h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Government is predicting that up to 15 million people will refuse to carry ID cards and are prepared to face criminal prosecution for doing so. Despite this, the intention is to make them compulsory by 2014.

A couple of questions arise from this. Would you be prepared to carry an ID card? And, with the government saying in advance that it will go ahead with the plans anyway, can we truly say we live in a democracy?


More info at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1626768.ece

"Would you be prepared to carry an ID card?"

Yes, I do already

http://herman.chickenkiller.com



"And, with the government saying in advance that it will go ahead with the plans anyway, can we truly say we live in a democracy?"

Nope, I guess not. Tyranny of the minority.

http://fryingspam.org

I'd much rather not.

Hmm to court illegality and be martyr - not the career I had in mind but I expect it'll be tied into as many services as possible making it effectively compulsary before it becomes fully so at which point, unless there's a revolt on par of say, the polltax, I expect I'll find myself carrying one. Which is a revolting thought.

I've yet to be persuded of the necessity and the government has already run the full gammut of excuses...I mean reasons to introduce this.

As a 'member of the public' I feel most aggrieved to be told I apprently support this measure when I don't but politically I feel disenfranchised enough already to think anything's actually going to prevent it at this point.

I have one already in order to live and work in Belgium.

And I have a passport as well. So, no problem for me I have to say.

sprout

I've got: passport, driving license, firearms license, shotgun license, NI card, 5 bank/credit cards, institute membership card, club membership card, computer society card plus goodness knows what else that either I don't use or has expired. All that is required to identify me is any two of post code, NI number or dob.

So why do I feel so paranoid about id cards? For the simple reason that this government does not have a hope in hell of designing, implementing and keeping secure a database that contains personal details of 65m people.

It will be massively expensive, will not, despite the rantings of the mad Dr Reid, help to win the WAR on terror or be capable of not being breached by identity fraudsters. That's why.

Morning WA

I could not have put it better!

We have previously been down this route on POV message boards, with the same two attitudes.

1 'Shrug'," they know so much about me , what is the difference?" - thus entirely missing the real point of being 'forced' to have one

2 Your view and mine ( it appears) that a minority govt which has already nmade us the most 'watched' and now 'told-off' society ( with the advent of street CTV cameras equipped with loudspeakers - now wants to take its' Big Brother attitude further.

I am an admitted initial member of group 1, but with the failures of this govt to control anything whatsoever, I have joined group 2

Novo

I'm not so fussed about ID cards in general, but I am inclined to think they should drop all this biometric stuff. Also right now I don't much fancy dropping a hundred squid on one, but I'm sure I'll be able to sort that out by 2014.

Not entirely keen on having something marking me out as a subject either. At the moment I can keep my passport hidden away and stick my fingers in my ears and pretend I'm not a subject and we live in a modern society which doesn't retain an institutional symbol of hereditary power and wealth as its nominal ruler. I'm guessing these cards will have some sort of 'Her Majesty's Whatever' symbol or hologram or something?

What're they going to do about homeless people and others who can't afford the cost of the card (and perhaps not even who they are)?

I would also rather hope that the employing illegal immigrants and letting in foreign terrorists debates are finally done with by then, because they're getting pretty old and stupid now, and 8 years is a long time to get bored. In which case, where does that leave the need for ID cards?

Milla / Sweden:

My drivers license holds my national identity number, as well as full name and birthdate. It also has an image of my signature. I use this as my identity card, and have no problems with that.

In fact, usually I am pleased that I cannot withdraw money at the bank, pick up packages in the 'Post office' (Now relegated to parcel corners at food stores...) or pay with my credit card unless I show an ID card. I feel that these procedures protect my money etc.

I would rather prove to police that I am who I am, than have someone stealing my identity when arrested, or anything criminal.

Some relevant questions came up here - how do the homeless afford ID cards (you can get them from other sources, like banks) and am ashamed to admit that I don't know. I don't think the ID card is very expensive. Perhaps £10? Maybe there are ways to get them free? I really don't know.

When I travel, I bring my passport, even though probably ID cards would do in the EU. Have to use passport for UK, because is outside the Schengen agreement

We don't have any biometrics on our cards, unless the signature counts...

Well, if they had nothing but basic data on there I would. Photo, adress, date of birth. But I don´t want a card with all my financial or medical details on it.

Oh god no! the horror! That's not my identity, even if those are facts of my life!

That would be a 'smartcard' to me, not an identity card

"But I don´t want a card with all my financial or medical details on it."

I've always said that particular scenario is a complete pipe dream and will never happen anyway.


Firstly, what they were actually saying was that and ID card would be used "to access" your medical records and financial details...


I've said this a hundred times already, but...

If people's medical records were on the card, how long do you think it would take someone to hack into it and change to details so that they had a permanent prescription for some kind of drug they could sell?

If people's financial records were on there, how long do you think it would take someone to hack into them and change the details so they could use their card to withdraw unlimited amounts of cash from a cash machine?

Noone, not even the politicians, are stupid enough to give each and everyone of us complete and sole control over our financial and medical records.

Ah, but according to UK politicians those cards would be 100% super unhackable.

The idea of an ID card is laughable. One of the reasonings behind having the ID card is that it will reduce terrorism and reduce illegal immigration.

How?

A lot of terrorists are home grown. They have British passports. Some of them were born here.

Illegal immigration - Where there's a will there's a way. I remember reading an article a few weeks back about how potentially easy it can be to replicate a biometric passport. Simply by getting hold of the passport when it's being delivered. Give it time, and I'm sure there will be work arounds for the ID card.

As for having a card with all your health and financial details - now that's really scary. To have one central database with all that information is complicated enough. Then you need to be able to manage it. Remember - when developing it the number of information you need to get is huge. It may not be real time information as people would have moved whilst the information was uploaded. That is going to cause problems.
Then you have security issues. Who is going to be able to view the details. The number of people involved is huge and issuing security clearances sounds messy. Then you have the cost. It's going to be Expensive. Time consuming. And it'll be a government project, so mostly like late and more costly than originally though.

Then you have the privacy concerns. *shrugs* I think it's more hassle than its worth to be honest. Use the money for something else such as education.

I may be daft. Probably am.

When you use a credit card in a shop in UK, is there any way that the keeper verifies that you are indeed the owner of the credit card?

When you see a doctor (ER, perhaps, not your usual family doctor, if you have one) how are they sure that you are who you say you are?

(I never mentioned before, that my ID also has my photo) Someone may learn to copy my signature, and they may forge an ID card to show their picture, not mine, but is it worth the hassle? Easier to just make up the whole persona, and have a false card as well...

Debit and credit cards used to have to be signed for at each transaction.

That has now been largely replaced by a PIN code.

So I have a PIN for each debit card that I own (1 old a/c 1 new a/c 1 joint a/c) as well as different PINs for accessing these banks by telephone and another set for accessing via internet, oh and one for each credit card as well....and they tell me not to write them down anywhere

Good! Does the PIN you too? Or just needle you

Which brings back my question - signed, yes, compared to the signature on the back of the card, yes, but not to a photo on an ID card?

Don't some banks put photos on their credit cards nowadays? I think I've seen it before.

In the UK and Ireland they just make you sign the receipt and are then supposed to check it matches with the one on the back of the credit card. Someone on here mentioned how he had two different signatures on the back of his card, and shop people only commented on that twice in ten years.
I had a photo on my previous credit card, which was good in some places where they want photo ID before they let you pay with credit card.

Whisky,

A couple of years ago one of my bank cards had a scanned photo on it which I thought was good. However few shop assistants bothered checking even when I pointed it out to them. The latest cards have dropped the idea