prove identity over the web. It's a bit of a kick in the teeth for the people who have already paid £30 for a 1st gen card that can't do any of these things."
No one thinks 'well, we've sold a bunch of these, we'd better stop innovating now in case we annoy the people who bought Version 1'. Buying something, then a few years later a better version coming along is not a "kick in the teeth". It's progress.
If the best argument you can come up with against "super ID cards" is that they're not fair on people with ordinary ID cards then you need to go back to Civil Liberties School.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
It's a bit of a kick in the teeth for the people who have already paid £30 for a 1st gen card that can't do any of these things.
Yes, all 6 of them.
It's always been my dream to be profiled by law enforcement on the basis of my shopping.
Who knows, maybe my toilet paper buying habits exactly match those of a known terrorist and the men in black will single me out for "special attention". After all, who doesn't want to be incarcerated for 28 days without actually being accused of anything because of buying "the supermarket's brand in packs of 4 in average once every two months" just like the terrorists.
The good news is that using a Government provided electronic ID card for shopping will bring me closer to my dream.
One single card that absolutely verifies who you are AND accesses all your finances. What a wonderful idea! What could possibly go wrong?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So I can have my identity AND my money stolen, together with everything else!
Wait, let me just quickly forge one of $currentDummyGovernmentLeader. You know... for the nasty stuff. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
You cannot post on this web forum without first verifying your identity with the UK government. From the article:
THIS is how they plan to implement the draconian measures in the DEB. They want all Internet activity linked to an ID card system that they control (and whose data they can sell). Am I being paranoid? My wife would say so. But if currently legislation pans out - and the incoming government have made no indications they wish to change direction - then the government will have on one hand an unworkable set of Internet regulations and another hand a technological solution that could potentially make it work. They will also have very rich men offering financial incentives to link the two.
The fact this will kill Internet freedom in this country stone dead is completely irrelevant to them. As with so many other aspects of life, career politicians simply do not care because they are outside their very narrow experiences, which have been aimed at public office for basically their entire life.
These people select themselves for leadership at private school (if Tory) or at university (if Labour or Lib Dem) - and never venture out of that world to experience the life, work, and leisure of ordinary human beings.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Yes of course, it's the people who signed up for first-generation ID cards whom we should feel sorry for here. Poor dears.
Most people in the UK are happy to be profiled in exchange for financial benefits. When the Tesco Clubcard was introduced it was so popular that people stopped shopping at other supermarkets like Sainsburys, which then had to introduce their own "loyalty card" schemes. Tesco announced last year that there are now 16 million active clubcards in the UK. As a comparison point there are around 25 million households in the UK , so a significant number of British households are having their shopping profiled in detail already.
British citizens will soon be able to upgrade their citizenship with Value Pack and Premium services. I envy you.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
One card to rule them all, one card to find them, One card to bring them all and in the darkness bind them (With apologies to you know who)
I have a passive RFID chip in my arm from a university project. It sets the alarms off in H&M when I walk in and out of the store. :D
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wouldn't it be easy if you had one card for ID, public transport, payments, building access, getting your treatment, etc?
It probably should have some kind of Chip. Now this would be perfect day!
No. Definitely not. I don't want my complete life to stagnate when I loose the ID card, for instance. Furthermore, the idea of coupling payments to the ID card (which is basically a passport) is so horrible I do not forgive a government to even suggest it.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
since 1999 finland has been pushing exactly this kind of super-card technology for exactly the same reasons. So far less than 4% of the population has taken the card. Also the widely available online bank account authentication tools, have effectively made the card obsolete. Finally the government seems to be giving up and gladly accepts the online bank authentication methods for the purpose of identifying anyone online. like this
The British super ID card will have exactly the same fate as the finnish Super-card did.
I'd rather like to have a few steps inbetween before the government gets a full profile over me; not that I'm buying terrorist goods in our supermarket but rather because I'd like to have my own privacy too; which kind of brands of toilet paper I consume.
By taking away every piece of the chain this gives the UK government unfettered access to any buyers profile of their citizens.
Such things should only happen with a court order; instead of profiling an entire country in order to select the terrorist next door using statistics from such profiling. I've never signed up for "Open Privacy" although I might believe in "Open Source". Not everything in all our lives should be open for the take.
Do imagine all this data gets hacked into/sold by officials; I can assure the black market will be paying gold for such data.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Wouldn't it be easy if you had one card for ID, public transport, payments, building access, getting your treatment, etc?
It probably should have some kind of Chip. Now this would be perfect day!
Nice until the government decides to revoke your access to all of the above on a whim.
Wouldn't it be easy if you had one card for ID, public transport, payments, building access, getting your treatment, etc?
Wouldn't it be easy if the government and corporations could track and timestamp every action of your life with no court supervision?
The problem with any such card is that as it does more and more things, more and more people can access data used by it. The fact that it can do more things makes it a juicy target for criminals, while the larger the number of people who have access to its data the more there are to be criminals or to be suborned by criminals. This means that there is in inverse square law of security against power of such a card. Nobody is going to attack my library card: all they could do is take out books in my name, and the only people who have access to the database are a handful of librarians. But single index to my entire life gives access to my bank, my medical records, my employment records, my tax records... and is vulnerable to attack by all those with legitimate access to any of those people.
Beware of revenge effects. Every technology has them - this ID card seems to me to have bigger ones than most.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
A "super ID card", will see how good it is against a cigarette lighter, shove their ID cards cards where the sun don't shine (unfortunately I read that there are many current government ministers who would like that experience).
This corrupt government will force ID cards on people by stealth. There are plans to add a section to the passport application form. If you do not want an ID card, you will not get a passport. That's an easy way to force people to have cards they don't want. The current government are THE most corrupt in the UK's history.
Kick the corrupt UK government out of power, then the UK public will save £20bn, and not have every excuse for public sector "worker" from the police downwards asking "Papieren Bitte", just like in Nazi Germany.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
You do know the UK ID card and it's backend would be illigal in Germany.
THe UK government has a very poor record in securing data. These cards have already been hacked. They are unsecure. Oh and the plans are for fingerprinting to be tendered out to private companies. Do you want to go to Tesco to hand over your fingerprints?
Don't most people round here do incremental development? Isn't it normal to send release 0.1 for test and then start work on release 0.2? It is sensible to put a minimal set of features into a Mk 1 card, then add more to a Mk 2 card later.
The problem is not with enhancing the card, it is with the non-optional nature of it. In technology we are used to early adopters paying a high price, and later users getting something that is both cheaper and probably better. Everybody makes a choice to be an early adopter, or not, and lives with the consequence. But the UK ID card, while claimed to be voluntary, is not. If you want to get/renew a passport from 2011 on, you will have to get an ID card. Which forces people into the early adopter group whether they want it or not. They do not have the option of waiting until the system has settled down. I would definitely play cautious about this ID card scheme, and luckily my passport needs renewing in 2010, so I can - until they find some other way to coerce me. I'll get one when I see real evidence of an advantage to me, and that the security threats have not materialized.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Hillier? Hillier? So officials under Hillier will be asking for our papers?
Hail Meg...!
At the rate the old cards are being issued it would take at least 15 years to give every Brit one and they want to upgrade every 6 years. Is it only me that sees a problem with that?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Where's the +1 Wrong mod option when you need it? You're so terribly wrong on this one, that I just want to mod up so that others can see you.
The above quote, although written many eons ago, seems remarkably accurate for the not-so-distant future...
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200601/df20060116.jpg
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
Millions? I think not.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/09/id_card_numbers/
The area of North West England listed there includes two major cities with a combined population of 3.5 million alone. And how many cards have they issued in this area up until the 3rd of March this year?
Four thousand three hundred and seven. Yes we Brits are banging down the doors to get our ID cards.
Almost everyone has a computer in their pockets - it's called a mobile phone. With a simple SMS message, one could easily buy things either online or in a shop. Here is the idea:
1. you go into the shop and decide to buy something.
2. you write an SMS like this: "PP 6937123456 19.99" and send it to a special phone number.
3. the SMS is received by the phone company and forwarded to your bank.
4. the bank receives the SMS, and transfers 19.99 pounds from your account to the account that corresponds to the phone number in the SMS.
5. both you and the shop receive an SMS for confirming the transfer.
If your phone is stolen, you deactivate it with a simple phone call, just like you do now. This prohibits the thieves from doing shopping with your phone.
The technology is already available. Millions of SMS messages are sent to radio and TV shows as we speak. The black markets will get a severe shock from such a thing. Tax evasion will be stopped etc.
(Of course, such a scheme does not include a commission for the politicians like the new ID cards...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_Beast#Mark_of_commerce
It seems you all either need new sarcasm detectors or should read "This Perfect Day" by Ira Levin.
I expected more from you, Slashdot!
The libertoons whinging about ID cards have no idea what they're talking about.
This lot fail to see that most non-Anglo countries have mandatory cards, and it doesn't bother anybody. The idea that an ID card and a record in a database somewhere means getting analprobed constantly by police officers in ski masks is riscible.
It's traditional in the UK for people not to have to carry identification. It used to be a source of pride that people could go about their business without such interference from the state.
Big countries just as advanced, free and democratic as the English-speaking world (perhaps more so), like France and Spain have got them. Why not make life easier for government agencies trying to enforce the law, prevent fraud, and prevent illegal immigration?
France and Spain don't seem to be more successful than the UK in this regard. ID cards will be very expensive so some benefit must be shown before introducing them can be considered. "Because other countries have them" doesn't seem to be a very strong argument to me.
The risks also seem greater in the UK. The government has a very poor record in recent years in keeping its citizens' data safe, and has more big brother tendencies than other European nations.
The Conservative party have pledged to scrap them too which IMO is the sensible and good thing. Generally I agree with Labour policy but they've really lost the plot on this issue.
I kind of like the idea of VISA/MasterCard/Paypal/Bank of x
They are public companies, they have a reputation to protect, people can get fired if it all hits the fan. If Visa had constantly poor security, all their customers would leave for Master Card.
If the Govt controls the payments system, and the payments systems is fragile, or easily corruptible, you can't just dump them and go to the competition.
At least in my country, govt employees pretty much need to shoot someone (during office hours, and in the office) to get fired.
Nothing good can come of this.
http://davesboat.blogspot.com/
The above is from the ID Cards FAQ by Privacy International. Highly recommended reading, for the sake of us all.
Wow, someone in the governent actually put 2+2 together.
I asked myself why they weren't piggy-backing a proper Public Key Infrastructure onto the ID scheme.
The main issue with PKS12 certificates is actually certifying who the end-user is. That normally involves physically going to someone and showing them some ID. This would elminate that step.
Once you have a .p12 file and that chain of trust then there's a well developed infrastructure to build on.
The government wouldn't be snooping on anything because they'd just be the Certificate Authority who would be verifying your identity as happens when you visit any SSL website.
It would open up many possible applications where you really need to make sure you know who the end-user is.
However my faith in the government getting it right are minimal and they are a bit fiddly to use so in the hands of an inexperienced web user they would probably either be not used or insecurely used.
A roll can easily last a few weeks without female presence. With a female in the house a roll lasts a couple of days, max (don't ask me where it goes, I don't know). I have no direct experience but I assume the effect scales with multiple females.
No sig today...
Id cards are only for totalitarian states.
I seem to remember that Nazi Germany liked such things.
The essence of Britishness, is the right not to have to carry papers. It is unpatriotic to participate in such a fascist scheme.
Attaching difficult-to-spoof biometric requirements to such a card seems the next obvious step. It's hard to imagine a cool futuristic world as painted by books and movies when you realize most of the real "future-y" innovations of those settings would be stamped out by the public due to privacy concerns and such.
Ok, you are so ignorant I doubt your ability to grasp the essentials but I will give it a go:
1) A crime is just something banned by legislation which incurs a penalty when it is breached. Got that? Anything can be made a crime. It is the whim of government. Being gay was a crime not so long ago. In Nazi Germany being Jewish developed into a crime. Helping the police solve crimes isn't always a good thing.
2) Technology (and that includes ID cards, databases, facial recognition, vehicle tracking CCTV, Internet transaction monitoring, the ability to monitor or block cell phone traffic etc.) vastly simplifies the work of monitoring and controlling the population. Sure the police's work is made easier, but if you remove the need to deploy large numbers of police in order to control large numbers of the population, you make it feasible for the very few to control the very many. Now see point 3
3) Nobody is a saint. That's why we have laws and rules. We have to watch each other or else someone will take advantage. The trouble here is that the technology is being made available to whoever is in power and the rest of us have no means to check what they are up to. We just have to accept their word. Maybe they believe in free speech but maybe they don't. If they do, then maybe the next government will not. If the technology were never put there in the first place there would be nothing to worry about.
4) The ID cards you refer to which have existed for many years are the low tech version. It isn't so easy to control the population using that technology. It is only recently that the ability to tie people to transactions and movement became possible. There is a sea change in the ability of those in power to monitor and control.
5) There is also a move to force the population to pay for everything through electronic means. Those means could have been designed to be anonymous but they were not. They identify you. Each transaction is associated with a person. In the very near future, nothing you will do will go unnoticed. You will not be able to speak to anyone or travel to see them without the authorities knowing about it. Your network will be documented before you even knew you belonged to one.
6) Milch cows don't mind being milked. They see the fence around their field as a natural limitation on their world, and going to the milking parlour at milking time is a normal part of their daily routine. They are happy with the RFID tags on their ears and can't see what all the fuss is about. They line up meekly at the slaughterhouse and enjoy the day out - except maybe the last bit, by which time it is too late.
I have no doubt you still don't see the problem.
Welcome to "advanced, free and democratic" Europe. For those not-bothering-to-be-bothered-anybody there are, of course, plenty of EU edutainment materials and bedtime stories.
The libertoons whinging about ID cards have no idea what they're talking about.
This lot fail to see that most non-Anglo countries have mandatory cards, and it doesn't bother anybody. The idea that an ID card and a record in a database somewhere means getting analprobed constantly by police officers in ski masks is riscible.
Big countries just as advanced, free and democratic as the English-speaking world (perhaps more so), like France and Spain have got them. Why not make life easier for government agencies trying to enforce the law, prevent fraud, and prevent illegal immigration?
It's not the card per se that's the problem, it's the giant database (the NIR) that's going with it that people object too. None of those other countries you mention have anything like the National Identity Register.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Wow, linked from TFA http://www.silicon.com/management/public-sector/2005/10/31/id-card-costs-could-hit-30bn-39153819/ 30bn sterling ($45bn!) is a lot of money. What could be so extremely expensive? They mention integration [with other systems] costs, but it seems like they could build the whole system from ground up with that kind of cash, make it current and secure. Even Apple could build a huge datacenter for $1bn...
Which is exactly why the next government will scrap it.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Two problems. Firstly, define, and prove, "difficult-to-spoof" for all time. People have already shown the ability to spoof fingerprints. And all you have to do is to clone the identity of one card onto the biometrics of another, and you have a card that describes the criminal but accesses the victims data.
Secondly, much access to the data is not with the card but without. If people have access to one part of the data it is all to easy to access other parts. So the clerk who can legitimately check, say, that I have paid my property taxes may all to easily be able to access my medical appointments - including the one with a specialist in embarrassing diseases.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
> I expected more from you, Slashdot!
You are condemned to eternal disappointment. No matter how thickly you lay on the sarcasm there will be at least one Slashdotter who will miss it (and let's not discuss irony at all).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I bet the terrorists that used fake British passes would have had no problems getting a hold of these ID cards.
Then they are not only using your name, they BECOME you!
Then try to prove you did not do something.
I used the term "next step" because I'm convinced it doesn't exist yet. After all, we're talking about "any such card," not particularly this UK ID card.
I was more commenting on what you said than trying to argue with you.
Kick in the teeth was the expression that orwell used to define that dystopia, "the government being a permanent kick in the teeth to the people". And that is as mediocre performers as the governors can be with their fairy tales of omnipotente dragons that stand in the way of freedom.
We already have standard forms of ID (in the UK, the passport). That's not an argument for making the passport/ID card much more expensive, and tying it to a national database, or introducing laws criminalising people who fail to notify about change of details, or lost/damaged cards, and so on.
It's also not an argument for making the ID compulsory.
It's worth noting that the cost is really more like £60, as the published figures don't include the "processing fees", i.e., paying £30 to private companies for the privilege of being fingerprinted etc. From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8036536.stm , "The cost of the cards will be capped at £30 for the two years but once retailers are brought in to collect the data stores will be able to charge for processing it, with the total cost to applicants expected to be £60 per card."
For reference, it was only a few years ago that a passport cost £33 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_passport#Fees ) (although there are processing fees, these are only a few pounds, less than £5 when I got mine). Most of the increases since then are due to them converting it into the ID card. The combined ID/passport will be at least £93 - but with the processing fees, expect it to be more like at least £123.
Insanity.
State issued electronic ID Cards, ubiquitous surveillance, bans on freedom of expression, loss of property rights...
Insanity.
Apart from all (clearly voiced) civil liberties objections, the thing that strikes me about this is that UK government is now clearly married to big business and divorced from the citizen.
We see the rest of this in the feeble oversight of banking, the continuation of what (the watchdog has called) complex monopolies in the retail sector and the privatisation (with abnormal levels of profit) of utilities such as water. We no longer have new parks, instead we have 'leisure/retail' destinations.
At least it's clear now and we can go our own too, whilst there's still a small window of opportunity.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Yeah it does doesn't it? However this is Gordon Brown's bunch of incompetent fuck-wits, at least until the next election when they will be replaced by David Cameron's bunch of incompetent fuck-wits! UK Government IT is all based on back-handers and directors taking cuts for projects that are almost always delayed and almost always nothing like what they were supposed to achieve. I wouldn't trust the Gov's IT mob to run a 1 table with 1 row Access database, they'd fuck it up or leave it on a USB on a train somewhere!
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
Wouldn't it be easy if you had one card for ID, public transport, payments, building access, getting your treatment, etc?
If you are willing to give up essential liberties for mere convenience, you don't deserve those liberties. Go ahead and apply for the card. Just don't complain when your life gets turned upside down when something goes wrong.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
How is pointing out that not only is the iPhone can not only combine all of these, but that it is also capable of doing so in a way which is actually secure (unlike these Identi-ease cards which are being proposed), "troll"?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
You can't just go from card to super-card, it should have been to better-card then maybe even-better-card and only then to super-card. Otherwise you soon get to ultra-card and you're stuck because sensible people wont want to carry anything with the words super-duper-ultra-mega-great card emblazoned on it.
Nullius in verba
1st gen card are a bit of a kick in the teeth for the people of the UK, who are having their tax money wasted on a Government ID card scheme that can't do any of the things stated as goals of the project.
OH mAI GAwd!?
OH noes.
ID cards and most of policing procedures are inherited from the Fascist dictatorshi[p of Franco and heavily influenced by the need to fight separatist terrorists (and given how many people have died in Spain in 40 years we can see what heck of a job ID cards do to protect the population against terrorist attacks).
The Spanish population is too busy worrying about other things but sooner or later they will get rid of such abomination (as they have done with most of the Fascist infrastructures of government).
The problem they face is that every time a relic of Franco's dictatoship is touched a sizealbe minority protests against all logic and better judgement. But this will stop when the generation that was brainwashed to eulogize the dictator passes away.
You really chose a bad example (this is the country that legalized gay marriage, got out of Iraq, and kicked out a President of Government, allied to Bush, what a surprise, for lying during the Madrid terrorist sttacks.
Sooner or later the ID cards will have their last day under the sun there, young people hate them with a passion, because, again, surprise, surprise, they are often used as a means of control.
The problem is, the people of the UK support their ass-backwards freedom-hating government.
FTFY
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"