Forum Topic

Identity cards

Identity cards - who's for them and who's agin'em?

Gerry Tan ● 6823d19 Comments

I'm for them in that I think they are a good idea in such a fluid population especially post European enlargement and I hope they would allow a diminution of paranoia about immigration while enhancing Laura Norder capability...but I am agin 'em as they will be extremely expensive to install, haven't been properly costed, or properly researched, there needs to be more information about implementation and, frankly, given this governments really hopeless record on data protection, I'd hate to think even more info was subject to such lax treatment.On balance, against unless proveably sorted out - which given how the Home Office runs its finances, IT etc. I can't see how it ever will be.

Sara Nathan ● 6823d

Against.Maybe we should learn a lesson from Europe during WW2 when Germany forced everyone to carry ID cards.It is known that after a while the people checking the cards become more interested in the card than in the person carrying it.They would also be forged,bought and sold and it would just be another way of trying to make us feel safe when it would not be of much use.Maybe anyone coming to this country to settle or to work should have some kind of ID card to help ensure that they are who they say they are and that they are not wanted for any crime,but I think they would be of limited use and not worth the massive cost. I,for one, would refuse to have one.

Keith Iddon ● 6823d

I am a member of NO2ID. I am for less government and tax. The cost is prohibitive. It will not aid security. The government is not to be trusted with data.The only ID cards I would favour are for benefit claimants.

Graham Weeks ● 6823d

For - although I think a microchip in the neck would be a better option.I agree that the competence shown by the Home Office, or indeed any government office, regarding  the introduction of anything more complicated than a pencil and slate is abysmal.Nothing nowadays is totally thought through - look at the problem of a brother and sister marrying each other. An incredibly small chance of it happening but it did. People are paid to create laws - MPs, civil servants, and others and they can't get it right! The Northern Rock business model is another example.In my experience of computer systems very, very few individuals can specify a system, and even fewer can properly design and implement it.

Alan Brainsby ● 6823d

Alan...I'm puzzled.You say you are for ID cards then give several examples against them?

Keith Iddon ● 6823d

Keith - It's not the cards or similar I'm against but the usual governmental failure (of any party) to implement them properly.We need some method of foolproof identification of individuals hence my suggestion of microchipping - it's non-transferable. A quick scan by the police or benefits agencies and job done.A badly done job costs the same as one properly done, plus the additional costs of sorting out the problem.As I believe Churchill once said about the Americans: "They always get it right in the end, once they've tried everything else".

Alan Brainsby ● 6823d

A big thumbs down from me.  As a society we are the most monitored on the Planet,and it's already being done by stealth with the Number Plate Recognition cameras that the Police use nationwide,not only do they snap the numberplate but also the drivers face,and they don't throw the records away. Our mobile phones are recorded as they move from cell to cell,"they" know where we are all the time.  Having said that,lots of criminals are caught using those very techniques,so there is a plus side,but I don't as a law abiding citizen,much care for it. It seems to me that new crimes are being invented as the technology improves.   The camera outside Ealing Broadway Station for example,dropping of a child really shouldn't be a crime,it isn't,it's just another way to get your money.  Rather than a card wouldn't it be better to use Bio-metrics,I don't mind having an iris scan,or even having my fingerprints taken,it really doesn't matter much if they fall into the wrong hands, a card almost certainly will,and it'll only be a question of time before criminals crack them.

Tony Wood ● 6822d

An identity card has to be relatable to an individual hence my idea of a  cervical microchip (cervical in the sense of upper spine). It's not transferable. Neither is a brand or a tattoo.The problem with biometrics is the requirement of electronic apparatus to read the metrics. How and where will the apparatus be installed? Judging by the way so-called health professionals treat equipment in hospital, and the way failed Oyster gates are left open at stations (to charge one for a zone 1-6 journey when the trip was Acton Town to EB) then God help us.A more reliable, and virtually clone-proof way would be on checking (by a simple phone call) the card on the ID database for a question to be originated from the database about that individual, such as how long was your last jail sentence?, what parole did you get?, name of your 5th child?, how did you enter the country?, when were you disqualified from driving?Simple questions like that could not be easily remembered by another individual.Of course the penalties for fraudulent use of the cards should be a minimum of 2 years on the treadles at Norfolk hydroelectric...

Alan Brainsby ● 6822d

Alan...a micro chip inserted in your body?Get a grip man...George Orwell eat your heart out...

Keith Iddon ● 6822d

Graham wrote: >The only ID cards I would favour are for benefit claimants.

David Fox ● 6821d

Alan wrote: >In my experience of computer systems very, very few individuals can specify a system, and even fewer can properly design and implement it.

David Fox ● 6821d

Gerry,I'm against - it will cost a huge amount for, at best, a little gain. It won't stop any suicide bombers (they are  invariably happy to let the world know they did it), and if it is designed to stop benefit claimant fraud, then the tiny amount it will save certainly doesn't warrant inflicting it on everybody. There is also the argument that it will help stop credit card fraud (if so, let the credit card companies pay for it....) - besides, most of the rise in fraud is for card-not-present telephone or internet purchases, in which case an ID card would hardly be a great help anyway.....Daft, waste of money, and the system will almost invariably be hacked (or, probably more likely, an insider will mislay or sell our information). If someone can access the files, they could change or add details or identities pretty easily. Of course, if ID cards do come in, how many people will go along to get theirs only to find that someone else claiming to be them has already brought along the utility bills and bank statements to prove their ID? Where there already is identity theft it will provide a sure way of cementing it.

David Fox ● 6821d

I totally agree about specification changes halfway through.This is where a good system designer would have already considered the possibility and designed the system to be flexible.Of course if it is not in the interests of a large software house to build in flexibility as that would mean the project would still come in on time and on budget. Then think of all the lost maintenance and following modifications - big profit gone! That would never do.

Alan Brainsby ● 6821d

"In my experience of computer systems very, very few individuals can specify a system, and even fewer can properly design and implement it."The 17 countries in Europe that have already successfully rolled out ID cards would rather seem to contradict this.

Ed Yelland ● 6821d

That's because those countries don't include the UK, and I don't suppose we know how many "goes" those countries took to get it right.The best we could hope for in the UK is to buy the best model available from another country. We did this with TOPS for the railways and it was very successful.What we should never forget is the first rule of work:" No job is too simple to bodge".

Alan Brainsby ● 6821d

So these 17 Counties have perfect ID systems that work Ed? We don't know that. Perhaps some of our friends on this Forum with experience of such systems in Europe could let us know of their experiences.

Colin Vaughan ● 6821d

I've changed my mind about my willingness to give fingerprints!From "The Register"A Malaysian businessman has lost a finger to car thieves impatient to get around his Mercedes' fingerprint security system. Accountant K Kumaran, the BBC reports, had at first been forced to start the S-class Merc, but when the carjackers wanted to start it again without having him along, they chopped off the end of his index finger with a machete.Byuk!

Tony Wood ● 6821d

In the near future, both private and governmentaltotal information systems will monitor every aspectof our lives.  A central computer will rememberwhere we go and what we buy, the e-mail we write,and the books we read.  Each attack on privacy isjustified by the pervasive culture of fear thatseems to surround us and grow stronger every day.    --John Twelve Hawks      _The Dark River_ [2007], "Author's Note"

Graham Weeks ● 6820d

I support the idea, but knowing this government they will probably lose all the details!

Wayne Bridges ● 6819d