ID cards: what's actually going to happen?

[muriel_volestrangler]

I'm disappointed in the coverage in the UK press so far - I'm still not sure exactly what Blair is proposing. And until I know that, I'm not sure what to think of it. Can anyone help fill in the blanks, or correct me?

Biometrics: the possibilities are facial scan, iris scan, and fingerprints. All the news reports I've found just say 'or', which implies either the government hasn't yet decided which one to use (an important decision, wouldn't you think?) or we'll actually get the choice. When a BBC reporter volunteered for a card, he had all 3 taken - does this mean we'll have to have all 3 recorded, and the 'or' means those who are checking us get the choice of which to check?

Verification machines: these will be available to both public and private entities. So far this includes police stations, doctors' surgeries and benefit offices. I'm guessing 'private entities' will include banks (because I've seen bank accounts mentioned in the list of things this will stop fraud in). Cost: between £250 and £750 (imprecise possibly because it's not clear if these will be scanners of your biometrics, or just card readers that send enough encoded information to the central database). Number needed: 'at least 4000' (well, yes, I'd think that with 60 million people, and a largish doctor's surgery having 10,000 patients, there must be 6000 surgeries to cover, for a start).

Cost to the individual: the passport fee will double from £42 to £85; but most (all?) of this was forced on us by the Americans, who are insisting on biometrics encoded in passports. When 60% of people over 16 have them, they will become compulsory for everyone. A card without a passport will cost £35. At least, those are the prices if the whole country paid that amount. People on low incomes or the elderly may get discounts, which will increase the normal price. The Register says you get a card in Hong Kong for free, and it costs $20 for a replacement; they say the charges are to help pay for the central register.

Updating it: the card may last for 10 years, like a passport, or some other time. No one knows. You get fined £1000 if you don't keep your address up to date; but we don't know if there's a charge for updating your address. There's no information on whether a replacement card costs just as much as the original.

Access to the data: it seems that private groups (like banks) will be able to scan your card; in theory, I presume they don't get access to all the data on the register (like every time someone has accessed your record. I guess the police will get access to everything, but it's not clear if they need a reason for it, or can just do it for kicks. No one has said whether they can use the database for matching fingerprints taken from the scene of a crime - or for general surveillance of the public. I'm guessing that means they will be able to, but the government doesn't want to look like Big Brother, so they're trying to keep quiet about it.

So far, they've been adamant that you won't have to carry the thing with you. In practice, if enough groups demand to see your card in everyday life, it may become the normal thing to always have it with you anyway - in which case they could probably make it compulsory.

[Englander]

1. Assuming the bill is passed,nothing 'til 2008.....

And that's assuming a hell of a lot...

You're pretty much correct on the details,from what I understand,and it's a recipe for disaster,a gold-lined,copper-bottomed,platinum-plated dog's breakfast,if you want to overdose on cliches;)

Personally,I've decided id cards are a godawful idea,and I won't be carrying one.The only person who is going to scan my eyeball is my optician!

I think it will be made compulsory,otherwise what's the point of introducing one?

Liberty,the civil-liberties group;
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/privacy/id-cards.shtml

Yest. Guardian;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1362369,00.html

No2id activist group;
http://www.no2id.net/index.php

[tjwmason]

7. No2ID has an e-petition.

They are building a non-partisan opposition to I.D. cards. There are plenty of right-wingers who dislike these damn things (I was first told of No2id by one) though the Tories are not going to make any fuss (unless Michael Howard tries a few cheap tricks). They've got Charter88, the LibDems, Green Party, and the Scottish Socialists on board (as well as some right-wing groups).

[non sociopath skin]

8. Though, one can expect that, if they are true to form ...

... the LibDems will oppose them vehemently until they're implemented then urge everyone to get one once they've been introduced.

The Skin

[gandalf]

2. Good questions

And even though, due to the requirements by the US, we in Germany will have biometrical characteristics stored in our passports, there is virtually no open discussion of this topic.

The difference to UK is only that we already have ID cards.

[non sociopath skin]

4. ... whereas we had them and they were got rid of ...

... in peacetime.

I guess things were so much simpler then ...

The Skin

[non sociopath skin]

3. I have always been uncomfortable with the concept of ID cards ....

... whether proposed by the Tories or by the Bliar Christian Democrats (and vehemently opposed by right-wing Tories, curiously enough!).

Yes, I know that most countries have them (though not yet, interestingly enough, the US - when the Neo-cons propose it there, as they will, that will be interesting to watch!). Yes, I know we all carry around oodles of info on our existing corporate bits of plastic. But ...

I'm a worst case scenario man. I ask myself what a really nasty government could do with this and, God knows, there are enough serious Stinky-Poo People around at the moment to make this more than just an Orwellian nightmare. Archbishop Bliar and Dave "Two Beds" Blunkett are already pushing the Bogey Man Button to get themselves another five years of Ministerial Limos and what they could do with Persons With Beards on the strength of this is nightmarish to contemplate.

Sorry, I'm with Boris on this one ...

The Skin

[sweetheart]

12. bush did mention that ID cards was too illiberal for him!

Even the wacky christians would throw bush out if he made id cards
mandatory.

Frankly, i think the proposal will end in a mire of cost bickering.

There is no fikkin way that every UK citizen is gonna pony up 100 quid
to have a mandatory card. Look at what happened when they tried to
do the same thing for horses... it's taking years to get horses their
ID certificates, and the law is a farce.

I can't help but think that it will remain a white board dream to be
eventually watered down for extending the DVLA database to offer ID
cards, sorta like american motor vehicles departments issue non-driving
ID cards as well.

I don't believe that blunkett or blair have the political capital to
win such a divisive issue. Their puritain adgenda of criminalization
and undermining human rights, as with the proposed drugs legislation
under consideration now, is just crapola... and the ID cards will
bring the whole country out in opposition.

Frankly, i could care less. I am regularly asked to produce ID
in the UK (being a yank) and have to show my passport to people
like hotelliers and whatnot. I'd prefer and ID card to show that
i am not scamming the system, rather that my claim to enfranchisement
in britain is on the up and up.

There is nothing worse than visiting a doctor, and having any sense
from them that one is a "health tourist" or a social sponge of any
sort... and the media has made a frienzy about this, that all
foreign people are first suspects, before being cleared of suspicion.

On behalf of british immigrants, i think the ID cards will at least
put the doctors and social services at ease with immigrants legitimate franchise.

[Nihil]

5. One stop shop for identity theft with a police state as a bonus

I am amazed by the naivety of the apparently well-educated
people who believe that a manufactured document will provide
the end to all problems. Any document can be forged. If there
is a significant financial benefit (e.g., black-market IDs)
then the incentive to forge one is immense and it WILL happen.

As for combining all your existing IDs into one, why make it possible
to duplicate your entire identity in one single swipe? At present
this requires several individual operations (possible but not easy)
but under these proposals, "your" ID could be loaded onto the blank
card of an illegal immigrant or a crack seller before you get home
from the shops. How do you now prove which one is the "real" person?

Remember, these cards only exist to prove who the holder claims to be.

Anyone who has had to dispute a fraudulent credit card charge should
immediately shy away: establishing your innocence with a bank is not
easy, arguing with the police or the government when they have "hard
evidence" to convict you is almost impossible.

The predictable answer is "the biometric data will positively identify
the real you". Unfortunately, this will not be accessible to the cop
in the street so either they take the outer wrapping at face value or
you end up being hauled down to the local nick to queue up for their
machine - even if innocent.

The other aspect is the technical storage - analogous to taking your
credit card and copying someone elses magnetic strip data onto it.
The outside will say one thing, the inside the other.

As you said in .0, people who fail to renew their cards (or change
address, etc.) will be fined £1000. On the other hand, people who
refuse to register with the planned ID card database will be fined
£2500. "80% voluntary" ? I bet that they will become compulsory after
about 25% of gullible idiots have been persuaded to register.

Can I think of one good thing in favour of this idea? No.

Nihil

[non sociopath skin]

6. As for "The War Against Terrorism" and "The War Against Crime" ....

... I'm sure our Abstract Noun Foemen are preparing the forgery technology even as we speak.

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

9. How the story might unfold

The government is going to have to set up a huge IT database to manage IT cards. This task will probably be outsourced to a foreign (American ?) company such as EDS. If past form is anything to go by, the project will run hundreds of millions of pounds over budget and will be delivered years late. It will then be discovered that the state of the art technology is nowhere near as infallible as the politicians have been led to believe by the software companies. Queue a rerun of the CSA, DWP and Inland Revenue IT fiascos in spades. There will be public uproar as people find that they can not access their doctors, bank acounts etc. The press will turn on the politicians who will in turn blame the IT suppliers. The software corporations will murmur their apologies whilst legging it over the horizon with all the taxpayers loot. Terrorists and organised crime will continue to operate as normal.

End of story

On edit - I know a lot of people are fearful of Big Brother but anyone who has seen from the inside how the British government's IT systems operate will know that meglomaniac politicians dreams of wielding power over their citizens are currently little more than fantasy. Indeed, after a decade in which much of the states computer systems have been turned over to the tender mercies of some of the most incompetent and greedy corporations on the planet, there is a very real danger that within the next few years the day to day administration of government will cease to function at all.

[non sociopath skin]

10. Sorry, feds, much of what you say may be true ...

... but I ain't staking my life on it.

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

11. I am not saying I am in favour of ID cards

and I think people may be right to oppose their introduction. It is just that the supposed omnipotence of our rulers is greatly exaggerated. Most of the politicians themselves have only an inkling of how creaky is the system of government over which they preside. Maladministration due to incompetence, political vanity, ideologically driven privatisations and plain simple graft have left the public administration in a very delicate state. The old IT systems written 10-20 years ago by underpaid but essentially well trained civil service technicians are coming to the end of their natural lives. They are now being replaced by applications implemented by outsourcing companies that are often very poorly designed and delivered. Many are being built by staff who are only receiving minimal training for the tasks that they are supposed to perform. The attached article published in The Register will give you some idea of the fiasco that is unfolding

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/30/dwp_crash_analysis/

[Briar]

13. Hazel Blears on Question Time

just said that the cards would employ both iris scan and fingerprints.

[sweetheart]

14. As a legal immigrant, i think its a good idea

It allows me to be authenticated as a legitimate resident, without
showing my passport, that i am not a tourist. However, i've made it
this far in life without any problems knowing my identity, so the
sudden need to have it tatooed on my bum is certainly charming.

I'm sick of having to show a bill, and identity docuemnts of depth
to repeated audiences when the home office has already checked me
up and down with a microscope.

I'm sorry its mandatory for all people. Perhaps they should rather
make it only for people who wish to travel to the USA.

[non sociopath skin]

15. And the reason that the US should be a special case is ........?

I await your response with interest, Sweetheart.

The Skin

[sweetheart]

16. Fine people who wish to travel to nazi places

I din't mean to single out the US. I am frustrated with all this
war nonsense, and as a legitimate private civilian am the one paying
the price.... I must get new identification, and i am constantly
under suspicion for something i will never do.

I wish i could sign up for an "innocent" card, where they look
through my entire background, and determine that besides smoking
grass and speeding, i've never been a criminal or a terrorist.
The policing would be so much more effective if it was not wasted
on innocent people.

[Briar]

17. "Innocent until proven guilty"

We don't need an "innocent card" because we have the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty. It's up to the prosecution to do that, we don't have to prove ourselves innocent.

The ID card takes away that precious privilege. "Those with nothing to hide need not fear it," is the popular response of those asked whether it is a good thing or not. Therefore those, like me, who will not want to carry it around to prove that we are innocent citizens going about our lawful business will be assumed to be guilty because we don't have one on us.

That's a profound change in the status of the ordinary citizen and one which should be resisted, not embraced.

[Nihil]

18. I made that exact point in a discussion the other night

One of my neighbours was strongly in the "I've got nothing to hide"
camp until I pointed out several problems with that argument.

There was some movement when the 'change in status' was highlighted,
(i.e., presumed guilty without one) more when the impracticality of
verification was brought out (like every copper is going to have an
iris scanner on his belt? no ... more like a two hour wait at the
police station while your identification is checked), even more when
the fraud threat was broached (he's had to cancel stolen credit cards
before now) but the most telling point was that both of his sons
(~18 & ~21) quickly recognised the dangers greatly outweighed any
benefits of such a system.

Nihil

[sweetheart]

19. What colour should the card be?

Now that they're ramming the bill through parliament, and that the
conservatives who have disgracefully abandoned their once-noble
opposition to identity cards after WW2, have fallen in to line...
well, the next question is what colour should it be?

Will there be special wallets? Can i pay extra to get one with a
st. andrews flag emblazoned across the back? Can i get the dog-chip
option of having a rice-grain sized chip inserted between my shoulder
blades so i don't have to carry the card around?

Hopefully, it will replace the drivers license, as i don't want to
have to carry "BOTH". In my thinking, it would be simply best to
charge the DVLA to do it, as they already do it reasonably well, and
need only extend their remit.

If, like car license plates, you can get an EU model, i'd like that
one... i like the yellow stars on the blue background, and it would
look great on the back of a nifty card. For monarchists, perhaps a
photo of the queen and "Citizen of Her Magesty, Queen Elisabeth II"..
:-) For twitchers, photos of bird species expected to be extinct
short on.... so they can live on in their wallets... i'm sure
labour is contemplating the marketing potential to get people to
pay extra for the card, and fill the coffers.

However, the supression of the attourney general's advice regarding
the ID cards is rather a disgrace:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,15642,1377360,00.html

[Nihil]

20. Yet another cash cow for the Blair gang

> You get fined £1000 if you don't keep your address up to date; but
> we don't know if there's a charge for updating your address. There's
> no information on whether a replacement card costs just as much as
> the original.

They *will* charge for it - they will simply be unable to pass up the
opportunity to charge for it. You have cowed your target market into
getting the card in the first place - £2500 fine if you don't submit
to the State's demands - so there is absolutely no reason on this
planet why they will not feel "justified" in charging this captive
market for trivia like a change of address ("think of it as extra
stamp duty"), for a change of name ("marriage licence going up"),
or for getting older ("biometric details must be kept up to date too").

As for a genuine *replacement* card ... bad news sunshine ...
("tut tut, lost it? That was careless of you. Oh, you were mugged?
Hmmm, have to investigate to ensure that this isn't a fraudulent
claim ... of course you have to be detained for the duration as we
can't let you go wandering off without a valid ID can we?")

Each time, they will bring out the big stick of the £1000 fine if you
even think of deferring the update. Each time, the timid populous
will shrug, cough up and slump their shoulders that bit lower as more
of their freedom has been swallowed by the State.