Slashdot Mirror
UK Home Office Set To Scrap National ID Cards
mjwx writes "In what would seem to be a sudden outbreak of common sense for the UK, the Home Office has put forward a plan to scrap the national ID card system put into place by the previous government. From the BBC: 'The Home Office is to reveal later how it will abolish the national identity card programme for UK citizens. The bill, a Queen's Speech pledge, includes scrapping the National Identity Register and the next generation of biometric passports.' The national ID card system, meant to tackle fraud and illegal immigration, has drawn widespread criticism for infringing on privacy and civil rights. However, the main driver for the change in this policy seems to be the 800-million-pound cost. Also in the article, indications of a larger bill aimed at reforms to the DNA database, tighter regulation of CCTV, and a review of libel laws."
To travel to Europe you need to fork out the full fee for a "real passport" rather than the cut-price national-ID card -- most other Europeans can just make do with a national ID card. Or wait -- that might be because Britain is one of the few countries that still does border controls for travel within Europe. Travel north-south from Germany to Holland to Belgium to France to Spain to Portugal and the only thing you notice is the language on the road signs changing, the borders are notionally still there but no checks are done. Im not sure the current system really is that much better.
Scrapping the plan was never really about the cards; most people weren't really bothered about the card itself, it was the vast amount of data that was to be linked to the card via the National Identity Register that was cause for concern - especially as the previous government had a truly shocking record on both data security and large-scale IT projects.
Everyone get out there and vote YES for AV in the referendum to make this kind of thing more likely in the long-term. Then if we get a referendum on STV, vote YES to it to make it almost certain.
== Jez ==
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800-Million is a shedload for a scheme that no one wanted except a few people that bought what ever the excuse was that week. I MEAN WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY MEANT TO BE FOR? First to fight terrorism...they couldn't figure out how they would help as the july seven attackers would have had valid ones anyway, then to combat benefit fraud....then they figured that benefit ID fraud costs less than the scheme would, then it was to help against ID theft online.....they didn't stick with that one for long as even they couldn't come up with how it could possibly work , then it was easier travel in Europe..... but they never told the travel companies and none of them accepted them, then they were to stop illegal immigration....then they realised the kind of people that employ illegal immigrants is not likely to check for ID, the last reason I saw was as an easy way for people to prove their age to buy drinks....then they realised that perhaps promoting them as a card that lets young people get legless might clash with the how cracking down on yob culture thing. The only reason I could see for anyone to want them is to allow them to monitor the population and generally allow the government stick their nose into other peoples business. Not a reason I too keen on.
When Augusto Pinochet came to power, one of the first things he did was to round up the offices of the Socialist party and get their membership records.
With that list they just went, knocked to the doors of their political oponents, and dealt with them with the brutality characteristic of right wing extremists (when Pinochet died Chilean youngsters saluted the departed leader with Neo Nazi salutes, how ironic that Maggie Thatcher was such a good friend of this bastard).
Europeans, having experienced totalitarian regimes in the last 100 years ( Stalinists in most of Eastern Europe, Fascists in Central and Mediterranean Europe, Ultra Nationalists in the Balkans) one would have thought would be the most reacious people in the world to any form of such political control (which is what it is: no ID, no services. Neat.)
With all its faults, the UK, one of the few countries that escaped totalitarian regimes in recent history, has a sizeable amount of the population with whom this kind of policy seats uncomfortably, even if that means a bit less conveneince during dealing with official business of any kind.
It was only the prominence of Labour (many of its ministers former Left Wing nutcases, i.e. proponents of an overpowering overview of the state of everything) what permitted the idea of ID cards being a good idea. One or two of them actually became closely associated with companies with interest in promoting ID cards after they left office in disgrace.
There is no reason you should not have a number to access your services, the problem is it being unique and the government, not you, having control about who can access the personal information associated to it.
For all the problems of Blair and Brown, I think a lot of the lasting damage done by the Labour administration was caused by a succession of bad Home Secretaries, each more authoritarian, more fear-mongering, and less connected with real life than the last, whose distorted world views could direct affect everyone. Smith followed Straw, Blunkett, Clarke, and Reid, remember.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.