National ID cards - good idea?

[tonyh29]

the title of this thread is good idea ? Again you want to bring in anti-Labour bias into the debate.

not at all ..when 60 % drops to 20% in a few short years you have to ask why

What happened in that timescale to make 40% of the people change their mind ..

hence the ? at the end of my post

so go on take a stab at why 40% have changed their mind .................

or should I word it differntly for you ......what would colour tie was Cameron wearing on the day of the poll and what would the tories have done differently on a policy that isn't of their making to make 40% of people change their mind

[Awol]

As posts about the national DNA Database have been going in this thread as well as ID card issues I thought I'd add this on the subject by a former colleague of mine, now a solicitor.

Question: Should it be allowed?

The answer is an emphatic NO. for two reasons. The reason advanced is insufficiently compelling to justify retention and the government has failed to satisfy the requirements for basic security of information it retains.

Once the database is sufficiently probative, the Treasury will be unable to resist the 'solid tug of money' offered by the private sector for the relase of such information.

DVLA will release your details to anyone who asks for your address disclosed by your car number plate despite the Data Protection Act. The Green Form dropped through your door to record eligible voters within your household continues to ask ever more intrusive questions which is sold at a profit by the Local Authority entrusted with that information although you may opt out of having it placed on the public register as an ineffective sop to privacy following a court case four years ago.

Personal data is highly marketable and highly profitable and you can bet your life that it will be regarded by the Treasury as an income-stream!

It will be the Treasury view that will prevail against any argument advanced by Ministers for non-disclosure. Even if separate legislation is introduced to allay public fears you can count on it being so riddled with exceptions, exemptions, provisos and qualifications as to make any statutory protection absolutely meaningless!

The government simply is not your friend, it does not have the interest of the individual at heart and it will sell your soul for a profit!

Your personal information like your signature is yours and it may not, in the absence of legislation to the contrary, be demanded in violation of Article 8 and any public authority that demands it contrary to that provision breaches Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 which allows the individual a judicial remedy under section 8 of the 1998 Act.

Some good points there I thought and also applicable to the ID card debate...

[blandy]

The point about " do they work?" (in the Military context) is a good one. In addition to Awol's answer, it's worth noting that they work alongside guards, fences, and so on. On their own they are not anything particular. They're just a credit card document that gives blood group, photo rank, etc. (or they did when I was in the military). They're not biometric, the "checking" is just via a photo.

They are essentially "access control" documents in the main, policed by (often armed) guards. They allow specialised "employees" to perform a specialist role.

Where I work now, in a very secure area, again under MoD rules, I also need a pass, Mod security vetting clearance and so on, to gain access to the Hangar.

That's all fine, and part of the job and part of a sensible way of operating when working under Classified conditions. Soldiers Sailors and Airmen, people working on MoD Classified projects are part of a "machine" to get the job done.

I'm not sure that's the kind of thing I'd like to see in civilian life, generally, just to go about our daily business. We're, as ordinary people, not a cog in the wheel of the state, the state is there for us, not us for them.

[AshVilla]

just another way for the government to get money out of us lets face it they need the money to pay for their expensive kitchens

[snowychap]

just another way for the government to get money out of us lets face it they need the money to pay for their expensive kitchens

I'm not sure there'll be much left over.

[Gringo]

Airport workers' ID card 'insult'

Union leaders representing airport workers are to meet Home Office officials to express their concern at being among the first to have ID cards.

Steve Turner of the Unite union will say that his members oppose the plan.

Mr Turner says staff are already extensively vetted before being given airside passes.

The Home Office says that recording the fingerprints of staff will speed up the checking process and help maintain public confidence in airport security.

Unite's airport workers officer Steve Turner says it is wrong that his members should face a £30 charge for an identity card before they can apply for an airside pass.

"It is the thin end of the wedge," he said.

"We are not opposed to improved security, but we see no measure in the identity cards that will improve security. People are insulted over this. What does it say about aviation workers that they have been chosen to pilot this scheme?"

Civil liberties campaign group Liberty said there was no reason to bring in a new kind of card.

"From spies to schoolteachers, there are so many of us who need both prior vetting and security passes, so why target airport workers as ID card guinea pigs? There is no reason why all of our sensitive details need to be held in one place", Liberty policy director Gareth Crossman said.

[Gringo]

More sci-fi ranting from the yoghurt knitting liberals over at the Times

Beware: big brother has got you fingered

This column is utterly pointless. I'll say it now to save you the trouble later. It won't make a blind bit of difference to what Britain is becoming - a society in which ordinary citizens have no rights of privacy. Fifty years from now you won't be able to buy so much as a packet of condoms without producing a biometric ID card, linked to a government computer that logs (“for your own good”) how much nookie you're getting - and probably where, when, how and with whom.

But I'm going to write it anyway, because as far as I'm aware it's not yet forbidden to object to the imposition of sinister surveillance - though that will probably be only a matter of time. Besides, it's not good for my health to walk round with my blood boiling and steam coming out of my ears.

So here goes. Is it not astonishing, horrifying and, worst of all, deeply un-British that, when Heathrow Terminal 5 opens for business next week, every one of its passengers will be compulsorily fingerprinted? Yes, even if you are merely flying from London to Manchester, you will be required to place four little pinkies on an electronic pad, just as if you had been charged with robbery with violence. You will also be photographed. And that's just at check-in. When you reach the departure gate, the whole process will happen again.

Let's not even consider how much extra queueing this will involve. Just ask yourself by what right British Airways (which has exclusive use of Terminal 5) and BAA, which runs Heathrow, can demand your fingerprints - even if they are transporting you to another British city.

And let's get one thing clear. This is very much their doing. It's nothing to do with the police, the security services or the Home Office. For once, it seems, this isn't more government meddling in our lives. We are assured of that. Indeed, BAA has issued a statement promising that all fingerprints and photographs of passengers will be “destroyed after 24 hours” and not passed to the police or anyone else. Whether you choose to believe that is up to you. My view is that the security services will find the prospect of obtaining four million sets of fingerprints each year far too mouthwatering to pass up. After all, they even want to trawl the Oyster card database now for details of Londoners' travel movements.

So what excuse do these private organisations have for demanding such intrusive personal details from us? As far as I can see, the excuse is their own embarrassing design incompetence. Most airport terminals keep domestic and international passengers separated. Terminal 5 apparently won't. So, BAA tells us, it will be theoretically possible for a foreign villain or illegal immigrant to fly in, claim to be in transit to another country and thus avoid going through passport control, swap boarding passes with an accomplice booked on a domestic flight, and alight at another UK airport without going through a border check.

Call me sceptical, but that tangled scenario strikes me as a nonsense. If the issue is simply that of incoming passengers slipping into the country unnoticed, let all foreign visitors be checked - even fingerprinted - when they step off the plane, whether they are in transit or not. After all, that's what the Americans do to us. It's not a very polite way to welcome visitors, but it's a lot more acceptable than giving private companies the right to fingerprint British citizens, especially when they are only travelling round their own country.

But in that last sentence lies the nub of the matter. We didn't grant BAA any such “right”. Nobody debated this issue. Nobody voted on it. Nobody passed a law. Probably, like me, you weren't even aware that it would happen until last week. Maybe you weren't even aware until now. Yet because of BAA's stranglehold on the major British airports, it will now be very difficult to avoid having your fingerprints taken every time you travel by air.

And this will, of course, be the thin end of the wedge. What happens next week at Terminal 5 will soon be repeated at Terminal 1, where domestic and international passengers also mingle. And what happens at Heathrow will soon happen at other British airports. There are already plans to do the same at Gatwick and Manchester.

The hassle and cost will be unimaginable. The potential for misuse of the data is horrible to contemplate. And there's no guarantee that the technology is up to the job anyway. Matching fingerprints in “real time” (ie, the time it takes passengers to walk from check-in to departure gate) is, experts say, notoriously difficult.

No, this is just a pretext to strip yet more privacy away from ordinary people. Where will it end? Will DNA samples soon be demanded from all who use airports? Will your fingerprints be required if you pay by credit card in shops or restaurants? The logic is no less far-fetched than what BAA is about to impose at Terminal 5.

Perhaps, though, you feel that we should be very proud. After all, it's another first for Britain! In no other country are domestic passengers fingerprinted before they can travel. The next time our politicians start to lecture the Chinese on human rights (not that they have the guts to do that very often), this will be another brick that can be hurled back at our glasshouse. “Never mind about us,” they will say. “When are you going to let your own citizens travel freely within Britain without fingerprinting and photographing them?”

And there will be no answer to that. Of course, it will be declared - as always - that “the innocent have nothing to fear”. That's true, in theory. But are you happy to trust the people who run the airline industry with your fingerprints? As thousands of angry passengers will attest, you can't even trust them with your suitcase.

[snowychap]

What do BA and BAA propose to do to people who refuse to comply?

Is this a term and condition of the flight ticket?

[drat01]

What do BA and BAA propose to do to people who refuse to comply?

Is this a term and condition of the flight ticket?

Absolutely - asked the same question the other week and you will be refused access to the flight

[snowychap]

What do BA and BAA propose to do to people who refuse to comply?

Is this a term and condition of the flight ticket?

Absolutely - asked the same question the other week and you will be refused access to the flight

I'd like to see a legal challenge to this if it is a condition of the ticket (i.e. the contract between BA and the passenger).

I'm not sure how a court would view it in terms of reasonableness - especially if other BA passengers do not have to submit themselves to the same condition.

I wonder also what BA would propose to do if every single passenger refused. As this is not a statutory obligation and merely the imposition of a condition by a private company on its passengers (undoutedly with the consideration, input and assistance of the Home Office), I wonder whether the market would get them to change their minds? Obviously wouldn't happen - that would require Joe Public to actually think about the consequences of things more deeply than face value.

[Gringo]

And what will happen to the airside workers if they refuse to carry ID cards?

[snowychap]

And what will happen to the airside workers if they refuse to carry ID cards?

As that would be a legal obligation (i.e. under Identity Cards Act), they'll be issued with another bit of authorised documentation - their P45.

I'm sure the ire felt by those workers will come in useful in the negotiations to get their union leader use of the swivel chair in future meetings. :wink:

[Gringo]

To go with the compulsory ID cards by stealth we have the National DNA Database by Stealth

One million children on DNA database

One in 10 children will be on the national DNA database by next year - including almost 50 under 10, it emerged last night.

The news has prompted concerns from civil liberties campaigners that Britain is becoming a "surveillance state".

The Conservatives said the country was "witnessing the end of the presumption of innocence in our country, especially for our young people".

New figures show the DNA profiles of 44 children under 10 are on the database even though they are below the age of criminal responsibility.

They are among more than one million taken from youngsters under 18 - many of whom have never committed an offence.

The database now contains more than 4.3 million profiles and is growing at more than half a million a year.

By next year, it is predicted that 1.5 million will be from youngsters who were aged between 10 and 18 when their profiles were added.

With an estimated 13.1 million children under 18 in the UK in 2006, it means that as many as one in 10 children could be on the database by 2009.

Researchers say more than 1.1 million young people been added between 1995, when the database started, and April last year. When the youths become adults they are reclassified, resulting in a much lower number of minors being recorded.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said Britain was "witnessing the end of the presumption of innocence in our country, especially for our young people". He added: "Samples are being entered on the DNA database in a totally arbitrary fashion. It is outrageous that hundreds of thousands of innocent children are on this database but all of the serious criminals in our jails are not.

"This is why the Government should answer our calls for a proper Parliamentary debate on the issue so it can be put on a statutory basis." Guy Herbert, the general secretary of the No2ID campaign, said: "Ever more people are becoming outraged as they wake up to the steady encroachments of the database and surveillance state.

"Once an innocent child - or anyone else - finds themselves, unconvicted on the national DNA database, then they don't have any rights over it. They can beg a Chief Constable to remove the record in theory; but in practice he will always refuse. A free country is progressively becoming a nation of suspects."

Separate research by the campaigners Genewatch says some 100,000 children on the database are "innocent" in that they were not even given a caution after being arrested.

[Awol]

^^ Sci-Fi nonsense, it's all perfectly safe don't you know.

Now, Pop Idol, good huh?

[snowychap]

New figures show the DNA profiles of 44 children under 10 are on the database even though they are below the age of criminal responsibility.

Daft bloody parents!

From the Home office website:

There are no legal powers to take a DNA sample from anyone under ten without the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

[Gringo]

At least we know it's not just one govt that can't be trusted with keeping data secure

US candidates' records breached

[Gringo]

Privacy watchdog question's BAA's fingerprinting requirements

Deputy Information Commissioner David Smith told the Mail on Sunday: "We want to know why Heathrow needs to fingerprint passengers at all.

"Taking photographs is less intrusive. So far we have not heard BAA's case for requesting fingerprints.

"If we find there is a breach of data protection legislation, we would hope to persuade them to put things right.

"If that is not successful we can issue an enforcement notice. If they don't comply, it is a criminal offence and they can be prosecuted."

BAA said the Border and Immigration Agency was keen on a "reliable biometric element" when plans were announced for common departure lounges for international and domestic flights at the new terminal.

A BAA spokesman said: "The data is encrypted immediately and is destroyed within 24 hours of use, in accordance with the Data Protection Act. It does not include personal details nor is it cross-referenced with any other database."

The Home Office said there was no requirement on BAA for security arrangements at Terminal 5 to involve fingerprinting.

It seems that BAA's use of a sledgehammer to crack a nut isn't univerally approved of.

[tonyh29]

and it seems they may have to do a U-turn ...

Domestic passengers and international passengers transferring onto domestic flights at Heathrow were to be fingerprinted from the start of business on Thursday.

But the plan has been temporarily suspended amid doubts over the legality of such a move.

The Information Commissioner's Office was concerned the fingerprinting could breach the Data Protection Act.

BAA said it would instead used a "photographic identification process...which is already in place."

In a statement, the firm said the decision came after a meeting "with all relevant parties, including the Information Commissioner and the Border and Immigration Agency."

[snowychap]

Thanks for the update, Tony.

I imagine that there'll be a week or two of talks at which point the ICO will say that their fears have been allayed and then we'll be full steam ahead with it in all airports.

Much easier to convince the ICO than for a customer to take BAA to court and for the information about the system to be made public.

But that's me being skeptical...

[tonyh29]

thing is i'm sure Drat posted (was it on this topic or another one ?) that he was finger printed the other week when he came into the UK and did a domestic transfer

so if it wasn't going live until Thursday ..was Drat duped by a fingerprint scam artist who is now committing untold crime and leaving Drats finger prints at every crime scene :-)