Identity Cards

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Identity Cards

Postby Apollo » Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:38 am

One of my favourite hate subjects. I usually get called paranoid when I launch out against them, but at last it looks as if someone with a bit more clout is willing sound the alarm bell about this (costly) nonsense.

ID card database to hold sensitive personal data despite Government claims
http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?pag ... &area=news
The Government in its public consultation documents has stated that the central database which supports the UK's national ID card scheme will not include any sensitive personal data. But analysis by privacy experts suggests otherwise.
22/09/2004

I don't care who's forming the Government, but I value the ability to be able to walk out of my home with my pockets absolutely empty, and know that no official can stop me just for the hell of it, and cart me off to a jail cell if I don't have my 'documentation'. I don't even have that worry if I'm driving, and don't need my licence etc. with me at the time if I am stopped.

I do happen to think my parents etc. risked their lives to avoid this sort of thing, and will no doubt find myself taking pleasure in frustrating any system that is introduced.

I don't mind having a universal information card made available to me, but having seen some of the inside info leaked about the structure of the National ID database, Health Service database etc. it would seem that the disarray in aligning these and avoiding data duplication, together with an apparent lack of integration, suggests there are better skills within the member of this forum than the 'experts' the Government is employing.
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Postby duncan » Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:23 pm

it's scary. if you read the minutes of the Commons select committee meeting, where the gov.uk 'experts' in charge of this project couldn't give any kind of figure on how much it's going to cost. somewhere between £2 Billion and £4 Billion. Give or take a billion either way. Take into account the failure of almost every large UK gov IT project, and typically colossal overspend, this doesn't bode well.

http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/000414.html
http://www.no2id.net/
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Postby Apollo » Fri Sep 24, 2004 4:32 pm

Thanks for the links, I'll be passing them around.

Scary's an understatement. The money's bad enough, but coupled with the overrun and failure of most Government IT projects, downright alarming is probably closer.

I happen to think having a pocket full of assorted plastic is a good thing. Lose one for whatever reason, and you lose precicely that - one. It may be convenient to have them all rolled into one, but what about the consequences of it going astray?

The other aspect that worries me is the blind (oh dear, a play on words?) faith the Government seems to have in the security of the things. As far a I know, every secure electronic system has been compromised in some way, either deliberately, by error, or by ignorance. Agreed it (usually) need dedicated and specialist expertise to achieve this, but do they really believe that possession of that intellect means the holder will not be a terrorist sympathiser, or criminal out to make a buck by cloning me. And look at the reward, they now only have one card to crack, not a pocketful.

Find me a nice wee island, preferably off the west coast, warmed by the Gulf stream.
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Postby turbozutek » Fri Sep 24, 2004 5:10 pm

I can't grasp the idoitic ignorance from members of the forum here.

The ID cards as proposed are a GREAT idea.. Think of the advantages:

uhhmmmmm...

right...

well, firstly there's the increased.. oh.. no that's not one.

AH! But it will keep us safe from the... no... not that either..

Ok.. There are no advantages but I'll say this:

TERRORISM! ?? WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN ???

/Runs

::):

Chris...
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Postby Pgcc93 » Fri Sep 24, 2004 10:52 pm

:idea: Seeing as we live in a democracy!! I'll be ticking No Thanks in the options box.
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Postby Apollo » Sat Sep 25, 2004 12:16 am

Pgcc93 wrote::idea: Seeing as we live in a democracy!! I'll be ticking No Thanks in the options box.

I seem to recall a tale of one Admiral Nelson, blind in one eye, holding his telescope to his eye (yes, which one?) and uttering something along the lines of "Ships, I see no ships".

I have suddenly become clairevoyant, and can see a news conference in the future. David Blunkett is addresing the audience and, with a perfectly straight face, is annnouncing that he saw no significant opposition to the introduction of the compulsory identification card scheme.
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Postby duncan » Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:43 pm

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Postby caine » Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:54 am

do you honestly think that the government dont already hold "sensitive" information on you in a number of other forms other than being collated on an ID card?

if my colleagues have a genuine need for the information, they can obtain just about everything about you within the hour, and to be honest, it would be stupid to have any of this information accessible via the card anyway, as the system will not be safe enough to keep it private if the cards are able to access any informatuion on you, the same way that bank cards are highly unsafe as well. a laptop running a certain software package can obtain all the info you need to trace some one and steal money from their account with out any problems at all. but good luck getting your hands on it cos its not as readily available as terminator 2 makes out. :wink:

if you've got nothing to hide i dont see what the problem is apart from the ridiculous cost of setting it up and the security issues it throws up.
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Postby scotia47 » Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:40 pm

caine wrote:if you've got nothing to hide i dont see what the problem is


I knew someone would wheel out that lazy cop-out of an argument eventually:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/forums/index ... topic=4561

It mainly focuses on privacy issues in the US, however I feel the points mentioned would apply anywhere. For example:

"If anyone says 'I have nothing to hide' than I reply with "OK, do you mind leaving your front door open, walk away for a few hours whilst I have a good nose round, looking at your finances, your pay-slips, under your mattress, and your wife's knicker-drawer? Cheers!""
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Postby AMcD » Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:58 pm

scotia47 wrote:"If anyone says 'I have nothing to hide' than I reply with "OK, do you mind leaving your front door open, walk away for a few hours whilst I have a good nose round, looking at your finances, your pay-slips, under your mattress, and your wife's knicker-drawer? Cheers!""


Why would an ID card afford access to any of these items?

I don't see how an ID is vastly different to a National Insurance Number, other than not so easy to forge. Just my opinion.
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Postby turbozutek » Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:26 pm

amcd wrote:
scotia47 wrote:"If anyone says 'I have nothing to hide' than I reply with "OK, do you mind leaving your front door open, walk away for a few hours whilst I have a good nose round, looking at your finances, your pay-slips, under your mattress, and your wife's knicker-drawer? Cheers!""


Why would an ID card afford access to any of these items?

I don't see how an ID is vastly different to a National Insurance Number, other than not so easy to forge. Just my opinion.


It's different because they intend to place BIOMETRIC information about you on it. Yes, on that one card is enough data to clone you.

For the first time ever the government will have fingerprints for every living person in the UK. And if we look at the GREAT job that government departments do with fingerprint matching (Take the police officer in Killie who was convicted for murder wrongly purely on the strength of fingerprints) and the general crappy job they do with secure databases and it's a nightmare.

Not even 1984 quite banked on that.

Scary - and entierly pointless as it won't stop anything let alone terrorism.

Chris...
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Postby Apollo » Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:35 pm

amcd wrote:
scotia47 wrote:I don't see how an ID is vastly different to a National Insurance Number, other than not so easy to forge. Just my opinion.

!!!!

That either means Big Blunkett is incompetent, and should therefore go immediately, or we are are most definitely being conned, since we don't need compulsory ID cards.

Posts here, and discussions elsewhere, are revealing in that they show BB is succeeding in throwing up a smokescreen aimed at lulling the 'don't cares' and 'if you've nothing to hide' camps into a state of complacency. The UK is already being classed as the country with the most surveillance. So you really want to be compared to East Germany and the Stasi?

Personally, public surveillance etc, tapping, monitoring etc. I can live with. Anyone smart enough to get covert info about me is welcome, provided I can do the same and more to them. ID cards bring about a more unsavoury society as they bring with them compulsion and penalty for not electing to share or make available that information to someone in authority who believes we should.
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Postby turbozutek » Tue Sep 28, 2004 7:50 pm

Apollo wrote:
amcd wrote:
scotia47 wrote:I don't see how an ID is vastly different to a National Insurance Number, other than not so easy to forge. Just my opinion.

!!!!

Personally, public surveillance etc, tapping, monitoring etc. I can live with. Anyone smart enough to get covert info about me is welcome, provided I can do the same and more to them. ID cards bring about a more unsavoury society as they bring with them compulsion and penalty for not electing to share or make available that information to someone in authority who believes we should.


Exactly! If someone wants my information, they have to WORK for it, and prove to a judge they NEED it and why they need it.

Just now, in Scotland you can call yourself whatever you like with no fear of criminal charge (As long as it's not for fraud or illegal purposes) no deed-poll needed. Also, you are NOT obligated to inform, confirm or even talk to a police officer regarding your identity - for whatever reason.

A lot of people died to ensure that freedom remains throughout history, I think it would be a travesty to let an Idiot politician remove these freedoms in the name of Terrorism*

God if a Thatcher government didn't even pull that trick in the middle of the IRA terrorism crisis, why should a 'Socialist' government pull it when the US is getting a share ??

Chris...

*Please!! Won't someone think of the children!!!
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Postby Apollo » Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:08 pm

Turbo, that prompted thoughts of a word chain:

Labour -> socialist -> communist -> Russian -> eastern (bloc) -> East Germany -> Stasi -> UK

Surprisingly not my opinion though (given my earlier post), have a look at: UK 'sleepwalking into a Stasi state':

http://www.indymedia.org.uk./en/2004/08/296395.html
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Postby nodrog » Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:40 am

I'm in the ID cards are pointless and nasty category, so when they were looking for volunteers for the trial biometric card scheme a couple of months back, I went along and got one.

I reckoned that if the only folk that took part in the trial were those who liked the idea, the results would be very skewed in favour and they'd be able to say "Look - everyone thinks its a great idea!"

I think having the ability to prove your identity is a useful thing. However, being forced to do so is quite different. The other big issue I have with it is if its just about proving your identity, the big scary Big Brother central database is entirely unneccessary - if the info stored on the card matches you, then you are who the card says you are. Checking that against an expensive, insecure enormous central database of Everyone In The Country is pointless - apart from gathering data about us for use elsewhere.

Anyway, the trial was quite interesting. At no point was I asked to prove my identity! - I could have walked away with a card saying Mickey Mouse if I'd wanted one. When I pointed this out I was told 'things will be different when we do it for real'.
They fingerprinted me electronically, scanned my irises and took a biometric photo of my face. They also recorded my signature, then printed me out a wee card with a chip in it, which I got to keep.

I then filled in a questionnaire about the experience - the questions were all about my experience of the trial, about how easy the experience of beign fingerprinted etc was - nothing at all about wider concerns of the scheme or idea in general. So when they come on TV and use the results from the trial to claim everyone thinks its a good idea, they're fibbing, trust me!

Gordon
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