UK ID Cards - for or against?

[Paul Adams]

The Register has an article with what I thought interesting stats on the public perception of ID cards (how popular, what data, how much they trust the government, etc.).

Personally I've never been polled for this kind of information, nor has anyone I have ever had contact with, so I'm intrigued as to how accurate the figures are.

So, in its current proposed form, are you for or against the principle of an identity card, and why?

You may wish to qualify a given answer - for example, "I am for them, on the permise that the data is held securely and audited/ratified by a respected 3rd party such as RSA".

[Atomic]

It'd make little difference to me, I carry ID around all day at work so carrying it at weekend wouldnt be that much of a change.

All the info on an ID card would be in a database somewhere now anyway, so its not exactly going to be holding info that the gov don't already have access to.

[TeePee]

Very interesting article there. I personally feel ID cards are in general a good idea (but being a member of law enforcement, I would!), but I have no trust in the government, you know this kind of thing will cost three times as much as expected and ten times as much as it needs to, and that personal data will be available to anyone who wants to sell you a free holiday. I understand the civil liberties arguments[1], but am happy to ignore them.

[1]If you obey the law you have nothing to fear. In Nazi Germany if you obeyed the law you had nothing to fear. OK bombs and stuff, but you get the idea... Do you trust the governments law enforcement ideas? Have you read any speed camera threads?

[Atomic]

Hmm, yeah you can bet they are gonna cost about £30 if they do introduce them. I would feel very annoyed if they do have a high cost.

[Byatt]

have no problem with carrying an extra id...I have huge problems with the amount of public money being potentially spent on something I don't believe will stop an act of terrorism occurring - although I could be convinced given a decent example.

[iMc]

i have no problem actually having an id card, i do have a problem with having to pay extortionate amounts on one. i want to see what the money would be used for first.

id be fine with them if they were free. but it just seems like yet another way to make ALOT of money.

im voting not sure.

[kushtibari]

I agree with some of the thinking behind them. However, I do not agree that you should have to buy them. Perhaps if you lose your card you could be charged but not before. Whether they would work is also questionable. There are undoubtedly well organised crooks travelling long distances committing crime in various parts of the UK who can give you false details (that check out) at the drop of a hat. However, they are also capable of forging the new style photo driving licences within minutes. Considering that financial fraud to raise funds has always been a favourite of the terrorist then I would imagine that they would be able to do a passable ID card the day after they're introduced.

[Auran]

I'm sure that the government will be happy to argue that we should be happy to pay for the card to ensure the security of the nation. But personally I find it quite offensive to have to pay for my own identity. (Obviously I understand the need to pay for passports, but they are a different matter entirely).

I think they will be a good idea if they help to reduce the number of different ways that you have to prove who you are to do things nowadays. But only if they are proven to be secure and exceptionally difficult to forge.

[petrefax]

can't say i agree with it tbh - it would cost a fortune to implement & imho would be a pointless excersise, in fact it would probably make identity theft easier since all you'd then have to do is concentrate your efforts on producing fake ID cards & you're away

i am also amongst the group that doesn't trust the government not to screw it up, nor do i trust the governemt not to use this for purposes other than those stated

having seen how much actual info is stored via store loyalty cards on who you are, what your particular preferences are etc, i found this scary enough & this is just from your visits to a shop - imagine how much data could potentially be available via your ID card? who's to say this won't be used in profiling for patterns which may, for example, suggest criminal activity

whilst i have nothing to hide since i am not a criminal & don't do anything illegal, who's to say my movements don't fit the "profile" for a particular type of criminal or illegal activity & next thing you know i'm getting collared

also, we all know computers aren't 100% infallible, what if the data stored on you becomes corrupted - what then, do you cease to exist
"i'm sorry Mr. bloggs, you cannot claim benefits today since our system indicates you no longer exist"

aside from all of that there's also the distinct possibility of sabotage - what if someone who had access to the data really didn't like you?? what sort of havok could they wreak on your life by amneding the data stored on you???

this may sound far fetched but its probably less so than you think, as this example may illustrate - i used to work at the head office for a company where credit checks were routinely performed on customers, so their computer systems had access to the experian credit checking databases

as i'm sure you're aware, whenever a credit check is performed on a person, this information is stored & becomes part of their credit history. multiple credit checks in a short period of time (particularly if the person fails the credit check: ie. they don't have the means to support the borrowing being requested) are a bad thing

so....it became a bit of a hobby with some of the office staff to while away a few hours each week performing repeated credit checks for massive amounts of cash against the credit records of any ex-lovers who'd dumped them - in effect destroying their credit rating & ensuring they'd never be able to borrow another penny. obviously it was eventually brought to light & the people involved got sacked, but by this point the damage was done - what if this happened with the records kept re: your ID card?? its not impossible

[/end rant]

anyway, i think its a rubbish idea

[malfunction]

I understand the civil liberties arguments[1], but am happy to ignore them.

[1]If you obey the law you have nothing to fear. In Nazi Germany if you obeyed the law you had nothing to fear. OK bombs and stuff, but you get the idea... Do you trust the governments law enforcement ideas? Have you read any speed camera threads?

I'm against them for exactly the same reason.

You may wish to qualify a given answer - for example, "I am for them, on the permise that the data is held securely and audited/ratified by a respected 3rd party such as RSA"

Seeing as the tech behind them has already been mentioned I'd like to raise a couple of points

A certificate granted to a domain or individual does little to tell YOU that you should trust the organisation or person that the certificate has been granted to. Nor that the certificate is indeed valid. It's a comfort measure for most - like having locks on your double glazed windows or dead locks on your external doors - perhaps TeePee can enlighten us as to how much longer it takes the average crook (or copper!) to get into a property with these extra levels of protection... Still makes me feel better than my old single glazing, etc but if someone *really* wanted to get in neither would stop them... It's stops the opportunist thief I suppose - anyone think there are any 'opportunist' or 'casual' terrorists out there? As has already been said fake ID will always be around - some good and some bad and unless there's a way to check them on-line it won't be hard to fake them (and even then it won't be impossible)... I personally wouldn't be happy that you could be truly happy that the person was who they say they are / the card says they are unless there was a database to back it up - with your photo and possibly your fingerprints and DNA in it... Otherwise how do they know it's really you? And who would be happy (for example) to have their DNA and fingerprints on file and have their photo taken yearly or every couple of years and have the ID card updated? That really is an invasion of privacy and open to abuse IMHO...

[Byatt]

I'm against them for exactly the same reason.



Seeing as the tech behind them has already been mentioned I'd like to raise a couple of points

A certificate granted to a domain or individual does little to tell YOU that you should trust the organisation or person that the certificate has been granted to. Nor that the certificate is indeed valid. It's a comfort measure for most - like having locks on your double glazed windows or dead locks on your external doors - perhaps TeePee can enlighten us as to how much longer it takes the average crook (or copper!) to get into a property with these extra levels of protection... Still makes me feel better than my old single glazing, etc but if someone *really* wanted to get in neither would stop them... It's stops the opportunist thief I suppose - anyone think there are any 'opportunist' or 'casual' terrorists out there? As has already been said fake ID will always be around - some good and some bad and unless there's a way to check them on-line it won't be hard to fake them (and even then it won't be impossible)... I personally wouldn't be happy that you could be truly happy that the person was who they say they are / the card says they are unless there was a database to back it up - with your photo and possibly your fingerprints and DNA in it... Otherwise how do they know it's really you? And who would be happy (for example) to have their DNA and fingerprints on file and have their photo taken yearly or every couple of years and have the ID card updated? That really is an invasion of privacy and open to abuse IMHO...

quoted for truth - spot on as to why I don't think it will be the terrorism combatting device blunkett touts it to be...there's an interesting parallel, I think, between the war on terror and the state of play in 1984 - where the constant state of war is used as an excuse for infringing upon people's rights and civil liberties...obviously not quite at the same level...yet.

[TeePee]

In the course of my work (rentacop) I have on several occasions had to gain access to houses worth £30M up, and fitted with many extra layers of security. On none of these occasions has every window been bolted and every deadbolt fastened, and so my job has been an easy task of looking for the open window. Of course, on the one occasion a theif did try to steal from one of my properties, he made it exactly 10 feet from the gates before learning exactly why these people pay my wages, and don't worry too much about fastening doors and windows.

But then, when it comes to opportunist or casual terrorists, what about the nutter that scaled the walls of Windsor Castle to get in to a party, or the lunatics who climbed Big Ben? With better ID checks could incidents like this be stopped?

[Blub2k]

Biometrics are not reliable enough, people say but your fingerprint is attached, *snip* not now.

[Rythmic]

TBH I highly doubt that a goverment could pull together the technology to handle this, with the current structure of public spending. Since they have to split the project into smaller chunks and send each tiny bit out for tender, you always end up with 6 different manufacturers kit, which won't work together. They then end up employing extra people to make it work together, the programming team (which is also often split into different groups) have to put in 3 times the work, because they haven't got a consistant platform. The project runs over budget, and over time, and ends up being unusable.

Look at the NHS.net if you want an example, we have doctors using hotmail to email around patient records instead of using it...

It won't stop terrorism - or even benefit fraud (the two main reasons) - how on earth can it? Finger print scanners can be fooled - and it suffers from the same problems as every other biometric system - if someone gets hold of your finger prints/DNA after it's been turned into digital form - you can't change it (unlike PINs and passwords...)

What the goverment really needs to do is start tying it's databases together - like housing/benefits - if theres over 5 people in a house claiming Income support, perhaps they should investigate.... Stuff like this will make much more difference.

[Saracen]

I'm fully in favour of ID cards ...... IF :-

1. The system is properly implemented
2. The database and system is properly secure
3. ONLY the appropriate use is made of the data
4. The system actually works to achieve the stated objectives
5. This isn't used as the thin end of the wedge.

Unfortunately, I'm not convinced on any of those grounds.

There are also civil liberties issues, and we need to strike a balance there. I don't want to be committing an offence by simply going out my front door, if I'm not carrying the card. Yet unless carrying is compulsory, I can't see how it can possibly be of much benefit in fighting many types of crime and especially in fighting terrorism. If you stop Mr Terrorist, and tell him he has to produce his ID card at a police station within 5 days, he's going to agree politely, and then ignore it. Ditto Mr Criminal.

If we aren't careful, we'll end up with a system that doesn't seriously inconvenience criminals, but does cause law-abiding people a nuisance - not to mention the whopping cost of properly implementing a system like this. And based on the success of government computing projects in the past, I'm in agreement with those that have already commented that it will be :-

- at least 5 times over budget
- 10 years late
- STILL not work properly.

There's also the danger that the government uses this to get a system in place that will be next-to-impossible to get rid of once we've got it. The 'thin end of the wedge' scenario. They'll introduce this as a light-weight scheme- no compulsion to carry, etc, and gradually fade in all sorts of increasingly onerous aspects. Firstly you implement a carefully limited, minimal impact system. THEN, you quietly increase the scope to get where you wanted to be in the first place. It'll be MUCH easier to get an oppressive scheme in that way that it would do announce up front what you really intended to do.

But the killer aspect is whether the card system itself, and especially the back-end data, is actually used for the purposes it is supposed to be used for, and ONLY those purposes, and is secure from unauthorised tampering, is kept accurate and up-to-date and is TOTALLY separated from commercial exploitation.

At the moment, I'm in the "want more info" camp, but I have to say I'm going to be hard to convince that the government are capable of implementing a scheme that will actually achieve the desired objectives and not pose unwarranted infringements on my privacy and civil liberties. I'm not going to be easy to convince.

[Skii]

I don't have a problem carrying them, but I don't think they will work. another hair-brained knee jerk scheme tbh. I STRONGLY object to paying for one - enough of my taxes are squandered, I fail to see why I should stump up any more.