ID cards in the UK

easysat

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There's a lot of tosh being talked about ID cards by the ignorant lawyers and public relation consultants who now largely make up the House of Commons. If the likes of Canal+, Viaccess, Nagravision have never managed to keep their satellite viewing cards secure for more than three or four years, why does the government think it will be able to issue an smart ID card that will last 10 years. Every criminal gang in the world (not to mention your average Norwegian teenage hacker) will be trying to find a way into the cards. I bet the government will need to reissue the ID cards every three years or so if they really want to keep the system secure.
 

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Just as in America terrorism is being used as an accuse to further agendas which ultimately would have George Orwell spinning in his grave. In the US the 911 attacks are being used as an excuse (besides Iraq) domestically to crack down on illegial emigrants from Mexico. None of the highjackers were Mexican and none of them were in the country illegially. In fact 2 of them were granted visas 2 months AFTER the attacks.
Has anyone asked how an British citizen being forced to carry an ID twarts potential terror attacks?
 

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Yep, we finally did get 1984, but 20 years later!
 

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Something I saw on text pages earlier this evening.

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered, my life is my own, I am a free man! (From "The Prisoner", 1960's TV series).

Redmund
 

rolfw

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I actually don't disagree with the principle of an ID card, most of us already carry driving licenses and have passports, I do however have a problem with their use of technology which at the present time appears to be on the flakey side.

The security cards I'm sure can be made to resist hacking attempts, pretty much any progress in the TV decryption field is not made by attacking the card, rather by leaks from the provider or commercial card files.

People can forge passports and driving licenses, but it doesn't make them useless and the copies are not always the best.

Of course it won't stop terrorism, but it may help in the fight against it, to do that though, it needs to be mandatory to carry them, if you aint got one, then you you shouldn't be here or need to provide a bloody good reason why.

The government (and other agencies) approximate that there are upwards of half a million people in this country who have no right to be here and a small yet significant minority of them are probably members of foreign crime or terrorist organisations.

There is also a small but disruptive itinerant population who may be more easily tracked, forced to pay road tax and insurance, were they forced to carry ID cards, no id card, vehicle impounded.

The civil liberty argument has been pushed in just about every aspect of modern life and has led to a breakdown in law and order, with every yob, hooligan and petty thief "knowing their rights" and the authorities being powerless to stem the tide of lawlessness due to endless beaurocracy, caused by these rights.

Perhaps a little less civil liberty and a a little more justice, a little more control and a little less libralism is needed to right the balance.
 

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Hang 'em High Rolf....

The idea of ID cards was originally for the purpose of a one stop verification of the person carrying it, nothing more. This would adequately be covered by all UK citizens keeping a valid passport either on them, or available for viewing in a couple of hours notice. Even foreigners travelling or working in the UK could be catered for , as long as they did the same.

The ID card however is unique to UK citizens if brought in. No other country will have a similar card, that is compatible with what is planned. So it will automatically discriminate the Italian on holiday over here, the Pole that has left their passport in the hotel room, or the Czech that got pickpocketed yesterday in London, when stopped by the Old Bill.

Now I hear all the costs required to get this off the ground are going to be passed back to the carrier, through the charges made by the bank when using this form of ID as proof before a transaction, some estimates are in the region of £350 startup, and £120 annual fee.
For that most could get the same verification by carrying their Sky card in the back pocket.
 

rolfw

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I can understand why they want to do something better than what is available elsewhere and why not, if it carries more information, in a properly encrypted way, then it can properly validate someone's identity.

Your middle paragraph is specious, our card will only be unique in the range of information contained, not in the card itself, how many holidaying Italians, Poles or Czechs are today stopped by the old bill, are they suddenly going to blitz every "foreign" looking person, of course they are not, just another red herring.

The cost factor is also speculative and something nobody really knows for sure, many of the objections are not about cost anyway, they are about so called civil liberties and it really dismays me that anyone arguing the advantages of an identity card is portrayed as a hardline authoritarian or even fascist.
 

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Hooray for Rolf :)
I think that is just about the same fine line that I tread. A reasoned response.

Perhaps a way forward for the government is to allow those who want to go down the biometric ID card route to do so and the rest send them to the vets and have a doggie chip implanted. Or have I been watching too many films???

I firmly believe that if people have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear. Indeed ID cards may benefit them in the long term. Unfortunately this country has it's fair share of well intentioned people who are misguided by thinking that the government doesn't know anything about them now and therefore shouldn't in the future. With air flights for example they run each flight manifest through a list of wanted and undesireables before you even board a plane. It is even the same taking the speed cat to the Isle of Man. Notice how there is very little said about Email monitoring these days, that is because it is happening whether you like it or not. Go to London and they can tell when how and where you have been if they want. The last three words being the crux. If they want, so if you are in the frame i.e. dodgy then sorry you deserve to be tracked and monitored and hopefully kicked out of the country.
 

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As a woolly liberal (no capital L) I find myself extremely uneasy with the idea of ID cards. It's all very well saying that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear but it's the potential for the card to be misused that terrifies me.

It's not revolution or uprising in this country we have to fear but the slow, steady erosion of our liberties and freedom. This government might not misuse the card but no-one can stop a future one from changing its mind.

This country had identity cards during the last war. They were soon disposed of once peace was established. Why? Because they smacked too much of what we had fought for 7 years to defeat.

No, sorry. It's a step too far.

PaulR
 

rolfw

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Have to say that the potential for misuse is my main fear also, as you say, may not be this goverment, or even the next two or three. Still sitting on the fence on that one. :)
 

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PaulR said:
It's not revolution or uprising in this country we have to fear but the slow, steady erosion of our liberties and freedom.

You could look at it like that but it is exactly the opposite. Your freedom to fly to America will be stopped if we do not adopt this sort of technology in our passports, so are you saying they can have it for your passport but not for an ID card to be carried in this country?

My bank recently demand a passport from me to transfer my money from my account to pay my credit card bill when it was unusually over £1000 (which only happened recently 'cos of our flight tickets) and I do not want to carry that around for the rest of my life but an id card would have been just the ticket.
 

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toppervte33h said:
My bank recently demand a passport from me to transfer my money from my account to pay my credit card bill when it was unusually over £1000 (which only happened recently 'cos of our flight tickets) and I do not want to carry that around for the rest of my life but an id card would have been just the ticket.

Im unsure how the idea of carrying a passport for the one occasion it was required , justifies the need to have another form of ID. I carry my driving license around (true it does not have a photograph of me on it) , but that coupled with a switch card and some other bits and bobs has rarely every caused problems at any venue. Even the police seem to be happy to give me the nod on those alone.

Is it simply the convenience of having something thats credit card sized to tell all about you, removing the paper in the pocket ?I dont think so, otherwise credit card passports would have been the best solution.
 

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i disagree with Rolf, above, there's no hacker proof system.

Underlying the vulnerable computer protocols are the acutal mathematics of encryption (number theory), themselves open to attack, and I'm sure various people are trying hard!
 

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Never said that there was a hacker proof system, but the modern cards are pretty much impossible to read in their entirety and that is not a mathematical problem but a design intention. To do it successfully, you would need to have access to both sides of the equipment and probably inside information as the algorithms used.

As I said earlier, they can already make forgeries of passports, but it doesn't invalidate them as a control tool, the forgeries are often detected.

To not do something on the premise that someone might possibly be able to hack it eventually is bordering on the ridiculous.
 

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Channel Hopper said:
I carry my driving license around (true it does not have a photograph of me on it) , but that coupled with a switch card and some other bits and bobs has rarely every caused problems at any venue. .

Exactly isn't it a bit inconvenient carrying around a driving licence switch card and a suitcase of bits and bobs when one simple ID card will suffice.
My recent example was the tip of the iceberg, believe me as the banks continue their 'we're not responsible campaign' the £1000 will drop to £500 then some more and they will be demanding more secure ID (in the form of passports) before they'll cough up the dough. People are currently horrified by chip and pin but now that the retailer has to carry the can for fraudulent transactions before too many go out of business your high street retailers will be asking for such ID as well.
Chip and pin is actually in many analysts opinions and my own is less secure than the mag stripe so it will not be long before the criminal gangs latch onto the insecurites of the system.
Believe me I am not exactly happy about ID cards but it will have to happen to cut out retail fraud.
Look we obviously not going to agree but in time I think it will happen regardless of whether people want it or not
 

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I dont think we are disagreeing on anything , just coming from different points of view (was this the 5 minute or full half hour ?).

The idea of introducing yet another (supposedly) better system when the real criminal element is already bypassing the idea of money transactions at floor level suggests the ID card is already doomed.
If its possible for any authority such as a bank, or government authority to bring up a signature on their screen to prove you are the one on the other side of the counter, it doesnt take much more effort for them to add a recent photo of the account holder on the same screen, and then roll out the technology to the high street shops.
 

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Channel Hopper said:
If its possible for any authority such as a bank, or government authority to bring up a signature on their screen to prove you are the one on the other side of the counter, it doesnt take much more effort for them to add a recent photo of the account holder on the same screen, and then roll out the technology to the high street shops.
I absolutely agree there CH 100% However I have had an RBS Highline card with my photo on it and a photograph of my signature and have done for at least 10 years but even the RBS wouldn't accept that as proof of identity!!!!!! That is how paranoid businesses and society has become and we need to address this problem in a way that is beneficial to all aspects of society. If that involves a few noses out of joint then so be it better that than the crimbos taking over. or is it too late for that!!!!
 

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Unless the crimbos have already got into the system and can upload identity photos at will (or more sinister, shapeshift their appearance to fit the photo on the screen) then no, I dont think its too late for a system like that for identifying the average punter in the street.

Real big criminals have already left the high street to the lower forms of pondlife, and are happily bartering on products and resources at the levels where paper cash is non existent, and the need to appear in person to sign anything is not a trading requirement.
Stocks / shares/ property, etc. ,actually pretty much like your average banking corporation. :D
 

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Or more worringly second hand commercial aircraft parts which make more profit than large scale drug dealing these days.


L.
 

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Without ID cards, if you have enough cash, you can track/monitor almost anyone.

See it done, almost every week - most tools are now available on the Internet to anyone willing to pay. A lot of stuff is free!

Just another thing to carry around - my pockets are already being ruined by the amount of junk you need to carry about.

Why can't they build it all into one smart card that knows all you credit card companies, warehouse passes, ID cards etc?

I carry electronic passed for doors, job ID cards, insurance cards, credit cards, store access passes, airline cards......

:-doh!
 
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