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UK 'Virtual ID Card' Scheme Set For Launch
First time accepted submitter evrybodygonsurfin writes "The UK Government will announce details this month of a controversial national identity scheme which will allow people to use their mobile phones and social media profiles as official identification documents for accessing public services. People wishing to apply for services ranging from tax credits to fishing licences and passports will be asked to choose from a list of familiar online log-ins, including those they already use on social media sites, banks, and large retailers such as supermarkets, to prove their identity." I can't wait until carrying a telephone is mandatory. In the U.S. at least, how else will the government send you important messages?
Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't this make identity theft easier in some cases?
i can't wait until facebook is attached to birth certificates.
Well, right now a mailing address (aka "a residence") is a de facto standard way of reaching you for government communications, so is a place to live also an unfunded mandate??
Right? As long as everyone uses their real name on Facebook, this kind of system totally makes sense. As for me, I think I'll go to England, call myself Patrick Stuart, and apply for a passport. Hep hep, righto and such.
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Yes it is. And it makes life for the homeless even more difficult. One of the great services some nonprofits provide is mailing addresses for the homeless.
It is unwise to ascribe motive
All Citizens will be able to receive Government Messages through built in channels in the TV's and through computer monitors. In addition, you will be able to pick up your phone address the government by saying "Hello Government" and a Government Watcher will answer back using your phone's microphone and camera. In case of an emergency, all you have to do is yell "help government" or "911 government" and someone will be available to help. After all, your government is Watching out for your safety and benefit. In addition, to make the interface with the Government less error prone, the Government is build a special vocabulary that the phones, computers and TV's will understand. It will be taught in schools, community colleges and online. Just search for "newspeak".
How many of you believe that the government will keep no records? I think they will keep records or have access to them, in order to fulfill the function.
Can you say Target for keyloggers, viruses, etc. Imagine what you could do with that information. Even if the information is sent via a third party site like social networks or whatever the universe of possible login information is limited.
True story: I got on the train on my commute on the way home the other week as normal and this homeless guy got on and was pestering people, saying hello, being all friendly, then asking for money. I think he genuinely was homeless because he smelt homeless, though of course that's by no means a scientific measure of homelessness I'm sure.
Anyway, he paid his train fair no problem, got off the train and... pulled an iPhone out of his pocket and answered it. Granted it was only an iPhone 4, but here in the UK, it seems even the homeless have cellphones now.
Having a mobile phone is quite common amongst the homeless. They're very cheap and extremely useful. They usually have access to somewhere they can charge them.
No idea how he had an iPhone though.
Sometimes I enjoy thinking of what I would do if I were at the head of a country to improve society, and providing a service that allows a person to prove their identity to another party over the Internet is one of those.
In real life, you can choose to show your ID card to someone to prove who you are, but there is no way to do something like this over the Internet, which might be useful to prove your age or nationality and access certain services.
Likewise, you could use a mechanism to prove you are who you claim to be when you send a message to someone (digital signing). Solutions exist, but you always need to rely on a reference authority; it being the state is the most official authority there is.
It seems however that in this case the execution is extremely poor, the possibilities limited, and security a problem. In particular, there is no need to put trust in private parties, it should be handled by the state. OpenID and similar technologies can already do the right thing without problems.
I suppose that is my point: few criticize having a mailing address as burdensome in order to receive government services or communication, so "most" don't consider it a problem. With more and more people having mobile phone and smart phones, "a lot" to "many" don't consider it a burden and this will only increase over time to where, likely, the majority would not consider it odd or burdensome to have to have a telephone as a required/needed method of accessing a service.
He wasn't homeless, that was RMS, and he forgot his lunch money.
Seriously, though, some people are just stinking slobs. I had a neighbor I was sure was a homeless bum, until I found out he was my neighbor and had a decent job in construction (I journaled about hime a few years ago). I really doubt anybody with an iPhone is homeless, a homeless man would sell teh phone for food or (more likely) drugs.
BTW, your spell checker failed you -- it's "fare," not "fair" although some fares are fair and some fares are unfair. The busses going to the Illinois state fair's fare is unfair.
Free Martian Whores!
In fact as a former regional co-ordinator of NO2ID, I can point out that NO2ID were consulted and have approved this scheme.
We accept that there is a demand by the public to be able to easily authenticate/identify themselves for the purposes of govt services, many of which can be delivered online. Success of this scheme will deny Big Brother govts the opportunity to masquerade a future surveillance scheme as a benefit to the public.
Secondly, the scheme complies with the Nine Principles of Data Privacy: http://www.amberhawk.com/uploads/LSE_surv_2.pdf
As Britain was the first Western country to be subject to a Big Brother attempt, we have a lot of expertise to share. This historical document will hopefully form the basis of future constitutional protection around the world.
Notably, all data is held by a trusted third party. No govt can access that data without your third party disclosing it.
Compare this with forced interviews, forced fingerprinting, forced iris scanning, forced enrollment on a govt database (National Identity Register) designed to bring together your medical records, ANPR records, bank/phone/internet records, DNA and police records together into one automatic personal dossier on every person in the country. This was Labour's totalitarian scheme.
Whilst the Coalition's Communications Bill is more of the same, this third-party identification/authentication scheme is to be lauded and copied around the world.
You don't understand it. You give your data to a third party of your choice. The govt has no access to it.