I.D. Cards - Good idea or bad idea?

[simondjuk]

I personally think that these are a good idea but I dont see why we have to pay for them at about £100 (last I heard).

 

Hopefully they will help to catch the people that are here illegally and also the people who think they can cheat the benefit system etc.

 

 

 

Any opinions?

[foxycoxy]

I have to agree with you on this. I think they are an excellent idea. they only think they have going against them is the moeny aspect. I strongly beleive if the govt make it mandatory then they should issue them for free!!

 

PS -love the avatar - Bender is my god!!

[Darbees]

This government only does these things if it generates them some more money so no chance of them being free. I'm against it for the same reason that I'm against DNA database in that I think there is a risk that the information will be abused. I don't subscribe to the nothing to hide therefore nothing to fear argument which will probably punctuate this thread.

 

I have just posted on another thread about electoral roll where I said that I have a disc with millions of peoples details on it for my business, I am taking advantage of that information because it is available but it is open to abuse same as ID cards will be.

[pumatic]

I strongly beleive if the govt make it mandatory then they should issue them for free!!

Pace the valid arguments against the proposed system of ID cards plus invasive database; I would at this juncture merely like to point out that the government has no money of it's own, it only has the use of money extracted from our wallets by taxation - so you'll be paying for the damn things whatever.

[Devine22]

I dont think we should have separate ID cards, we should have an extension to our passports for less than £100 or free.

[LordChaverly]

They are a good idea. The vast majority of other EU countries already have them (21 out of 25 at the last count). Many of the countries in Western Europe have just as good records in defending civil liberties and in protecting privacy as the UK (indeed, much better in some cases). I doubt very much whether or not they would cost anything like £100 - this is just another scare story emanating from the paranoid so-called defenders of our liberties.

 

ps - I also like CCTV, which is another current bete noire of the increasingly paranoid and misnamed 'civil liberties' lobby

[simondjuk]

I have to agree with you on this. I think they are an excellent idea. they only think they have going against them is the moeny aspect. I strongly beleive if the govt make it mandatory then they should issue them for free!!

 

PS -love the avatar - Bender is my god!!

 

And I agree with you about making them free.

 

Plus Bender is definately the best character in Futurama!!!

[esme]

if it were just a card I could care less but it's not

 

true the majority of other eu countries have ID cards, but none are backed up with a database containing your biometric identification information, a record of everywhere you've lived or worked, a complete financial history, a record of everywhere you've been and every building you've entered

 

and none will have to power to ruin some poor sod by accident should a junior civil servant tick the wrong box

 

now regarding the biometric information this will initially comprise facial recognition information, fingerprint information and iris pattern information

 

according to the passport office report (p11 ch1.2.1.4) facial recognition isn't very reliable

 

fingerprint recognition is performed by locating key features (whorls, forks, dots) in the ridge patterns of a fingerprint and comparing their position and orientation with a sample, 12 matching points can put someone on death row in the states, however over here we don't seem to have grasped the idea that a single non matching point means the print doesn't match and belongs to someone else.

 

iris recognition isn't bad, but it helps if you don't have iritis, contact lenses, are blind or have any condition that keeps your eyes in constant motion

 

so it's possible for the three systems to identify three different people from your data and it's also possible none of them will be you

 

did you know the government has invested £16m in robot spy planes for the police to monitor the civilian population ?, apparently they are cheaper than real planes with human pilots, not so good on avoiding blocks of flats though, they were originally developed for military use where it's not so much of a problem if they crash

 

and a further point of interest, to date there have been 4 gateway reviews performed on the ID card project to monitor it's progress and make sure it's on track, the government has requested a viewing of the first two of these under the freedom of information act, the FOI commissioner has OK'd this, now the labour party is spending money hand over fist retaining a QC and legal teams to find legal ways to prevent the release of this information to parliament

 

in a nutshell the government is paying money to try to keep secrets from itself, and the stated reason for this boils down to "someone on reading the review might form the erroneous conclusion that the project is doing anything other than making good progress or that it's aims are anything other than benign and worse they might tell someone else these same conclusions and we can't have that now can we"

 

further in order to guarantee the project is in place on time they are going to cut a few corners and not bother to rigorously test it thats right your life history and financial details will be entrusted to an untested system

 

other little details of interest, government databases can be breached so why should we expect the ID card system to be more secure ?

 

and the dvla are in the process of investigating 65 employees for distributing porn, so government employees aren't that incorruptible then ? but of course those in charge of the ID database will be so not to worry then

 

then we get on to the reversal of "innocent until proven guilty", after all the police won't come knocking on your door unless they know it was you now will they, your card was in the vicinity of this incident therefore you must be guilty, this totally discounts all the homeless people who don't have a card or all the visitors to our fair country who also don't have a card or dare I say all the criminals and terrorists who also won't have cards either.

 

as for cameras on street corners - no problem, just use them to get the boys in blue to scenes of a disturbance in time is all I ask

 

and I wouldn't have a problem with any of the above if it went both ways, if I knew what the PM had for breakfast I wouldn't mind him knowing what I had, if I knew what went on behind closed doors in parliament then I would cheerfully let the politicians into the deep dark secrets of what goes on in my abode (usually sleeping, eating, drinking and vegetating with the odd moment of wild sex) pretty boring really

[esme]

... well actually I would still have a problem with the security of the database .... and the untested aspect of it ... and the incorruptibility of those in charge of it

 

minor details of trifling consequence I know but I'm a pedant and I like all the i's dotted and t's crossed

[Cyclone]

I personally think that these are a good idea but I dont see why we have to pay for them at about £100 (last I heard).

 

Hopefully they will help to catch the people that are here illegally and also the people who think they can cheat the benefit system etc.

 

 

 

Any opinions?

 

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There are multiple existing threads on the topic with plenty of peoples opinions.