Completely OK with national ID cards?

[purpletigron]

How about if USA officials can access UK data (remember that the US can get anyone extradited from the UK without needing UK legal approval)?

Comments

[profundo-rosso.livejournal.com]

I notice nobody appears to have picked up on the fact that having our fingerprints scanned for these ID cards will ensure the creation of a national fingerprint archive. (I still have my suspicions about the blood sample taken from all newly-born UK citizens being used to create a DNA archive.) Paranoid, moi?

Paranoid you are

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

Blood samples have been taken from new-born babies for more years than anyone has known about DNA profiling. They test for things like liver and kidney function, blood type and congenital diseases.

Re: Paranoid you are

[profundo-rosso.livejournal.com]

I realise that. What I'm suspicious of is what additional uses they could be put to now.

National ID cards

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

I really have mixed feelings on the subject. On the one hand, it gets us closer to the Big Brother thing. On the other, it cuts down on a lot of fraud and crime that cost the public a bundle. As for the US being able to extradite at will, well, isn't that how they finally caught up with Allende? No, they shouldn't be able to do it at will, but every country ought to have some recourse for finding people who have hurt and killed others and bringing them to justice. Is there international terrorism? Yes. Is it as bad as the US and UK officials would have us believe? Probably not. Is the US the only government qualified to bring terrorists to justice. No. Why do we let them get away with it? Will national ID cards stop international terrorism? No.

Re: National ID cards

[profundo-rosso.livejournal.com]

No, it was Pinochet (and his CIA-backed goons) who caught up with Allende, shot him dead and toppled Chile's democratically-elected government.

And I really can't see how my having an ID card will stop my car being stolen, my home been broken into, someone close to me being mugged on their way back from work, someone down the street fiddling their unemployment benefit or my credit cards being cloned.

This is monumentally expensive bollocks, and we need to derail it now.

Re: National ID cards

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Given that all the geeks I know of (most of whom deal in systems and database security) say they cannot imagine that such a system can be adequately secured, and that the government has admitted that it doesn't know what systems it would be using or how to implement it, I can't say I'm convinced that it would be terribly effective in combatting crime - in fact, it seems that it might make us even more open to identity theft. I'd be interested in evidence that ID cards have cut crime figures in nations where they're in force.

As to extradition, I don't believe that any country should be allowed to extradite without permission; it may lead to unpleasantness, but I'd rather that kind of unpleasantness than having people whisked off who knows where by who knows whom for who knows what reasons. I know that these things are seldom simple, but it seems to me that extradition without permission opens up all manner of awful possibilities.

Re: National ID cards

[profundo-rosso.livejournal.com]

The Bush Regime's latest trick, of course, is to snatch suspects and drop them off in foreign climes where torture is standard, the next step on from claiming Camp X-Ray is situated outside of international law.

Re: National ID cards

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

They've been doing it for a considerable time now. Of course, I was thrilled to read that the British government is all for allowing evidence obtained "under duress" in foreign nations known to torture prisoners. I'd somehow allowed myself to get carried away and think they'd stop short of tacitly condoning torture.

Re: National ID cards

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

What kinds of fraud can ID cards stop?

Two areas often quoted are benefit fraud and 'identity theft'. Sadly it won't do much for either of these.

The vast majority of benefit fraud (80%) has nothing to do with identity, but is a result of unrecorded earnings. ID cards will do nothing to prevent this.

As for identity theft, the majority of this is associated with 'cardholder not present' frauds with eg. credit cards. Since the card holder isn't there, then ID cards will have absolutely zero effect on ID theft.

Against any small savings there might due to reduced fraud, we have to look at the roughly 100 pound charge to be levied on everyone for the cards and the 5.8 billion and rapidly rising cost of implementing the system.

Seems to me that the system is going to cost us much more than it saves. And that's before one even starts to think about the impacts on civil liberties and the new abuses and inconveniences it will bring.

Re: National ID cards

[profundo-rosso.livejournal.com]

The real kicker is that any public outrage will be triggered not by the Blair Govt's attack on civil liberties, but by the £100 charge. Just like the Poll Tax. Take away our freedoms, and few raise an eyebrow; cut into our booze 'n' fags money, and you get riots in Trafalgar Square.

Re: National ID cards

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Make that 300 quid.

Re: National ID cards

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Quite!

Today's news in The Observer that the cards may well have a true cost of 300 quid each might start more people paying attention.