ID Cards in the UK

Great Debates
1

It seems that ID cards are to be introduced in the Autumn and the first place they’ll be available is in my fair city of Manchester.

The initial cost will be around £30 and while I’m not against the idea of ID cards I am against UK citizens having to fork out £30 for them.

In any event I don’t think they will be much use.

Think about it.

It’s fairly easy to obtain a false passport, so I am lead to believe, and a passport is one of the requirments needed before you can apply for an ID card. So what we have is a person holding a false passport applying, the staff receiving the application not doing a thorough check and bingo an ID card is issued, which to all intents and purposes will be a false one.

2

We already have ID cards anyway: they’re called Passports.

3

Passports don’t carry everything there is to know about you.

4

I don’t have a passport or a driving license, so how can I gain an ID card if I don’t have any prove of my identity?

5

I don’t mind having a card with my details on if I want to access government services… so NI number, passport number, driving licence no. and NHS number.

But I’m buggered if I’m going to carry one on me every day. As soon as a policeman can stop me in the street at any time and “ask me for my papers, citizen” that’s the day I would seriously consider a spot of civil disobedience.

6

Reading the Manchester Evening News tonight, it’s actually £60 in total. But, if it’s not even compulsory to purchase one, what is the point, other than to put some extra money into government coffers?

I think the only way they’d get people to accept ID cards over here is if having one entitled you to free Big Macs, or something.

7

On the plus side, you’ll be able to super secure government ID in Snappy Snaps. I’m sure it’s staffed with professionally trained employees, well versed in how to securely imprint all your highly sensitive personal data onto a biometric chip.

8

Will the id cards have an RFID chip in em that can be read by gizmos that you can emplace with the ccd cams.

Second, how come these were not issued by the home office , instead of some city ? or did I read something wrong.

Declan

9

They’ll no doubt be making them ‘voluntary’, so you’re free to avoid them, just as long as you don’t mind going to the back of the queue when you need to apply for benefits.

They’ve also sneaked them in under the guise of a new form of airport ID cards…airport security was, undeniably, a difficult area in which to maintain the necessary security, with a high turnover of labour in areas such as catering. It was an easy target for tabloid ‘scandals’ to be engineered with little effort. The new ID card does nothing to improve this, but has been an easy way for them to trial the database on a few thousand people. Manchester Airport was part of this trial…

10

Well then I guess you are a non-person, you don’t exist;)

11

I wouldn’t mind paying for a government Identity Card for airports etc, providing the law states that the person asking for it must have a large personal number clearly visible on the chest. This might subdue the latent security staff bullies who have emerged since 9/11. They have certainly scared my family away from airports. I’m not keen on paying huge air fares to be intimidated and humiliated.

12

I think that most of us are already carrying photo id cards one way or another,govt. employees,construction workers,armed services,emergency services,people who have to visit private houses(utility services) and most of all everyone who has a driving licence.

I dont think that I.D. cards will become obligatory as they will be overtaken by Bio metrics in the very near future but in the meantime anything that cuts down underage drinking is o.k. with me.

13

Anyone know what the biometrics are based on? Digitised fingerprints or Minority Report style eyeball scans? What is the point of the card if they don’t check it against your actually biological identity? Any ID card is going to be worthless (or worse) if it can’t uniquely identify a single person.

Seems to me if you have a decent biometric method for IDing people there’s no point in having a card at all. You just have your eyeball scanners and a database, what is the card for?

Since my passport has expired and my driving licence has no photo I guess I’m due to become another non-person.

Off to do some Googling…

14

You can still apply for a passport by mail, negating the face to face. Likewise there are officials at the Passort Office who are bought and paid for, who can acquire fresh blanks.

Forget ‘Day of the Jackal’ scouting cemeteries for people who dies as infants.

There are easier ways to get an authentic passport.

That said, I am opposed to ID Cards as outlined, owing to the breadth of data that will be held on them, coupled with the bull headedness of the refusal to acknowledge they can be cloned.