I am okay about id cards. They would be useful in some situations.
I don't think our society would bother much with them anyway. They would be seen only as a formality or even amusement for most of the time.
I don't care if someone wants to monitor my activities. I let people in SH know what I think and feel quite happily.
I think it would be a hugely pointless job to work in the control centre for that kind of thing. Extremely nerdy and schizophrenic. Not at all good for the digestion, human pleasure or appreciation of things.
Let me start by stating for the record that I am in no way a 'softy liberal'
as is often thrown out by the 'nothing to hide....' brigade. I am hard
working and pay my taxes. Mr Average. I served in the British army, have no criminal convictions; have never knowingly broken the law.
Surely that sounds like I have nothing to hide. But I do; I have a private
life and I intend to keep it that way. I can assure you that I WILL NEVER
carry, or even register for a national ID card. If need be, the government
can take me, an honest member of society and criminalize me.
The issue isn’t necessarily about the ID card itself, but more the National Identity Register behind it. The basic information on this is iniquitous enough in itself, but the potential of the database is the worry. People have rightly said that we are already monitored and tracked; true enough. However, if a beurocrat wants to dig out your history from the system, they would have to delve amongst multiple individual systems; this is a disincentive for some scrote in officialdom that you might have upset from finding out all about you. With the NIR, everything would be linked; so if you piss off some dickweed at the council, they’ll be able to access your entire personal life through the register.
Think about it; as members of a society that believes in freedom of speech thought and action, surely you can all look at this proposal and work out the possible repercussions. Google the ID Cards Bill and have a read. It might make you think again. Meanwhile, I’ll ask you this;
How do you propose that ID cards will reduce crime? Use the register to
profile criminals and lock them up before they actually commit a crime?
How do you propose that ID cards will reduce illegal immigration? These people have no documents now, why would not having any in the future make a difference?
How do you propose that ID cards will reduce asylum applications? Asylum seekers would not have a card anyway.....lock them up?
How do you propose that ID cards will reduce identity fraud? Use the register to identify anyone who would potentially have opportunity to commit fraud or anyone who has previously been sentenced for fraud and, lock them up?
What do you intend to do with those people in society who are
disenfranchised; homeless people or even travelers? No fixed abode? No current ID? Lock them up?
As there is no point in a card that can be voluntarily carried, the carrying
of a card would inevitably become compulsory. What do you intend to do with those who leave home without it? This one's easy......lock them up!
How do you propose to verify the identity of an individual who has gone to register for their card? Surely we don't need to do this? No one would try to commit fraud; that's a crime.
And finally, what do you propose to do with people like me who will refuse to have my privacy and liberty curtailed even further? Ah....lock us up?
Mr Liar had better start with a new prison building scheme.
Oh...and for those who believe that ID cards are nothing to worry about,
wakey, wakey; ID cards with biometric data? A national information register? And what's this.... satellite navigation tracking our cars???
Wake up people; we're all born with a brain. If you give away the freedom to use that and think for yourself.....well, welcome to the world of Chancellor Liar.
Cheers.
Let's try putting it this way;
"If you have nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear..."
If some body came to your home to look at all of your private papers, you would probably tell them that it's none of their business. Then they say: "Gotcha! You must have something to hide!" But deciding to keep personal information private should not make you guilty of anything.
It won't just be a card, it will be a chipped card, so it will be able to carry huge amounts of information about you. You won't be able to access the information on the card. But a great many organisations will. Some will be government departments. Some will be private organsations the government sells your details to.
Also, it will be linked to the proposed national identity register, which will be able to access everything about you. That’s very different from the present situation.
Imagine you're in the local Council offices applying for a rebate on your Council Tax, to which you are entitled. You're a good citizen. You also happen to be gay (but can pass for straight, and usually do). As a responsible person, you've had an HIV check, and you came up clean. This shows on your medical records. Unfortunately the jobsworth behind the counter happens to be a raving homophobe.
Imagine you get stopped at a police traffic check. Nothing out of the ordinary; except you are a member of an organisation which campaigns hard for the procedure for complaints against the police to be made more effective (you joined it because your wife got beaten up by one of the small number of rogue policemen who disfigure the Force), and your bank account shows a regular standing order to this organisation.
Imagine you are a member of a minority religion. Say, for example, you’re a Pagan. You’ve asked for this fact to be officially recorded with the NHS, so if you end up in hospital for any reason, (car crash? heart attack?) you don’t have a Christian priest praying over you, which you’d find offensive. Under the current system of fragmented records, this information would only be available to your doctor and the hospital staff. But with ID cards and the national identity register, it will be very different. The Planning Officer who decides whether or not you get permission for your kitchen extension just happens to be the sort of fundamentalist Christian for whom the word “bigot†would be a gross understatement…………
Imagine you once got a Social Services referral under the child protection legislation. You’re not a , in fact you’d never harm a child, you’re a devoted parent. You got the referral because of a malicious, busybodying neighbour. They just wanted to get at you, and so they told lies about you. But the referral is on your record. One of the clerks charged with maintaining the database supplements his income by selling a bunch of records to a tabloid. All of a sudden there’s a crowd throwing rocks through your windows.
Or you are none of these people, but you just happen to share an address with them, as you (and they) live in a house which has been split into flats.
If bigotry and prejudice where not the ugly realities they are, we’d all have nothing to hide.
If mistakes were never made, we’d all have nothing to hide.
If all public servants were completely fair-minded, hard-working and efficient at all times, and never ever lapsed from these high standards, we’d all have nothing to hide.
If innocent people were never wrongly accused, we’d all have nothing to hide.
But we don’t live in some idealised, imaginary, perfect world. Or to put it another way, we don’t live in candy-floss cloud-cuckoo land. We live in the real world, as it is, sinful, and full of dirt and chaos. So let’s get real, for once.
We all have lots to hide, don't ever forget it. It's called the right to privacy.
Or to put it another way, some things should be kept personal. Under the proposed measures, no-one will have a personal life any more.
Yeah I have done 12 hour shifts monitoring systems, and being watched also, and got to see various things going on. But its boring! Really can be circumvented in surprisingly simple ways. Technology does not always provide the answers. There are blind spots and failures with technology. It is not all pervasive and invasive as we think. It often asserts itself only by suggestion, not actuality.
There will be an almost unmanageable quantity of data produced by the kind of things being discussed and implemented now. It will create a vast industry of technolgy linking to other technology becoming more and more expensive and unproductive. Useful only to keep people occupied.
The golden age of computing was believd to lead to less work. It has created more work, inefficiency, waste and pollution.
If you have strong opinions about your 'privacy' then it will always be a worry and a problem for them that feel like that. You may only belive this because you want or need to think you have your hand on freedom. Few of us do in physical terms. It can easily be taken from us. Then what are you left with?
Just your own thoughts and feelings. And how often to does anyone really listen or care about those? That's your privacy, when no one is interested in you.
So don't worry there is no big brother.
I heard a great line on TV yesterday - Big Brother has turned from something to fear into a TV games show.
I think things are getting a litle out of perspective and the propaganda wheels are starting to turn. As far as I can see the chip won't be recording the information being spewed out by sweetandsour - HOW can the insurance company access the chip to tell it you're gay?
As we are going to have to move to a more digitalized form of passport soon anyway it makes sense to produce a multi-task card. My library card for the university is also a swiper card to open doors and a credit holder for photocopier machines and, of course, holds information about my entitlement to study.
Calm down and let's see what the Bill has to say when it's printed, eh!
PS in edit: here's the Bill!!
In my opinion, anything that can be done to centralise identification is a good thing. I dismiss the whole Big Brother thing anyways, as i'm sure the government could easily have you taken out!
But i mean... i have friends who go from mobile supplier to the next.. change bank accounts etc and get huge amounts of credit.. close the account down .. and move on... and who pays for all those people.. WE DO! Would it not be better that when you take out any form of credit you have an ID number... so that if you wanna try and run away from debt .. you can be tracked!!! I'm sure that it would cut out most benefit fraud (scrap the NI number and use an ID system that automatically works out if you can work and the tax you pay)
Computers are gr8.. if used properly!
in theory a great idea but to be honest would a terrorist be worried about you finding out his identity after the event, but i would carry one
(off topic bit found this its funny about id cards )
We get registered at birth
We get registered at death
We get registered for NI
We get registered to vote
We get registered for National Health Service
We get registered for a passport
We get registered for a driving licence (still got my tiny wee red book one!!)
We get registered for the library
We get registered for council tax
We get registered for Swinging Heaven
We get our car registered to us
We register to use internet banking
We register to use shopping reward cards
Anyone got anything else we register for.....?
Germany uses ID cards since I can remember and it does not make any difference to the people. If you want to cheat the system you can chest any system how else can they explain how all the terrorists got in and out with no problems.
Da69ve you are absolutely right.
Germany
Income tax 50% max.
NI for a family of four approx. £ 250 per month or more if you are in a higher earning level and you still have to apy between 30% and 50% on your own.
Pension fond, accident at work insurance, unemployment benefit rate etc. on top of that.
The only thing cheap in Germany is alcohol, about 1/3 of our prices here.
or in .. red dwarf
"you would while away the hours, sewing name labels into your ship issue condoms"
haahh.. whos done that then!?
wow what a response? i had a simple thought to add:
terrorism - id cards claim to stop this, so what stops someone legally entering this country via passport/customs etc and blowing most of london up (gaining home made explosives in the UK). once they are dead they arent going to care if we know who they are?
Tired TnH here as well... actually I was all for the ID cards, until I heard the report by the information commisioner on them. It was him who raised the concerns over the plans to keep the data trail that prompted my concerns... if that makes sense? :)
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:dunno: :dunno: 
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