Good Idea!

Of course it's a good idea having ID cards. Another good idea is border controls. It's not the idea that's offensive, it's the fact that the Government intend to manage this project at a huge cost to the taxpayer when they have already proven that they are incompetent where project management is concerned and even moreso where IT projects are concerned. There are also grave concerns about data security - another area where the Government has a less than glowing track-record. This Government continually prove themselves to be incompetent until it comes to awarding themselves payrises where it seems they are very effective.

I propose that all politicians beg us for forgiveness and offer themselves for ritual suicide which we can vote on by referendum.

In other news

It appears that 47% of the UK population are the sort of fucktards that don't read newspapers, don't watch (or listen) to the news and wouldn't understand it if it published their identity to the world.

They still have curtains though.

How about

How about them taking a survey of IT professionals and asking them the same questions.

I can guess what the answer would be.

ID cards vs police: a modest proposal

I hear in the news this lunchtime that Sir Ronnie Flanaghan says that the policing budget is insufficient to support the current number of police officers.

Police are a lot more use than ID cards.

The obvious solution is to bin the entire ID card idea and use the freed up money to fund the police properly. That's unlikely to need all if it, so use another 0.2% of to cover the Physics shortfall and the rest to improve science and engineering courses.

Would love to know why, indeed

I have a few plausible guesses to hand, but I would love to know _why_ the people who think it is a good idea do so.

Yes, they are largely uninformed, though that's scarcely surprising seeing as even the ministers promoting the scheme can only do so reading off an IPS script. But they must have some positive reason even if it is only "because Joan Ryan says so and she seems like an authority figure I can surrender my own judgment to."

Why, for probably atypical example, does AC @ 13:11 think, "Of course it's a good idea..." ? "Of course" implies s/he thinks his/her reasoning is obvious, but it is profoundly obscure to yours truly.

[Still awaiting a NO2ID icon for Reg comments.]

I'd be happy if...

... the government would actually use this idea to simplify things. You know, get rid of passport, driving license, birth certificate, tax records etc with one large database that had one fee attached to it.

Instead all they're doing is adding another layer of complexity which is entirely unrequired!

3% lost

If 50% are against, and 47% are for, then where are the other 3%? Surely if the figures were 53 - 47 then it would be scrapped. I can only imagine the information from the remaining 3% managed to become lost after a government minister accidently posted it through the front door of alquieda, apparently it was disgusied as a traditional british post box

Nope, No2ID

"Campaigners for No2ID said that with 25 per cent of people strongly opposed to ID cards the government could face the refusal of millions of people to carry such a card."

This will never ever happen. Even if 25 per cent of Britons would refuse to carry a card because the government orders them to, 0 point 000 something per cent will refuse to carry a card if it means being unable to buy beer, or get treated at hospital, or get a job.

If I sound like a broken record it's because I'm doing my best to compete with the Government, who sound less like a broken record and more like a ZX Spectrum during loading: a wall of continuous, irritating noise.

@Guy

Why, for probably atypical example, does AC @ 13:11 think, "Of course it's a good idea..." ? "Of course" implies s/he thinks his/her reasoning is obvious, but it is profoundly obscure to yours truly.

Without ID cards (or, forget the cards, just the ability to positively identify somebody from the details that they give) we will never have border controls, we will never know who is in our country and out of the people who are in our country, how many of them should be. It's not about ID Cards as such, but border controls are very important and you can't have adequate border controls without positive identification.

You may remember that a police force (can't remember which one) recently had in custody the number 1 most wanted paedophile but because of inadequate information at that time and the way the system currently works they let him go without realising who it was. If ID Cards were in force then this scenario would have a much smaller chance of occurring - if you can't prove who you are then you remain in custody until either you prove who you are and are released or prove who you are and are deported. It may not matter much to you but if this person continues to act on his paedophiliac tendencies would you like to be the one who tells their mother that ID Cards are a bad idea.

I stand by my statement that ID Cards are a good idea. I also stand by my statement that politicians should beg forgiveness for even considering that they are competent enough to implement them.

Apart from saying that any obvious reasons were profoundly obscure to you, you didn't actually give your objections to ID Cards. Apart from the obvious incompetence of the Government I have no objections to ID Cards in principle and would like to hear what your objections are Guy.

Everyone here is objecting to the cost of implementation and the data protection angle - I agree. But apart from that, what objection is there to having an ID card? Most of us carry them anyway - I never leave my house without my driving licence - what's the difference?

@Fiona

I didn't even notice until I read your post!

@ John Macintyre

Bzzzt!

I know of another Gordon Brown who strongly disagrees, so only 50% of the Gordon Browns I know support ID cards.

Apparently 49% is not a title, funny... stupid title rule - dump it

probably the same 49% that think our security forces are doing a good job, that if you encrypt data you're obviously a criminal and that shooting that Brazilian was totally justified and his own fault.

@AC

I'm pretty sure that under the law as it stands not identifying yourself to a police officer if asked to do so is an offence and you can be detained until such time as you are able to positively identify yourself (PACE Act I think), so there was really no need for that situation to have happened.

As for border control, there already exists an ID mechanism for that, it's called a passport and I can't see why an ID card would change the situation.

@Eponymous

"Am I surprised that the UK has such an enormous population of retards who think this is a good idea? "

Using my headline and then making this statement you seem to be saying that I'm a retard while at the same time making exactly the same point as I made. It looks like I'm at least in good company.

@Martin Gregorie

I read your comment & agreed so wholeheartedly I jumped straight to the bottom of the page to post a reply myself.

The money earmarked for the ID card scheme would be far, far better spent on practically anything else!

Re: Nope, No2ID

I'll refuse and if I cannot live here without such an ID I will stop living here. If I'm stopped and asked to show, I'll say no. If I'm forced or arrested for saying no, I will consider that an attempt at kidnapping.

I will require the ID of anyone asking my ID and I will require access to an independent device to verify their ID.

And then I'll refuse.

:-)

If I'm arrested I will fight.

If I'm subdued and placed in prison, I will no longer require a home or a job. When released I will be unable to GET a job and will still not have ID (I will destroy it). I will then be unable to live legally and will therefore live illegally until I am caught and put in prison again, where once again I will not have to have a job or ID.

I will not go quietly.

Is there a pattern emerging here...?

So, 50% of British people are against ID cards while 47% support them? (Not quite "equally split", is it?)

As I recall about 50% of Americans support Dubya, the War on Terror, the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, and for all I know the planned wars in Iran, Pakistan, etc., etc., etc.

And about 50% of Americans have not read one single book in the last year.

It looks as if about half of our populations share certain characteristics which can easily be imagined to go hand in hand.

The irony

While people bitch about having an ID card safely tucked in their wallet where nobody can read it, they'll happily drive around in a car that has number plates that can be read from a hundred metres away and looked up by anyone for a small fee at the motor vehicle licensing dept.

@Charles Manning

> While people bitch about having an ID card safely tucked in their wallet where nobody can read it, [number plates can still be read]

It's not an ID card, as such, which most people are objecting to - we already carry plenty of stuff which would identify us. It's the shifting, unfounded and rather silly reasons "why" we need one (AKA "lies") and the insidious purposes behind the accompanying ID & DNA database which causes the worry. Well it worries the crap out of me, anyway. The criminally poor record of just about *any* aspect of IT involving the government doesn't exactly add confidence either.

Irony is...

...someone who thinks ID Cards are a 'good idea' but posts anonymously.

Another Survey

1. £18bn+ for a ropey database with all your details on it & ID card to carry round.

2. £15bn to BT to replace all the copper phone lines with fibre and move the country into the 21st Century.

nice idea

@AC - 7th February 2008 14:41 "if you can't prove who you are then you remain in custody until either you prove who you are..."

Sounds like a nice place to live. I think this sort of thing pretty much went out with feudalism; it's called freedom. Perhaps you could try reading this: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=978-0415253888

I want an optional ID card for travel in the EU!

I don't want fingerprints, DNA, or retina information on my card (although if it's there, I don't want it stored in a central database). I want something with traditional security measures that serves the same purpose as a passport within the EU. Many EU countries dictate that you must carry your passport or passport equivalent with you at all times, which is of course a ridiculous requirement for us manly men who don't carry handbags or bum bags. I want a card that will fit in my wallet along with bank cards, health cards and travel tickets.

Easy

Politicians lie all the time. Politicians manipulate statistics all the time. Politicians have certain areas of their (publicly paid-for) lives we are not allowed to view. Politicians lose our data frequently. Politicians lie all the time again.

Q: Who want us to have ID Cards?

A: Politicians.

Case closed.

Re: Mark

That's how I'd like it work, and it may work for you. But I see my own future as an ID refusenik as follows: lose my job (my current job is pretty secure, but there are no jobs for life anymore), be forced to go and live with my parents, disappoint not only them but a large proportion of my own self, probably eventually give in, having achieved absolutely nothing. Some martyrdom. The movie-scene image of the police demanding "Ihre Papiere bitte" will probably never happen, as I'm white, very middle-class and not inclined to obvious criminal acts. What am I going to do when the law gets passed? March into a police station and demand to be arrested? I can see their faces already.

You might remember various stories about elderly pensioners who refused to pay council tax and were jailed - for about a week. Their martyrdom completely failed to influence anything except sales of local papers, and I believe that they all paid up in the end - at least, I don't think any of them are still in jail. Any opposition to the ID card will be on about the same scale, only we'll have even less credibility. Old lady thrown in for not paying obviously unjust tax = cool. Tech geek thrown in for refusing to carry an ID card, because of privacy and security arguments none of the other lags understand = fail.

In one of the council tax cases I distinctly remember an old lady's daughter paying the tax herself, without her mother's consent, to get her released. The mother was livid. If I was her, I would have been rewriting my will. It illustrates that martyrdom can only occur when the majority are already behind the cause you're being martyred for. If you martyr yourself for an unpopular cause, you don't inspire people to join the movement, you're just considered a crank. Martyrdom does result in changing public opinion; changing public opinion results in martyrom.

whoops

"does not", obviously.

@Sid

...someone who thinks ID Cards are a 'good idea' but posts anonymously.

Posting from work can be hazardous to your career especially when I work for the company who will more than likely get the admin contract for the ID Cards. Deal with it.

Get off my case - I've still not had an answer to why ID Cards are a bad idea if you ignore the cost and the fact that the Government will be managing another IT project that is certain to fail. In principle though, can anyone give me a reason why ID Cards are a bad idea?

Put up or shut up.

@Neally

fine, you put up with an ID card. Don't use that as a reason for ME to have it.

@Spleen

Fine but you're still playing their rules.

If this goes ahead, I will stop playing their rules. I discard them utterly. I have no dependendants and I refuse. I'm not doing it to make a change for others, I'm doing it for me. If nothing else changes, I will still refuse and will still disobey any law since disobeying this one element makes me lawless. I will act no longer within it.

I will die one day so in a sense anything I do will end with no change to the universe. The only change I can enable is the change in me.

@Anonymous Coward

As you are an IT worker (allegedly) ... do your own homework! Educate yourself by going to the NoToID website. Don't expect people who have already armed themselves with knowledge to fill your gaps.

I'll go this far, however, as a beginning to your path of discovery by listing some reasons why ID cards are bad ...

Treblinka

Mauthausen

Auschwitz

Majdanek

Dachau ...

and if you think an ultra-right wing government is not yet available to use the information on your ID card just imagine what the electorate can vote in when the Moslems REALLY piss them off!