Well today, a government that's already done so much to take away our hard won rights to freedom and democracy (removing right to trial by jury, detention without charge etc. etc.) will be debating the "Flagship" £18billion (figures by highly respected London School of Economics) I.D. card bill for it's second reading.

The Liberal Democrats have announced their opposition as have the Conservatives.

A few interesting points:

http://www.no2id.net/IDSchemes/faq.php



Cheers,
James

[Edited on 28/6/05 by James]

Just read this from The Independent...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=650197



You may not want to read it all but atleast scroll to the bottom and look at the list of failed/over budget government IT projects.

Check out this little doozey:

"Benefits Payment Card. Designed to link all 19,000 UK post offices and the DSS benefits system. With costs at £1bn, the project was suspended in 1999. Planning/co-ordination and supplier problems"

And better still:
"* NHS national programme for (NpfIT) System to link hospitals and GPs' surgeries. Likely to cost £30bn, five times the original price. Training staff accounts for almost all overspend."


What would you say if your builder gave you a bill five times the original quote?!



Cheers,
James


EDIT: Add actual link in!

[Edited on 28/6/05 by James]

You have hit the nail on the head James. We are allowing ourselves to be herded along towards no freedom. The people who are for this will say "ifyou have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" but do you want all your details availble to others. When a 14 year old boy from London can hack into the USA FBI, Security services, how long do you think it will take someone to hack into our systems. The calim that it is to stop benefit fraud is not going to happen, the people who commit fraud will find a way round it quicker than the system will be able to react.
I know many who think it is a good idea up to the point where the cost comes into it. They are talking of £35-90 but the experts who know the goverment understate the true costs of any project you could care to mention, are talking £200 minimum. There is enough information about everyone of us now but they want more for no good reason.

I've been thinking about the hacking side of it myself recently.

Can you imagine the possibilities of what an enterprising hacker could do with that data when it comes to selling it so marketing companies etc. etc.

The UK ID database- the mecca of hackers world wide!

Having said that- I read in The Independent recently that the govenment is considering selling the data to marketing companies anyway (as councils can currently do with the electoral role!). Just imagine the junk mail targeting abilities of a company with that sort of info!
By selling it they can of course tell us it won't cost as much as we suspect because the cost will be off-set by selling!


As for benefit fraud: false identity is a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost of benefit fraud. Most fraud is commited by underquoting earnings etc. so that people already entitled just get more money.
Benefit fraud currently costs us £2 Billion. False identity is just £50million of that. Rather less than the £18Billion estimated cost of the I.D. card scheme!

Cheers,
James

This government is made up of control freaks - every bit of legislation seems to impose more and more rules - a lot of which seem to involve US spending money so that THEY can run our lives.

DJ

I'd say that's the very definition of "government", David

A storm is brewing, the Blairite faction within the cabinet underestmated just how strong the feeling is on this issue, in fact it is a tax on breathing ---- it is quite noticable that Gordon Brown is about the only cabinet minister that hasn't spoken on iD cards. The smart money is it is the single issue that will bring Blair down.

It forms a pattern when viewed together with the forced deportation of genuine Zimbabwian refugees back to the horror of the Mugabe campaign of terror. Strange in view of the fact we give permanent sancturary to gangs of afgan terrorists, west african fraudsters and east european mobsters.
I sometimes think that forces within the goverment and civil service trying to bring it down by sabotage from within. How else can such looney policies be explained.


[Edited on 28/6/05 by britishtrident]

[Edited on 28/6/05 by britishtrident]

Sorry David, but where you wrote 'us' in capitals I initially mis read it as U.S. !

oh dear.

Ned.

Seeing as there's a good chance either IBM, EDS or another big American corporation will get the project, presumably most of the £18Billion *will* be going to the US!


Ah well, they need a bit more money out there. I mean, come on, they've got a "War on Terror" to fund!

Cheers,
James

Was sort of surprised to see this thread take an anti-Yank slant, because I perceived the issue as coming from the EU. National IDs, etc., are failing here (for now). We've all got the same basic problem

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/06/09.htm

Pete

I didn't notice any anti-yank sentiment!

EDS were mentioned as they have a superb UK track record for totally cocking-up government projects while exceeding their budgets by 500%.

I'd guess that all governments are the same - tax as much as they can, control as much as they can.



David

[Edited on 28/6/05 by David Jenkins]

Pete,

don't get me wrong, i didn't mean that in the small minded fashion that it came across, moreso just a funny coincidence

bottom line imho is whatever is or isn't implemented the crooks will always find a way around it somehow, regardless. I believe it may catch some/slow down the fraud/identity theft rate initially while they find ways to bypass or corrupt the system, but in the long run I fail to see how it can be anything other than a waste of public money. best case scenario a high percentage of people have a passport or driving license, you already have to pay for both, so why not make one of them ie passport compulsory and add biometrics to it?

you can already buy a fake passport i hear you say? what makes anyone think that it'll be any different with id cards a year after they've been implemented at a cost of £how much/unknown

Ned.

No offense taken, gents. People here (edit: in the US) are suspicious of Mr. Bush and the multi-nationals. My own impression of Bush is that he's a sincere fellow, but even I get some bad vibes when I read about Halliburton supplying soup to nuts to the military. Weren't they an oil service company??

In any event, the foxes are in charge of the henhouse It's always been that way, but the foxes seem particularly well-fed these days.

[Edited on 28/6/05 by pbura]

seems like there is sooooooooo much oposition to these cards that they will forget the idea.
it reminds me of comunist russia etc where you were watched all the time,anything you said could be turned against you and the ruling classes will be the only ones in cars,the rest will work the feilds or assemble tractors in blue boiler suits and live in grey concrete blocks where the doors are locked at 8pm
roll on the revolution

John, it doesnt REMIND me of communist Russia...this IS Communism here and now...but the electorate obviously didn't realise it when they voted Blair back in..
The EU....is just another 'communist Russia' just geographicaly moved.......As far as I can see, there is no democracy there, just 'do what you are told'.....and don't ask questions!

IMHO......of course!......

Fozzie

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fozzie
John, it doesnt REMIND me of communist Russia...this IS Communism here and now...but the electorate obviously didn't realise it when they voted Blair back in..
The EU....is just another 'communist Russia' just geographicaly moved.......As far as I can see, there is no democracy there, just 'do what you are told'.....and don't ask questions!

IMHO......of course!......

Fozzie

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by timf

---

beware the knock on the door,WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE COMRADE

but then labour have always been the red party

Even if UK central goverment dosen't introduce idenity cards the UK local authorities are going to. I am (or was I am probably black listed now) on a citizens panel and was given given a questionaire on the subject it began that my local council were going to introduce citizen cards for access to local services -- note "are" not "considering" or "evaluating" but ARE. At no point did the questionaire ask if I had any objections to this.
The questionaire then went on to ask details of what credit or idenity cards already have and use -- needless to say I considered this a gross intrusion of privacy and the security of my personal details so I told them where to get off.

However I have no objections to the idea of a driving licence as means of idenity proof even for people who don't drive -- ie a licence valid for a push bike only.



[Edited on 28/6/05 by britishtrident]

[Edited on 28/6/05 by britishtrident]

The compulsion of an ID card WILL increase fraud and identity theft!

Let's just assume we have an ID card for now!
What is it for?
As proof of who we are obviously!
How does it prove who we are?
By containing all relevant information to prove who we are (address, name, age, N.I. number, NHS number, etc).
How is the information going to be collected or checked?
By a swipe system similar to credit cards presumably.
How are credit card details stolen?
Usually by some corrupt sales assistant running them across a card reader or by an unknown piggyback card reader as is currently going on at cash point machines, not to mention theft or loss of card.

ID theft and credit card fraud are the fastest growing crime of the moment. It doesn't take a genious to realise that the more information any one system contains, the greater the danger of loss or corruption that system faces.
The more information someone has about you the easier it is to clone your ID for whatever reason (crime or terrorism).

And this is going to protect us?


Terry

I've just been reading through the http://www.No2ID.net site and saw this;

quote:

---

Clause 2 (6) requires that every individual must be given a unique number, to be known as the National Identity Registration Number (NIRN). This number will become the “key” for government and private sector organisations to access information on the register and to share that information.

---

I totally agree Terry and Jamie!
If we, a cross section of the populous, can see ahead to the dangers of this 'indexing' of the individual, why can't those people in parliament who are representing 'us' see it too, how on earth has this situation ever been allowed to get this far?
Blair says this ID thing isn't 'if', but, when!
Which I take to mean, that if we do kick up, he will not take any notice, he is going to do it!

(only my personal view of course)

Fozzie

on the news today some nob from ministry of dis-information said "the americans want /demand these cards/passports" an american said that wasnt true,i have no plans to travel to the USA again,why should i need one?
seings as most peeps in this country are in a similar situation whats the point?
it was noted that some supermarkets that use "chips" on sales tags are tracking said tags to see where customers live/go.
so they in theory could watch your every move

quote:

---

Originally posted by theconrodkid
on the news today some nob from ministry of dis-information said "the americans want /demand these cards/passports" an american said that wasnt true,i have no plans to travel to the USA again,why should i need one?
seings as most peeps in this country are in a similar situation whats the point?
it was noted that some supermarkets that use "chips" on sales tags are tracking said tags to see where customers live/go.
so they in theory could watch your every move

---

Some of you may care to view this thread from a couple of years ago.

Look down to my posting.

http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=7523

The all-seeing eye has been planned and in development for some time. It only gets announced after an election.


Cheers,

Neil.

Neil I remember that now....
It turned out to be so true didn't it?
This government does everything by 'the back door' that nobody knows that it has happend until it is too late. In my opinion, that was one reason he demolished the house of lords, because they wouldn't have allowed Blair to even contemplate a zillionth of the cr*p he has pushed through. He told the public it was because the lords was outdated......no....it was so that he could do exactly what he wanted!
(my personal opinion of course....as ever)
Fozzie

A very interesting (and diverse!) thread ! certainly raised a few points about dodgy black boxes with unknown functions appearing in our cars... There is a certain feeling of unease about broadcasting personal info / location in that way,or in any way (ID cards). Another thing is that you cant actually see the data it contains, therefore it could contain anything/everything about you without you knowing.

For example!; you could walk into a shop, buy a pizza and some alcohol - the cashier 'checks' your 'ID' - (has to scan it ,say,as thats how the system works) and then it updates some government database with;

Subject #124689s girlfriend (#824761) has left him.

scary

quote:

---

Originally posted by JamieG
A very interesting (and diverse!) thread ! certainly raised a few points about dodgy black boxes with unknown functions appearing in our cars...
snip

scary

---

Someone on this forum mentioned smart chips in an ID card that could be read at a distance...
...he recommended microwaving the card for a few seconds!

DJ

Bliar said that the public do support ID cards - another of his lies. I am the public, and I do not support ID cards.

It's more freedom taken away from us, in the name of protecting us. What from?

terrorism and ourselves andy, don't you remember?

When I brought up this subject before quite a lot of people came out in favour!

http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=25018&page=2


I'll just point out that the bill passed it's 2nd reading last night by a majority of just 31!

To those of you who (in May) voted Labour in the 16 constituencies that would have stopped it last night- shame on you!

Still, plenty of time for it to be stopped though! Come on The Lords, do your bit!

Cheers,
James

Yup James lets hope so!
Remember though, he got rid of a lot of the 'Lords' to plant his own toadies.......
IMO of course

Fozzie

dont forget

even if the lords reject it

he will do what he has done previously

and use the ammendment that allows them ratify something without lords agreement

What frightens me is if this is all a smoke screen to push other bills through.
Imagine the relief that will be expressed when they declare that these proposals are not going through, so they will push these minor bills instead. Noone knows what they are really about, but they look inocuous so can't be as bad!
Been done before! Remember the Poll tax?
All the rioting and protests did was get it renamed.

Terry
aka "grumpy old man"

quote:

---

Originally posted by ned
terrorism and ourselves andy, don't you remember?

---

terrorist???who let them in,knowing they were terrorists and who lets them stay to promote terrorism while we pay for them
sorry not allowed to say that as it may hurt their feelings (their victims dont matter tho)

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fozzie
I totally agree Terry and Jamie!
If we, a cross section of the populous, can see ahead to the dangers of this 'indexing' of the individual, why can't those people in parliament who are representing 'us' see it too, how on earth has this situation ever been allowed to get this far?
Blair says this ID thing isn't 'if', but, when!
Which I take to mean, that if we do kick up, he will not take any notice, he is going to do it!

(only my personal view of course)

Fozzie

---

Here's an interesting slant on Biometric ID cards...

The government say that private companies will not be able to chack cards against the national database and will not be equiped with biometric scanning devices.

So what's the point ? I produce a card at my bank which they can't read and even if they could they can't compare it to my iris scan or fingerprint anyway. It's just a useless peice of plastic and an excuse to get what they really want - a national database. I note they have even excluded it from the data protection act !

I have yet to hear a single convincing argument for ID cards - if you know of one please tell me !

Quite amusing that they are trying to sell them now as preventing id theft when 90% of ID theft is 'card holder not present'... how does that work then ?

Also like the way they tried the 'The Americans insist on it' angle, ... err no actually they only require a machine readable photo, no iris scan and no fingerprint......

I could go on but I'm ranting now

Off to set up a poll - maybe we can forward the results to our respective MPs (although mine now refuses to talk to me because i asked awkward questions he couldn't answer!)

Reliability is a big issue just look at the nightmare car security systems cause when they go wrong --- just ask any Fiat owner who has either not be given his red master key by the previous owner or the master key has lost its memory -- a Fiat dealler will charge a 1200 pound bill for parts alone to sort it out.

[Edited on 30/6/05 by britishtrident]