Id Cards

[Darth Vader]

I used to be in the 'Great Idea, if you've got nothing to hide.....' camp.

 

Now, I think, as others have mentioned, the 'bad guys' will just forge/streal/get round the ID cards issue.  This will leave us in a position where the only 'real' cards are the ones being carried by decent people.

 

And this will achieve what?

 

Spain has ID cards.  Sadly, it didn't stop the bombings on the trains.

 

Does anyone actually think Osama Bin Laden is going to travel around the world with a genuine ID card.

 

So, we, the public, are out of pocket for a system that won't protect us anyway.

 

Now, I hope everyone is sitting down, because I think vaders

May be George Orwell wrongly named his book 1984 by a few decades.

could have an element of truth.

 

(You can breathe out now )

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I just fainted

 

Seriously I do not think the event will happen. The House of Lords will shred it!

[ButterflyMaiden]

Seriously I do not think the event will happen. The House of Lords will shred it!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Now that really will spark off an argument ! I think you're right though

[Dave the Cardboard Box]

Right then, so, it's just the name and date of birth tattooed on the forehead option.

 

Should work.

[Rog]

The big brother argument is a non starter really .. the Data Protection Act does offer comprehensive protection against misuse of personal information.

 

 

You have seriously got to be joking at least from a governmental level and where the security services are involved.

 

I’m retired now but still subject to the OSA however if one day a doctor says to me ‘Rog, sorry old fart, there’s nothing more we can do’ then I’ll spend my last weeks writing a book on just what I know.

[Bill Posters]

I'm worried.

 

I find myself agreeing with Vader AND Rog in the same thread

 

Is there a Doctor in the house?

[Amadeus]

I see on the News the price is now around £98 as they forgot to add VAT (!)

 

Wondering about that - passports and stuff are issued by the gov, or not? Do they have to pay VAT on their own goods? That means they're taxing themselves..

 

And yes, the price tag seems a bit ridicoulous - no matter if it's 85 or 98 - how is a family of 5 going to afford that? I agree that the price tag will be scrapped and it just goes out of the normel taxes...

 

Maybe I should add that the ID cards used in Germany aren't the kind of high-tech thing proposed here - just think of them as the picture page in your passport - same size and look... Doesn't change the fact that nobody bothers carrying them around most of the time, although they are handy as you can travel with them as well - at least inside the EU, they function like your passport...

 

The banks should contribute towards the cost of the card, because it is they who will benefit through lower fraudulent card losses.

 

good point - that new chip-and-pin rubbish is no good to anyone - one more pin to remember (as if I wouldn't have enough of them to remember already) and then you're supposed to type a secret number into a keypad pretty much everyone in the shop can see - very safe indeed...

 

Can't see the data protection act being of much use in the Internet age by the way - just too complex and too many ways around it - RFID Chips are now a reality and already being used in Germany for the world cup in 2006 - every ticket has a chip on it with your personal information, to prevent tickets being sold on the black market - they are then scanned at the gate and you're on your way (or not).

 

All you need to do now is get a RFID Chip Reader and place it next to the queue - you'll soon know the personal data of everyone going to the game - beautiful... And that's just the start - once things like clothes or even your daily shopping are tagged with this technology (one chip only costs pennies), then goodbye privacy...

 

I think the only way to avoid big brother is that everyone takes more care where and when he/she uses personal information - just run a credit check on yourself - you'd be surprised how much info they have - and everyone can access it if they want - and that's only because you wanted a credit card...

[simon]

And I certainly don't want to be told I have to have something with me at all times.

 

I agree. Why should I have to carry anything apart from my keys and some loose change? Just another thing to forget or lose or accidentally put through the washing machine.

 

I'd rather be charged an extra few quid and the money goes on pensions or famine relief or education or wave power. Something useful.

 

And every Tom, Dick and Harry with a walky - talkie or a form will be asking to see it. Which will quickly make nonsense of the very silly notion that the card is initially introduced as a voluntary option.

 

The initially voluntary aspect is a particularly dishonest aspect of this scheme. Since if the cards are introduced then they will become a defacto standard. Meaning that they will essentially become compulsory in so much as it will quickly be very much easier to have one than to not have one. Which is a form of compulsion.

 

But I just can't see the point of ID cards. It won't make the world, or Europe or these islands any safer if Brits are suddenly required to have ID cards. The rest of Europe doesn't sit around worrying that Britain (and the Isle of Man) doesn't have ID cards. They're far more bothered about our strange refusal to use our 'special relationship' to tell the US that it's bonkers.

 

France has ID cards. It didn't prevent spectacular waves of terrorism during the 70s and 80s. West Germany had ID cards but it didn't prevent the Baader Meinhof. Britian had ID cards during the war. It didn't prevent the blitz or the V1s and V2s.

 

If we're going to get bombed then that's something to do with our relationships with other people. If we're going to be attacked by suicide bombers then we'll be attacked by suicide bombers with ID cards. The cards won't make us any safer from the sort of people who would kill themselves to attack.

 

Though personally I believe that the terrorism threat has been hugely exagerated. We're as likely to be attacked by some nutter with an illegal gun collection and a grudge against society.

 

So what's the point of ID cards?

[ButterflyMaiden]

You have seriously got to be joking at least from a governmental level and where the security services are involved.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Rog, I didnt really think this was so open to abuse. I have done some research today and yesterday ..and it seems to me .. you are probably correct. Very upsetting really ..we used to take so much care of personal data in the University ..I honestly thought everyone else did too. What , then, is the point of the Data Protection Act if,as seems the case, it is routinely ignored ?

[Bill Posters]

Rog must have put something in our tea! More people agreeing with him.

[Rog]

It gets better and better.

 

Now this comes to light ---

 

Quote

“The United States wants Britain's proposed identity cards to have the same microchip and technology as the ones used on American documents.

 

The aim of getting the same microchip is to ensure compatability in screening terrorist suspects. But it will also mean that information contained in the British cards can be accessed across the Atlantic.

 

Michael Chertoff, the newly appointed US Secretary for Homeland Security, has already had talks with the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, and the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, to discuss the matter.”

 

Source -- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/...sp?story=641731

 

“information contained in the British cards” of course means access to the databases that back them up as well.

 

Nice.

 

Not.

[Amadeus]

The aim of getting the same microchip is to ensure compatability in screening terrorist suspects. But it will also mean that information contained in the British cards can be accessed across the Atlantic.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You know, there are certain times when I'm really happy to have a German passport - it's a pita to get a new one over here, but I'm worth it...

 

West Germany had ID cards but it didn't prevent the Baader Meinhof.

 

wow - first time I heard Baader Meinhof and the RAF being mentioned outside ze Vaterland - impressed..and a good point as well...

[Brad_Naylor]

And I certainly don't want to be told I have to have something with me at all times.

 

I agree. Why should I have to carry anything apart from my keys and some loose change? Just another thing to forget or lose or accidentally put through the washing machine.

 

I'd rather be charged an extra few quid and the money goes on pensions or famine relief or education or wave power. Something useful.

 

And every Tom, Dick and Harry with a walky - talkie or a form will be asking to see it. Which will quickly make nonsense of the very silly notion that the card is initially introduced as a voluntary option.

 

The initially voluntary aspect is a particularly dishonest aspect of this scheme. Since if the cards are introduced then they will become a defacto standard. Meaning that they will essentially become compulsory in so much as it will quickly be very much easier to have one than to not have one. Which is a form of compulsion.

 

But I just can't see the point of ID cards. It won't make the world, or Europe or these islands any safer if Brits are suddenly required to have ID cards. The rest of Europe doesn't sit around worrying that Britain (and the Isle of Man) doesn't have ID cards. They're far more bothered about our strange refusal to use our 'special relationship' to tell the US that it's bonkers.

 

France has ID cards. It didn't prevent spectacular waves of terrorism during the 70s and 80s. West Germany had ID cards but it didn't prevent the Baader Meinhof. Britian had ID cards during the war. It didn't prevent the blitz or the V1s and V2s.

 

If we're going to get bombed then that's something to do with our relationships with other people. If we're going to be attacked by suicide bombers then we'll be attacked by suicide bombers with ID cards. The cards won't make us any safer from the sort of people who would kill themselves to attack.

 

Though personally I believe that the terrorism threat has been hugely exagerated. We're as likely to be attacked by some nutter with an illegal gun collection and a grudge against society.

 

So what's the point of ID cards?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

A few years back I was in Chester and was stopped by the police, they asked me who I was, and I told them, they then asked me for ID to verify my information was correct, I didn’t have anything with me to prove my identity so I was taken into custody until I could prove that I, was me anyway to cut a long story short I spent the afternoon in a police cell until a phone call to my bank manager on the IOM confirmed I was who I said I was, bearing in mind this was in the days when your bank manager actually knew you personally and could give a detailed description of you over the phone. So carrying an ID card would have saved me lots of grief on this occasion “but” my passport would have done the same job. (passports don’t quite fit in your wallet though do they)

[The Old Git]

What , then, is the point of the Data Protection Act if,as seems the case, it is routinely ignored ?

 

A good question

 

I had to register under the act when it came in. I just ticked all of the boxes on where I could get the date from and who I could pass it to. The new form it a lot simpler but I can't see that the act has made any real difference at all.

 

Without going into any specifics, if I want information on someone I'll phone the person who might know and they'll tell me. The act makes little difference in real life

[the-rhymes]

It gets better and better.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I was just about to post the Independent link...

 

These people love PARANOIA and FEAR it's how they stay in power... My old school moto was Knowlege is Power and these boy's know it more than most.

[mollag]

If anyone has the misfortune to be asked " papers please" by two men in long leather coats, be careful!

If one of them says "good luck", watch out, its a trick!.