UK ID database and cards - discuss

[purpletigron]

Quoting from http://www.no2id.net/ :

"The government claims that 73% of people asked were in favour of ID cards, but two thirds of those same people were not aware of what the introduction of the cards actually involved. Here is a glimpse...

YOU WILL:

ATTEND an appointment to be photographed, have your fingerprints taken and iris scanned, or be fined up to £2500. Additional fines of up to £2500 may be levied each time you fail to comply until you submit to these procedures.

PROMPTLY INFORM the police or Home Office if you lose your card or it becomes defective, or face a fine of up to £1000. If you find someone else's card and do not immediately hand it in, you may have committed a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to two years or a fine, or both.

PROMPTLY INFORM the National Identity Register of any change of address or face a fine of up to £1000 (you will supply evidence of your previous addresses, not just your current address).

PROMPTLY INFORM the National Identity Register of significant changes to your personal life or any errors they have made or face a fine of up to £1000. You may also be obliged to submit to being re-interviewed, re-photographed, re-fingerprinted and re-scanned, or face a fine.

PAY between £30 and £93 (or more) to be registered, with further charges possible to change your details and to replace a lost or stolen card.

When ID cards were introduced in this country during World War II, they had three functions. By the time they were abolished in 1952 they had 39 administrative uses. So what won't we be able to do without an ID card, according to Government plans? We'll be prevented from renting or selling a home or staying in a hotel. We won't be able to buy a car or a mobile phone; open or use a bank account; travel abroad; register with a doctor; get education; work or run a business; (officially) live or (officially) die..."

Comments

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Bugger that for a game of soldiers!

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

And honestly, I think the only way of stopping this is by mass avoidance of registration. Just as with the poll tax, if enough people refuse, the system will become unworkable.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

But the difference between this and the poll tax is that, with the latter, refusal to register and/or pay was made primarily a civil offence, with a criminal option tagged on, precisely because the then government recognised that it would be politically suicidal to tag a third to a half of the population as criminals.

But this lot don't give a fuck for civil liberties (the Labour Party as a whole has never cared much for civil liberties), and won't give a damn if the gaols start filling up with refuseniks. Indeed, a thug like Charles Clarke would probably regard it as a test of his macho virility (and a thumping success for his policy) to face down huge chunks of the UK population. (Then, of course, whine and bitch and moan and complain when it doesn't re-elect the stinking vermin that New Labour has become.)

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

and won't give a damn if the gaols start filling up with refuseniks

They will give a damn if there are too many refuseniks for the courts to process or the jails to deal with. That's what I mean.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

They'll just build more gaols, and organise more court sittings. They will have to, because they cannot afford to have their ID card plans be seen to start failing after they've invested so much political capital in getting them through, and in trumpeting them as the solution to everything.

If imprisoning half the country is the price to be paid for not failing, these scum will go merrily down that road.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Did you type this with your left hand and your original comment with your right hand?

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

Au contraire! One was produced by a flock of specially-trained woodpeckers remotely controlled from the far side of the Moon, and the other was a transcript of a freeform interpretive dance, by a nude Ukrainian mime troupe, of a partially corrupt Mongolian copy of a fragment of an original Sanskrit text whose meaning is now lost to us. ;-)

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Metaquote! :-)

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

¿Que?

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

metaquotes. Your comment deserves to be posted there.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is why Lord Falconer wants justice that is 'speedy, simple and summary'?

http://www.gnn.gov.uk/content/detail.asp?ReleaseID=193788&NewsAreaID=2&NavigatedFromSearch=True

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Agreed: it's our duty to refuse this nonsense. (I also love the idea that we can be fined for not picking up on their errors..)

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

And besides, what do women need with an identity of our own when our identity is always subsumed in that of our father's or (if married) our husband's (http://flickgc.livejournal.com/563567.html?thread=7092591#t7092591)?

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Surname, not identity: there's a difference. Send me your address and I'll send you a dictionary for xmas.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Surname, not identity: there's a difference.

Hee. Now you're just being silly.

Send me your address and I'll send you a dictionary for xmas.

Thank you! (http://www.oed.com/services/cd-rom/)

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Ooh, can I have a copy, too?

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Depends whether Steve is sending them to every woman who thinks her surname is part of her identity, or only to women who make comments which reek of the kneejerk femo-politics he'd hoped we'd all got past a long, long time ago.

Either way, it's likely to be an expensive xmas for him.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

At the risk of winding you up all over again, I think stevegreen is correct. Surname is not identity. Changing your name does not change who you are -- how you were brought up, what you believe, what you do, how you think, what you think about, etc..

To argue that surname and identity are co-terminous seems to me a category error. (And I do of course have first-hand knowledge of changes of name!)

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Changing your name does not change who you are -- how you were brought up, what you believe, what you do, how you think, what you think about, etc..

I was going to say "But none of these things will be visible on an ID card" but in fact, given what the government's database is planned to cover, they probably will.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

It really will be the logistics which will sink this nonsense. Just how long does the government think it will take to interview and photograph and process the 55 million or 60 million or whatever-figure-it-is who live in this country? One year? Two years? More like five, at the very minimum. And even then it couldn't be done unless the government were to impose a total lock-down on the country (no movement by anyone anywhere -- even to the shops) for months on end to ensure that every last person is processed into the system.

And then there's the cost. EDS and Crapita and Siemens will all be bidding for the work, each trying to undercut the others in the knowledge that whatever they quote know they will inflate later as the costs soar past the current LSE estimates. And as the costs double and treble, and the biometric bollocks still can't be made to work properly, will the Treasury still tell the Home Office that the scheme must remain self-financing? Or will it come to be seen by the whole government as matter of saving face by throwing another few tens of billions down the EDS/Crapita/Siemens hole, just like all previous government IT projects?

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

It really will be the logistics which will sink this nonsense.

Which is what I said... ;-)

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I started writing my post before yours showed up. Mine just happened to appear after yours....

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Sure: the irony is you then posted to disagree with me. ;-)

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Will you need an ID card to gain access to a courtroom?

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

I'm seriously contemplating applying for a new nationality.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Me too... Got any to suggest?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Won't help - I've just been speaking to a rather tired chap at the Irish Passport Office: even *with* an Irish passport (which it's good to know I'm entitled to by reason of pre-1921 grandparents as well as by the GFA), I'd still need an ID card - all non-UK nationals in the UK for more than 90 days will need one!

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

all non-UK nationals in the UK for more than 90 days will need one!

Oh, you have got to be joshing me! That's ludicrous!

[akicif.livejournal.com]

You're right, it is. And I'm wrong. It's not 90 days, it's three months.

[(Anonymous)]

But if you have dual citizenship then you won't qualify as a non-UK national for the registration but will be able to use an Irish passport instead of an ID-carded UK one.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

The curious half and halfness of UK/Irish dual nationality is more or less the case I asked the guy about - they reckon that at some point during the validity of a new passport the rules will be changed such that a non-biometric passport will not be considered sufficient as ID.

Not that they'd necessarily know any more than we do over here - I can't imagine any civil service having produced accurate guidance on the actions of another government so quickly - but the only reason they could see for chosing to go for an Irish passport over a new British one right now rather than when the new rules come into play is that you can avoid filling in the extra form that asks for your previous address, current employment, bank details and NI number - all of which I had to provide when applying for a new UK passport last September.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

They can't even get the Horse passport scheme to work (you didn't know horses had passports?) so why they think the human ID scheme is going to work I really cannot imagine.

Of course, people with little understanding of computers always think that they are going to solve their problems for them....

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

If it's cheaper, I'll apply for a horse passport.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

You are too confident.

Given the political capital invested in bullying the measure through Parliament, New Fascism Labour has no option but to make the damn thing work, no matter how much it costs.