National ID cards - good idea?

[Gringo]

So how do you pay for ID cards?

Passports up in price to £77.50 – three times rate of inflation

The price of a British passport is to rise from £72 to £77.50, with fewer people travelling in the recession blamed for the above-inflation increase.

....

Travellers have now seen the price of a passport jump from £18 in 1997. If the cost had risen in line with retail prices, it would now cost just £24.55.

[johnvillan]

From The Times

July 15, 2009

India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards

An overcrowded train in Bihar, India

(Zuma/eyevine)

Millions of Indians who live in remote rural areas will finally have proof of their existence thanks to biometric identity cards

Rhys Blakely in Mumbai

Recommend? (1)

It is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived. India is to issue each of its 1.2 billion citizens, millions of whom live in remote villages and possess no documentary proof of existence, with cyber-age biometric identity cards.

The Government in Delhi recently created the Unique Identification Authority, a new state department charged with the task of assigning every living Indian an exclusive number. It will also be responsible for gathering and electronically storing their personal details, at a predicted cost of at least £3 billion.

The task will be led by Nandan Nilekani, the outsourcing sage who coined the phrase “the world is flat”, which became a mantra for supporters of globalisation. “It is a humongous, mind-boggling challenge,” he told The Times. “But we have the opportunity to give every Indian citizen, for the first time, a unique identity. We can transform the country.”

If the cards were piled on top of each other they would be 150 times as high as Mount Everest — 1,200 kilometres.

Related Links

* UK has no machines to read its own ID cards

* Flights at risk in row over identity cards

* Government denies it is delaying ID scheme

India’s legions of local bureaucrats currently issue at least 20 proofs of identity, including birth certificates, driving licences and ration cards. None is accepted universally and moving from one state to the next can easily render a citizen officially invisible — a disastrous predicament for the millions of poor who rely on state handouts to survive.

It is hoped that the ID scheme will close such bureaucratic black holes while also fighting corruption. It may also be put to more controversial ends, such as the identification of illegal immigrants and tackling terrorism. A computer chip in each card will contain personal data and proof of identity, such as fingerprint or iris scans. Criminal records and credit histories may also be included.

Mr Nilekani, who left Infosys, the outsourcing giant that he co-founded, to take up his new job, wants the cards to be linked to a “ubiquitous online database” accessible from anywhere.

The danger, experts say, is that as one of the world’s largest stores of personal information, it will prove an irresistible target for identity thieves. “The database will be one of the largest that ever gets built,” Guru Malladi, a partner at Ernst & Young who was involved in an earlier pilot scheme, said. “It will have to be impregnable.”

Mr Nilekani will also have to mastermind a way of collecting trustworthy data. Only about 75 million people — or less than 7 per cent of the population — are registered to pay income tax. The Electoral Commission’s voter lists are thought to be largely inaccurate, not least because of manipulation by corrupt politicians.

He will also have to persuade as many as 60 government departments to co-operate. The Government has said that the first cards will be issued within 18 months. Analysts feel that it will take at least four years for the project to reach “critical mass”.

Such is the scale of the project that analysts believe India will have to develop a new electronics manufacturing base to supply information-storing servers, computer chips and card readers.

For the time being Mr Nilekani has more mundane matters on his mind. “I’ve only just left my previous job,” he said. “First I have to find a new office.”

Keeping tabs around the world

• Compulsory national identity cards are used in about 100 countries including Germany, France, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain

• ID cards are not used in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Irish Republic or Nordic countries

• German police can detain people who are not carrying their ID card for up to 24 hours

• The Bush Administration resisted calls for an identity card in the US after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001

• In Australia street protests in the 1980s forced the Government to abandon its plans for a card

• Plastic cards are favoured over paper documents because they are harder to forge

• Most identity cards contain the name, sex, date of birth and a unique number for the holder

• South Korean, Brazilian, Italian and Malaysian ID cards contain fingerprints. Cards in some countries contain information on any distinguishing marks of the holder

• Objections to card schemes have focused on the cost and invasion of privacy

• Supporters say that they prevent illegal immigration and fraud

• In the European Union some cards can be used instead of a passport for European travel

link

We definitely haven't seen the last of compulsory ID cards.There is a real desire to make this happen.

[snowychap]

DNA database plans based on 'flawed science', warn experts

"Flawed scientific thinking" in the government's proposed changes to the DNA database will leave it open to further challenges by the courts, experts have said, in a stark attack on Home Office plans to overhaul the current system.

The proposals, set out as part of a government consultation after the existing DNA database was found in breach of human rights last year, are based on exaggerated scientific claims and ignore the realities of persistent offending, two leading criminologists have said. "There is a flaw in the scientific evidence that sustains the government's argument," said Keith Soothill, emeritus professor of social research at Lancaster University.

Soothill and fellow professor Brian Francis last week published a paper arguing that key aspects of the government's proposals – which change the current periods for retaining DNA from all people arrested to six years, and 12 years for serious and violent crime arrests – have not been proved.

"We are concerned that the DNA database will focus on crimes, not criminals," Soothill said. "If every criminal committed one crime it would be fine, but in fact half of all crimes are committed by something like 6% of persistent offenders. Because they are re-offending quickly, the length of time their records need to be kept is significantly less than six years.

"The government has been given a version which exaggerates the length of time you need to catch these crimes."

...more on link

[tonyh29]

and they finally make an appearance ..

ID cards are a "no brainer" in the fight against fraud, the Home Secretary said as he revealed their design for the first time.

Alan Johnson said he believed they would be "welcomed" by the public because they make proof of identity easier.

They will include the name, date of birth, gender, nationality and signature of the holder.

The design features the royal crest alongside a thistle, a rose, a shamrock and a daffodil to symbolise the whole UK.

A chip on the back of the card carries a digital picture of the owner and their fingerprints.

People in the north west will be able to apply for a card from next year and the rest of the UK will follow suit from 2011.

The scheme has many critics however, and the Conservatives argue the Government's policy is a waste of money.

The cards will not be compulsory and will cost £30 each.

Mr Johnson said the scheme will make it easier for citizens to prove their identity without having to produce old utility bills and bank statements.

They are likely to be "welcomed as an important addition to the many plastic cards that most people carry," he added.

Alan Johnson said he believed they would be "welcomed" by the public

care to have a vote on that Alan ??

because they make proof of identity easier.

Mr Johnson said the scheme will make it easier for citizens to prove their identity without having to produce old utility bills and bank

this is strange as tomorrow i'm going to London to get a passport renewal for my son ..I have to take 2 forms of ID with my address on them .... the ID card doesn't include this information so in fact it wouldn't actually count as a form of ID to prove who i am to the Home Office ..

so it's not for preventing terrorism , it's not for making proof of ID easier ..so what "reason" will be used to sell it to us as next ?

P.S

Curious about the inclusion of the Shamrock , i always thought that was an Eire thing rather than Northern island ??

[Gringo]

P.S Curious about the inclusion of the Shamrock , i always thought that was an Eire thing rather than Northern island ??

The shamrock as a symbol predates the illegal partition of the island by a good few centuries. Ooooops, maybe that neeeds a different thread.....

[snowychap]

this is strange as tomorrow i'm going to London to get a passport renewal for my son ..I have to take 2 forms of ID with my address on them .... the ID card doesn't include this information so in fact it wouldn't actually count as a form of ID to prove who i am to the Home Office ..

The card may not include the info but the NIR (National Identity Register) does.

In order for this to be used as an identifying document in that case, they (the people checking your ID) would have to have access to the NIR.

[tonyh29]

well after taking all my ID twith me hey didn't even ask for it during the application drop off stage .. When i went back to pickup the passport a few hours later they then asked me for some photo ID , which was in the bag with the wife and kids who I'd left at the London Aquarium ..

They wouldn't accept my Merlin card as Photo ID but eventually taped in my name and looked at a picture of me on their records and were then satisfied i was who i claimed to be .. I'd be fairly certain seeing as I was in the passport office they were using my passport details ...but I wondered if they were actually allowed to do what they did ?

[snowychap]

Henry Porter: Nine sacked for breaching core ID card database

The government must be quietly grateful to the distractions of August. Only Computer Weekly noticed that nine local authority workers have been sacked for accessing the personal records of celebrities, and their acquaintances held on the core database of the government's ID scheme.

This is a significant story because government ministers have always dismissed campaigners' claims that once all personal information is stored in a single database it will become vulnerable to abuse by those with access to the system. Ministers have repeatedly insisted that security will be absolute and that severe penalties will deter anyone tempted to read files illegally.

Not true. The magazine's website reported that the nine fired were among 34 people who illegally accessed information. Some were reprimanded, some resigned and some were sacked but none was prosecuted. Using a freedom of information request, Computer Weekly found that Cardiff and Glasgow Councils sacked people who had looked up celebrities in the customer information system (CIS) which is run by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and contains 90 million records. Various other councils sacked people for looking up their friends, their own details and in one instance, a girlfriends.

The really important point is that these cases come from sample checks, this raises the prospect that the security of CIS is in fact much more regularly breached. "Over 200,000 government officials have access to the database," says the website, "including 480 local authorities, and numerous government departments, including the Department of Work and Pensions, HM Revenue & Customs, and the Courts Service. The Child Support Agency uses the CIS to trace missing parents."

A DWP spokesman suggested that the small number of breaches recorded indicated that unauthorised access by officials was spotted quickly. He did not, of course, acknowledge that these cases came from sample checks generated by the system.

This is absolutely critical. For years Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge university and NO2ID have been arguing that by their nature large databases will never be free of such abuse. Anderson's Rule means you cannot construct a database with scale, functionality and security because if you design a large system for ease of access it becomes insecure, while if you make it watertight it becomes impossible to use.

And yet government presses ahead with the grand scheme of linking database together and allowing access to hundreds of thousands of officials. A note on security contained in a DWP Information bulletin, unearthed by NO2ID, hints at the possible problem when it mentions access to tax data from Her Majesty's Revenue and Custom. "DWP and HMRC customer information is shared with local authorities on the understanding that only authorised access is permitted." The document goes on to admit that the sample checks have revealed serious security breaches and warns that anyone found abusing the system will face sanctions ranging from disciplinary action to prosecution. Investigators will plot "audit trails showing the full access history of those under suspicion," says the document rather unconvincingly This may catch may a few bored council workers who have trespassed in a friend's file but lets just imagine a more sophisticated attack involving one of those crime syndicates specialising in identity theft and about which we hear so much from ministers trying to scare us into accepting the ID card. It surely would be an irony if the aggregation of personal information in the United Kingdom were to make identity theft more, not less, likely.

The CIS system will be the foundation of the ID card scheme. It came into being in 2005 after Accenture and the Department of Work and Pensions completed a pilot. It is designed to provide an overview of personal details of anyone who has a national insurance number. It includes the deceased, their beneficiaries and details of ethnic background. In other words, the customer information service, which incidentally has a friendly supermarket ring about it, presents a hugely attractive target for organized crime and maybe a lot of other bad hats too – foreign intelligence services, for example.

Back in 2005 Computer Weekly suggested that CIS was "good news" because "its relatively simple design looks like achieving success." Today it is clear that this is the problem – it is too user friendly to be secure, which is extremely worrying given we are only at the start of this process of merging databases.

[snowychap]

ID cards snubbed

ONLY 8,000 people have enquired about getting the government's controversial ID cards, which will be launched in Manchester.

During a live webchat at the M.E.N offices, Lord Bill Brett, the minister responsible for the introduction of the ID card scheme, admitted only a small percentage of the population had asked about the voluntary scheme.

The cards will cost £30 and contain biometric details of holders.

They can be used in place of a passport throughout Europe. [Can they?]

Lord Brett hopes the cards, available in Manchester in October, will be rolled out across the north west by 2010, and eventually the rest of the country.

He said he foresaw the cards becoming 'the accepted form of ID in the UK'.

But a poll on this website revealed 81 per cent would not be taking part in the trial.

Lord Brett said: "We have not set targets for what is a purely voluntary scheme, but our research shows a majority of people support ID cards.

"We are confident that support and the number of ID cards will grow incrementally in the period from its introduction in Manchester to the ongoing rollout across the country.

"A lot of opposition to the cards has been based on fear from misconception and mischievousness. I don't believe the initiative is doomed to failure, rather that it will grow over time to become the accepted form of ID, as the voluntary ID card in France has become."

The cards will be valid for 10 years.

Lord Brett admitted the cards would not by themselves 'provide a silver bullet' in the fight against terrorism, but he said: "The security services and the police believe it will be a helpful tool in that task."

The minister claimed the cards would provide 'a secure and unique identity' for holders. He said they would be targeted in particular at young people, who he said had 'problems with security and identification'.

He said: "They will have all the information they need on one card. This will assist young people who want to buy cigarettes, alcohol, and in a city like Manchester with a lively nightlife, they can access clubs and bars while also having a document that protects against fraud and allows travel through Europe."

Lord Brett, admitted that the cards - which should be available from 2012 to all British citizens aged 16 and over - could be scrapped by a future government.

He said: "No government can bind its successors."

Lord Brett stressed the government had 'no intention to make ID cards compulsory'. Asked why Manchester had been chosen for the pilot, he said: "Manchester is a major city, with a large young population, a large university and major airport."

[Gringo]

"A lot of opposition to the cards has been based on fear

Big lol for the govt - the whole selling point of the cards has been based on fear since day one. BIAD.

[snowychap]

...rather that it will grow over time to become the accepted form of ID, as the voluntary ID card in France has become...

That would be the apparently voluntary ID introduced by the Vichy government?

As far as I am aware, it is compulsory to produce something to identify oneself to the Gendarmerie upon 'request'. The form of that ID is flexible dependent upon the Gendarme and whether he is running short of funds.

I'm not sure that this is the best 'model' for anyone to follow.

Now this (yer man quoted) is an idiot. :winkold:

[Gringo]

Private enterprise takes up the baton

Bridlington off-licence fingerprints customers

The scanner does not record customers' names or addresses

An off-licence owner in Bridlington has started using fingerprint technology to deter underage drinkers and smokers.

Rod Parker installed a scanner at his Bossy Boots shop in Queensgate just over a week ago.

The equipment reads a customer's thumb or fingerprint and checks it against ID previously supplied by the customer.

Mr Parker said: "We get a lot of young people coming in and trying to buy cans of lager or cigarettes. The scanner is an excellent solution."

His shop is near a large college and in the first week since the equipment was installed, 70 young people have signed up to use it.

It's better really because I don't have to keep showing my ID

Brett, 18

Customers are asked to provide a driving licence or passport as proof of identity and their details are entered on the scanner.

Their fingerprint is then entered into the system and linked to the proof of identity.

"Once that's done all they need to do each time they come in is put their thumb or fingerprint on to the system and we will then let them have the goods," said Mr Parker.

The scanner is not linked to any network and does not record customers' names or addresses......

[Gringo]

Grauniad"]As of tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech, no more ID cards. If Cameron-Clegg do nothing more, they deserve our gratitude for this bill. ID cards were plastic proof that Labour’s State was pushing its tentacles into every corner of our lives. On buses, on the street, in stations and at a cafe, a uniformed (or undercover) government employee could solicit your “ID card” at any point. And it wouldn’t be just illegal immigrants they made sweat and feel tense.

When I first came to Britain, in 1979, I had lived in America and Italy. In Washington DC, the arm of the law was everywhere visible: gun-toting police patrolled the streets on foot and in cars, keeping a wary eye on the (mainly black) inhabitants of the capital; the race riots had been a decade before, but race relations were still tense and crime high.

Italy in the 70s, though, was worse. The spectre here was not of resentful black youths but of the Red Brigades. Their spate of bombings and kidnappings (most famously of Aldo Moro, the highly respected former Prime Minister, whom they killed) had the Christian Democrats in government panicking. Their response turned Italy into a police state, where police and carabinieri erected road blocks and patrolled the streets, their stop and search powers taken for granted. To leave your home without le carte, your ID card, would risk being roughed up by these young toughs before being pushed into the back of a police van and brought to the station for interrogation.

Every Italian knew, you had to be counted, categorised. Nothing would be taken on trust. The ID card was born of, and in its turn produced, a climate of suspicion and “us against them”.

What I loved about the Britain I came to in 1979 was that you felt only the light arm of the law. The IRA was still a menace, but they were “them” and the rest were “us”. Trust was apparent, from the freedom to walk about without passport or papers, to the bobby who did not carry fire arms (”How funny!” I had giggled, as I spotted one walking down the pavement in North Oxford; “How beautiful” my father corrected me.)

This, I felt, was true civilisation. We should welcome its return.

All's well that ends well?

[snowychap]

Still in place for foreign nationals, though, I believe. I think the line is that it's all down to that there European legislation.

That might be true but I'll take more convincing than what appears to be a story hatched by some bods in the Home Office.

[tonyh29]

Radio this morning said that Blunkett was thinking of suing the government for the £30 he paid for his ID card ...

some people just haven't taken defeat and the return of our civil of our liberties very well have they

[Gringo]

Radio this morning said that Blunkett was thinking of suing the government for the £30 he paid for his ID card ...

some people just haven't taken defeat and the return of our civil of our liberties very well have they

having listened to interview live on radio4 he was obviously taking the piss.

[snowychap]

having listened to interview live on radio4 he was obviously taking the piss.

So, rather like his term as Home Secretary, then?

[Awol]

some people just haven't taken defeat and the return of our civil of our liberties very well have they

When RIPA, the Coroners and Justice Bill et al go up in smoke then I'll share your enthusiasm. Until then I won't be getting too excited about the new lot's view of our civil liberties.

[tonyh29]

Radio this morning said that Blunkett was thinking of suing the government for the £30 he paid for his ID card ...

some people just haven't taken defeat and the return of our civil of our liberties very well have they

having listened to interview live on radio4 he was obviously taking the piss.

not having heard the radio 4 show i couldn't say but the way it's being reported it seems the papers have missed the intended joke ...

''I have got a card and it's very useful and I don't believe anyone has surveilled anything about me.

''Unfortunately, nobody is getting their money back. I'm thinking of suing them, but it might cost me more than £30.''

He said that scrapping the cards ''won't change anything for anyone out there'' but will make it harder for security services to fight terrorism and for the Government to clamp down on fraud and misuse of the NHS.

[Gringo]

Radio this morning said that Blunkett was thinking of suing the government for the £30 he paid for his ID card ...

some people just haven't taken defeat and the return of our civil of our liberties very well have they

having listened to interview live on radio4 he was obviously taking the piss.

not having heard the radio 4 show i couldn't say but the way it's being reported it seems the papers have missed the intended joke ...

Isn't that the problem with second hand reporting. The "suing them" comment was with a chuckle ....obvious by the rest of the comment that it would cost more than the £30 quid. Lazy reporting, lazy quoting, and severe lack of links to your quotes which has been noted recently is against the highway code*

*not sure why that was mentioned but somethink it is equivalent to VT posting rules