http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3654621.stm
Quote from the article:
What the FUCK is the UK coming to? We need ID cards to prove that we’re not a risk? What the hell? Since when did I have to prove I wasn’t a risk? Shouldn’t the police and government have to prove I’m a risk, not the other way around?
Everything Blunkett touches fucks up. I can’t believe that ID cards are getting any credence.
From the linked article:
:eek:
No no, you’re looking at it all wrong - obviously someone with a small card can’t also carry a boxcutter on to a plane - that would be madness I tell you, madness!
In all seriousness, however, the most distressing thing I find about the cards is that 80% of the public has absolutely no problem with them - I’ve long since stopped being surprised by anything that tit Blunkett proposes. The most compelling argument that these things would be a valuable tool against terrorism is “they couldn’t have multiple identities”, as best I can tell. Well whoop-de-fucking-doo. No evidence that any terrorists actually have been doing this, no examples in the real world where an identity card would have magically made terrorism trivially detectable, and oh! Look! Spain had identity cards and just look how beautifully they protected Madrid. Maybe we should spend our £3bn-no-honest-this-won’t-go-up on actual policing rather than pursuing shitty technological white elephants. No obligation to carry them, of course, just a deadline to present yourself + card at the local bobby shop within the next few days. How could this be an imposition, after all? Never mind that your local bobby shop is not in any way local these days - that money’s being spent on useful things, like SchlumbergerSemaSalaries and QinetiQrap. You want to prove you’re innocent, right? I mean, you’ve got nothing to hide…
Incidentally, ten quid says they choose face biometrics, verifiably the worst of the three options. No reason why we should institute a vast government IT project if we’re going to choose decent technology, after all.
I thought the ID Cards were just for those without passports or driving licenses. We have to carry ID at all times. Am i the only one starting to feel like a foreigner in my own country?
How can the UK be considered a free country if you aren’t allowed to leave the house without your papers? How can the ID cards possibly be effective without making them compulsory to carry? The only way they can be effective is by making the UK a police state and not allowing people to leave their homes without their papers.
Why on Earth don’t we have a decent libertarian party (or even a decent opposition) to shoot down crap like this? The final insult is we’ll have to pay a bomb for this crap, how can the proposed fee of £35 be justified?
The biggest danger of thse cards is the possibility that an individual will sharpen the edge of the card and use it as a weapon - the cards need to not be cards but rather simply paper, like money, with the individual’s piture in the center of the bill, err, ID.
The Lib Dems are doing everything they can to show how ridiculous Blunkett’s plans are.
Liberal Democrat press release, last Thursday:
…and last month:
…and Charles Kennedy in a speech last month:
http://www.libdems.org.uk/index.cfm/page.homepage/section.home/article.6579
http://www.libdems.org.uk/index.cfm/page.homepage/section.home/article.6430
http://www.libdems.org.uk/index.cfm/page.main/section.parliamentary/article.6453
Frankly, I don’t even like having my picture on my driving license. The only people I’ve seen who don’t have a picture, however, are people who were issued their license in the middle of nowhere in Alaska.
80% of the public haven’t the beginnings of a clue of how this card is the start of a very slippery slope. Too many idiots buying into “this will stop illegal immigration” and “only the guilty have anything to hide” arguments. And the technology companies are pushing the idea as if the cards will be a ‘fun’ item. “Look! Funny picture of me! And ooh! Shiny plastic!!!” It’ll be like having the latest mobile phone! Obviously they think the public are morons and they’re not far wrong.
These cards are being sold to us to address problems that they will not solve. But in the meantime you can wave goodbye to your civil liberties. You won’t own your rights as a citizen, your little card will. No card? No rights. Lost card? No rights. Stolen card? No rights. Forged card? Step right this way law abiding citizen!
Everyone should be aware that the days when you’ll be stopped, and then invited down to the police stations until you can produce your ID card are very close. Never mind innocent until proven guilty, this will be terrorist/criminal until proven citizen. Once it’s been stolen or forged Mr Criminal & Mr Terrorist have your identity, and they have the card to prove it! So who the hell are you??
That’s even before we consider the chances of the the Government getting this one of the ground. It’s been pointed out that the whole scheme already bears the common hallmarks of every great UK Government IT disasters. The technology is massive and unproven, no-one’s shown it can achieve its objectives, no-one’s sure what’s required of it to match the objectives that no-one is sure about, and no-one knows how they’re going to judge the success of it once it’s done. But the IT companies are already lining up approving vigourously and promising anything to get the enormous fat contracts and the Government plows on regardless.
I forcast millions if not billions down the drain. And the only biometrics Blunkett will get from me is by kissing my arse.
As an aside, what will tourists have to do in this case, show their passports? I have mine locked up in the safe of the hotel when I go abroad. My drivers license I might even leave at home since I don’t plan on driving in most countries. What would the police do to a person who was a former citizen of the U.K. and who came home to visit. His accent would still be British. What about expats, would they have to go home to the U.K. just to get an I.D. card, or would they have to get one at all? What about children, would they have to have one?
When you think of the IT infrastructure foul ups for projects far far smaller than this would entail, it will simply not work.
Wessex Health Authority was around £47 millions, some of the terminals never even left their packing.
There was a huge failure in linking various other Health Authorities, then the customs and excise failure, department of work and pensions failure, and the Child Support agency failure.
I can think of individual pay departments within governments that have also failed, these are just the tip of the iceberg, since many others have not performed as well as hoped but still work after a fashion.
The agency responsible will be rife with corruption, think of the Vehicle Licensing Agency and the number of corruption scandals there, and then multiply this deppartment by at least three times, and that is just the day to day administration, there is also the informations and set up phase which will make every UK IT project seem tiny in comparison.
Read about how we had lost up to £1.5 Billions to 2003.
Right now EDS is looking for a £4 billion contract for the Inland Revenue, all I can say is that EDS must have friends in high places because I have seen their foul ups close at hand at the Civil Service pay department at Bootle, and their utter ineptitude in the Prison Service Intranet where they cannot even keep ordinary telephones working, mine has been out for nine weeks*and it is considered to be in a very high risk environment{/i], it took three months for someone to reinstall the terminal in my office and they were on site most of that time installing the network, yet they could not communicate with their own headquarters to get someone to walk two hundred yards with a software disc to sort it out.
More EDS rubbish
So you can guaruntee that the estimated £3billions is a long way under the total it will end up, on past performance we will do well to get something working, flaws and all, for less than 3 times that figure.
The biggest barrier to the cards being in any way universal is the permanent right of residence of Irish citizens (IIRC somewhere over the 1m mark at the present), with an agreement between the two countries that no extra documentation will be needed in such cases. There’s been offhand suggestions by some Home Office spokespeople that the govt. plans to strongarm the Irish government into introducing a parallel ID system. :rolleyes:
As if Blair ever need to “strongarm” this Government to do anything.
the PD’s are wetting themselves at the possibility of introducing this.
Hasn’t it occurred to the powers that be that the evildoers will somehow find a way round this, with the majority of us being the ones inconveneinced?
Grrr!
Mmm. I feel it’s worth mentioning that we don’t have national ID cards in the US either, so I’m not sure how they were supposed to prevent the attacks in New York. I agree with the statement overall (I know, who cares what I think?), so it’s annoying that they set up a false strawman to argue their point.
Spain, however, does have idnetity cards.
Of course, Blunkett claims that they are just not as terribly clever as the ones he wants.
[quote[
Mr Blunkett said the cards would stop terrorists from using multiple identities, which would help prevent attacks.
“People said to me you couldn’t stop the World Trade Centre attacks, you couldn’t stop the Madrid bombing with ID cards,” he said.
‘End exploitation’
"The Spanish do [have an ID card]
“That’s what will be potentially possible and this will ensure that they can’t have multiple identities.”
Cards could also help combat so-called health tourism and benefit fraud, Mr Blunkett suggested.
…
[quote]
Foolproof. Right. :rolleyes:
Reading this thread I have to wonder - who the hell are these 80% who apparently want ID cards? I don’t think I’ve met one - do they really exist?
Regarding “foolproof biometrics”, if they do the sensible thing and select iris technology then technologically speaking he’s fairly close to the mark - iris recognition is highly accurate and allows extremely quick database checking. He is, of course, wide of the mark in that this technology relies on failsafe, unhackable, nationally available databases, completely secure data-entry points, unbribable operators etc. and so forth. If they choose face recognition then we know they’re mad, because it’s frankly rubbish at the moment; utterly unsuitable for all but the most small-scale verification purposes. Fingerprints have ups and downs - they are already widely collected, and fairly accurate technology exists for verification. On the downside they’re very easy to spoof with things like gelatine fingers and cause widespread unease among the public due to their connotations of criminality. There’s also the obvious crime-fighting benefit that people leave the things everywhere, but of course this is an entitlement card that sanctifies our status as citizens, right? Not an underhand way to make us all trackable, oh no.
I haven’t seen anyone post in favour of it yet, and I’m still waiting for those immortal words “ if you haven’t got anything to hide you shouldn’t be worried about carrying an ID card.
I’m going to try to be optimistic here and say once the public find out the extent of the proposals-after all it’s still early days yet- and find out all the implications, we will see an increasing amount of opposition to it. I hope my faith in the British public is going to be justified.
HOnesly I have never done t his before, but “Gelatine Fingers” = band name.
(I’m fuming about Blunkett’s mad notions, so I needed light releif, Ok? 
a