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Friday, January 26, 2007

Blair goes on ID card offensive

From BBC News

6 November 2006

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he will push on with ID cards - insisting that as with CCTV and DNA the issue is one of "modernity" not civil liberties.

An "action plan" would be published by the Home Office in December to "explore the benefits" people could get from ID cards in 10 years' time, he said. He told his monthly news briefing all non-EU nationals will need them to work or access public services from 2008. But he also confirmed the timetable for Britons' cards has slipped to 2009. The Tories and Lib Dems oppose ID cards - which are not due to become compulsory until at least 2010 - and say they would scrap them if they got into power.

Mr Blair said ID cards would become compulsory first for non-EU overseas residents who come to Britain for more than three months. They would help tackle illegal immigration, terrorism and identity fraud, while also protecting the vulnerable and the solving of crimes, he said. Mr Blair dismissed critics of the scheme's cost, insisting the project was on budget. He said biometric passports had to be introduced anyway and they made up 70% of the cost of ID cards. Mr Blair, who also highlighted government IT schemes which he said showed such a large database could be made to work, said he wanted to make a major effort to sell the potential gains for people. "We need to lift our sights a little. I don't think, in the debate so far, that we have even begun to explore the benefits that we will see in, say, ten years time," he said.

"We are building a new part of our national infrastructure here. And like other such projects the gains to citizens will be much larger and more extensive than anyone could say at the time," he added. ID cards and other issues, such as measures to tackle anti-social behaviour, CCTV cameras and the growing DNA database, were often portrayed as civil liberties issues, he said. But he believed that it was more an issue of "modernity" and of "modern life" - and he backed the use of these new technologies to tackle the new types of crime. For the Conservatives, shadow home secretary David Davis said: "He claims they will deal with benefit fraud, whilst his own minister pointed out that 95% of benefit fraud is caused by people lying about their circumstances, not their identity. "He claims they will tackle terrorism, whilst his home secretary on the 7th July last year said 'I doubt it would make a difference'. And he claims it will tackle identity fraud when Microsoft tells us it is more likely to trigger identity fraud on a massive scale.... it will almost certainly cost £20bn, will solve very few problems... it will be Labour’s final act of ineffective and expensive authoritarianism."

For the Liberal Democrats, home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "Tony Blair must be living in cloud-cuckoo land if he seriously believes that the creation of the world's largest identity database will be a magic cure for identity fraud. All the evidence from Britain and abroad shows that big government databases just become the favoured target for ever more sophisticated organised criminals."

[So, the National Identity Card together with other means of surveillance and privacy intrusion are issues of ‘modernity’ rather than civil liberties? If that’s the case, then call me ‘old-fashioned’.]

10 comments:

Laura said...

That picture is BEGGING for photoshop.

I don't agree with national ID cards as they're currently proposed. Especially with ID numbers and smart chips, etc.

I do, however, think that in the US we need a standardized template for state IDs and drivers' licenses. You almost have to be a CIA operative (or a bartender) to spot a fake because they're so many different styles.

CyberKitten said...

I just couldn't resist that picture. Never miss an opportunity to take the piss out of Tony I say... [snigger]

ID cards are pointless. I just can't understand exactly what they're supposed to 'save' us from. They certainly won't have any effect on crime or terrorism.

Juggling Mother said...

you're old fashioned:-)

ID cards already exist. you have to show them to open a bank acount, get a benefit, take an internal flight, consult a lawyer, join the library, drive a car, buy or rebnt a house, purchase a holiday..........

All the new ones will do is consolidate the various ID documents currently sed into one card - which will undoubtedly have multipl uses, making every day lives slightly easier - except for those few people who really do want to drop out of modern society.

CyberKitten said...

JM - Various bits of paper exist that can be used (or are accepted) as proofs of identity... but an ID card per se does not already exist.

The new ID card may make proof of identity more convenient for both the Government and the individual but at what cost?

How long do you think it will be before not carrying one will be a crime? How long will it be before you will have to prove your identity to a wandering police patrol who stop you on the way to the shops? This is not the kind of society that I want to live in.

ID cards will not help to fight crime nor will they protect us against the so-called terrorist threat. What use are they then apart from (maybe) reducing the number of bits of plastic in our wallets?

Juggling Mother said...

"How long do you think it will be before not carrying one will be a crime? How long will it be before you will have to prove your identity to a wandering police patrol who stop you on the way to the shops?"

The one does not necessarily lead to the other. Stop being so pessimistic. I see no evidence of Britain turning into a police state!

They said the same when they mooted putting photo's onto driving licences. I expect they said the same & more when passports were invented. They definitely said the same & more when the PNC was set up - and just look at how effective THAT has been:-)

Juggling Mother said...

"How long do you think it will be before not carrying one will be a crime? How long will it be before you will have to prove your identity to a wandering police patrol who stop you on the way to the shops?"

The one does not necessarily lead to the other. Stop being so pessimistic. I see no evidence of Britain turning into a police state!

They said the same when they mooted putting photo's onto driving licences. I expect they said the same & more when passports were invented. They definitely said the same & more when the PNC was set up - and just look at how effective THAT has been:-)

Juggling Mother said...

"How long do you think it will be before not carrying one will be a crime? How long will it be before you will have to prove your identity to a wandering police patrol who stop you on the way to the shops?"

The one does not necessarily lead to the other. Stop being so pessimistic. I see no evidence of Britain turning into a police state!

They said the same when they mooted putting photo's onto driving licences. I expect they said the same & more when passports were invented. They definitely said the same & more when the PNC was set up - and just look at how effective THAT has been:-)

Juggling Mother said...

"How long do you think it will be before not carrying one will be a crime? How long will it be before you will have to prove your identity to a wandering police patrol who stop you on the way to the shops?"

The one does not necessarily lead to the other. Stop being so pessimistic. I see no evidence of Britain turning into a police state!

They said the same when they mooted putting photo's onto driving licences. I expect they said the same & more when passports were invented. They definitely said the same & more when the PNC was set up - and just look at how effective THAT has been:-)

Skywolf said...

I'll sit in the old-fashioned camp with you, then, CK. The very idea of ID cards worries me deeply. We don't have anything close to this scale at the moment. These things aren't just going to contain our personal contact details and a photo. They want fingerprints, retinal scans - DNA? And that worries me a lot. I don't want those deeply personal details about me stored on a database somewhere. Who's going to have access to this stuff anyway? Who's to say that this Government won't screw up security measures as they've screwed up everything else? The current state of the Home Office certainly doesn't inspire confidence on that scale.

And it's total rubbish that this will stop crime and terrorism. The July 7th bombers were British citizens anyway - they'd have had ID cards under this proposed scheme. Just how would that have stopped them blowing people up? How is it going to stop people sneaking into this country? How is it going to stop counterfeits? Passports and driving licenses are faked regularly these days. It won't take long for a few criminal masterminds to fake ID cards too, and gain access to everyone's personal details at the same time.

Nope. Sorry. Don't want one. I'll feel less safe with them, not more so. And if I want the right to be anonymous in my own country, I should have that right. I haven't done anything wrong. Why should I be trackable and traceable to this extent? I don't trust this Government at all. I absolutely do not want them having control of my private and personal details to this degree.

Ken Comer said...

In the USA, the REAL ID Act of 2006 was tacked onto some (cough) "must pass" military appropriations bill and was signed into law with hardly a murmur. Supposedly, it will make a national requirement as determined by the Department of Fatherland Security for all IDs issued beginning next year sometime.

The initial scheme that Fatherland Security came up with was to require unencrypted RFID chips in every ID (well, to be fair, there is no way to encrypt them... they are intended for crates, not people). This would have meant that you could put up emitters just about everywhere and that you could constantly track people as they passed (whether or not you were with an appropriately warranted law enforcement agent).

The REAL ID act pisses me off. I do not know whether I am willing to suffer the pangs of civil disobedience. I am inclined to think that I am, but time will tell.

It is not only stupid and wrong because of the potential for invasion of privacy, but it is also stupid and wrong because law enforcement agents are saddled with the responsibility of determining whether you are entitled to receive a card (as a legal resident or citizen). There was a case in the USA where a state that already had a similar requirement would not issue an ID to a man who appeared with his birth certificate, his bank statements for five years, his old ID, and some other stuff I can't remember. He had a thick middle-eastern accent and appearance, but was a naturalized citizen.

My government isn't mine any more. I live in a perpetual state of enlightened disgruntlement.