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."
A government that actually gives up some power over people. I am speechless.
You can't handle the truth.
http://www.ips.gov.uk/cps/rde/xchg/ips_live/hs.xsl/1691.htm Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: "The wasteful, bureaucratic and intrusive ID card scheme represents everything that has been wrong with government in recent years." Boom! heady stuff in the UK, leading the free world. I still think that the Netherlands 'right to anonymity' is the way things should be heading http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=%201447332
Waiting for the other shoe to...
What made me laugh was the report that David Blunkett (the Labour Home Secretary that gave birth to the scheme) wants to sue the Government for the thirty quid that the card cost him: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/i-might-sue-over-scrapped-id-card-says-blunkett-1985447.html Oh, and it's worth remembering that the Tories wanted to introduce an ID card system (sans database) back in the 90's.
Who would've predicted 20 years ago that a Conservative government is now more liberal than a labour one. What did labour bring the UK in respect to civil liberties?
- Huge amounts of CCTV - one estimate claims the it's the highest in the world
- Useless passports that don't work in most airports
- An illegal war or two
- Sponging off the state is more attractive than working
I voted labour in 1997 and was fairly anti-conservative back then. Since that time something happened to the party (Tony Blair) that has completely transformed them in my view.
I Finland everyone has a national identification number. Censuses haven't been done in my lifetime, no need. A drivers license, passport, social security card or ID card identifies the citizens with this number. I'm not sure if there's a law that says you have to posess one of the above, it's just something everyone has anyway.
Still there haven't been any major issues. Is this because the Finnish government is simply less corrupt that many others? I don't have a problem with having a number assigned to me. In fact that number ensures I can use all the services my taxes pay for, like working health care.
So am I living in some socialist police state, or is it just a matter of what kind of government implements this kind of a scheme?
.: Max Romantschuk
You post a story about the new British regime.
For those unaware, Britain has had a new coalition government for the past 3 weeks, and it's been active in stating it's goals of rolling back many of the civil liberties infringements in the UK that came about under Labour.
There have been countless stories on Firehose, but positive stories about a final change of state of British politics that has massive meaningful benefits for improving the state of civil liberties here in the UK are apparently not newsworthy, it's better to stick to negative stories about how the world is going to end. Apparently.
It's a shame because Slashdot could use some positive news on the civil liberties front, and there has been a lot from the UK this last few weeks. To sum most of them up, the stated intentions of the new coalition government are:
- The removal of the DNA database
- The removal of the national identity register
- Cancelling the go ahead of enhanced biometric passports
- Cancellation of the contact point database
- Removal of restrictions on right to peaceful protest
- Stronger restrictions on the use of CCTV cameras
- Ban fingerprinting of children in school without parental permission
- Increase the scope of the freedom of information act
- Remove innocent people from the DNA database
- Restore trial by jury as a right in all criminal cases
- Review and hopefully rework libel laws to prevent stifling of freedom of speech
- Introduce more legislation to prevent abuse of anti-terror laws
- Ban interception and storage of e-mail and other digital communications without good reason (i.e. a specific warrant)
Now, you wouldn't realise any of this if you simply read Slashdot of course, but there you go. Hopefully the UK is seeing a bit of a turnaround now that totalitarian Labour have been kicked out, and for the first time in about a hundred years, the Liberals are part of government again.
It's not all perfect of course, no one can like everything their government does. The new coalition has also said that they will allow citizens to put forward bills for repeal, whether the digital economy act can be included is yet to be seen, but right now, the things there are cold hard plans for are extremely promising and look set to get the go ahead.
It's just a shame Slashdot didn't post the full list of changes when Nick Clegg the new deputy PM did a speech on restoring civil liberties in the UK last week when there were like 20 firehose submissions on it, but oh well, I suppose we should be glad now that at least the fact a tiny miniscule portion of the goings on over here has been posted, albeit a week late.