ID cards very good

The below views do not necessarily reflect yours. But it's a question of time. In the meantime, please act to protect your own privacy: as a comfort, think that your inner privacy can never be taken away from you, even if you would wanted to... So....

ID = ENTITLEMENT

NO ID = YOU ARE NOT A PERSON

NO ID = YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS

Haves and have nots*

This will divide Britain into a multi-level society of haves (with a card) and have-nots (no card). Asylum seekers already have ID cards. There may be hierarchies:

Have a clean ID card

Have an ID card, but with some problems (bad health record, police record)

Have an asylum-seeker card or refugee card

Migrant worker with no card or papers

Person with no ID at all.

You are a target!

Certain vulnerable groups will be very strongly affected. Muslims are already being stopped by police much more than before 9/11. Police particularly target Muslim men with long beards, especially if they are wearing traditional dress. Interestingly, two-thirds of known terrorists in recent years operated under their own ID and the rest had false ID. 80% also had national identity cards. The 9/11 hijackers all carried ID cards.

This sounds hyperbolic? Read from a scientist's viewpoint (at the already mentioned IDentity Corner: yes, the systems might be used for such purpose... But don't panic! (it might go wrong for themselves...)

Xenophobia

In countries with ID cards police routinely stop people and request ID. They do not have to have a reason. Given that even the police chiefs themselves admit that the force suffers from institutionalised racism and harbours known racists the future looks bleak, especially for non-whites.

Much of the War against Terror rhetoric is designed to make people suspicious of foreigners and people who come to the UK from abroad. Labour and the Conservatives are competing to see which party can get the largest share of the racist vote by declaring war on asylum-seekers, people who are in the UK after fleeing their own countries because they were persecuted for protesting against tyranny and oppression. Instead of celebrating the arrival of these courageous freedom fighters our politicians insult them, persecute them some more, lock them up without trial and ship them back to more torture or execution.

Politicians stir up racism because it is an easy way to frighten the ignorant and win cheap votes. ID will help to institutionalise that racism.

All non-whites, immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees are at risk from the government’s plans for ID.

For the rest of the population things are not much better as the card opens the way for new forms of discrimination based on your health record, police record, financial record, genetic makeup and other aspects of your life.

The Lib Dems put a motion opposing ID to Manchester City Council because they believe ID is no defence against terror and only serves to criminalise communities. The [Labour] Council rejected the motion.

Verification

The police will have scanners to verify your biometric data. CCTV with zoom can already recognise faces by matching them against a national database. With every person’s face on record the National Register will allow every individual to be recognised by CCTV at any time and therefore permit the authorities to log your movements. This technology can even recognise you through the windscreen of your car.

It is possible to pick you out of a crowd and do the iris scan at a distance. Britain has more CCTV than any country in the world and Manchester has more CCTV than any city in the UK. Biometric data do not provide a foolproof means of identification (although the authorities like to say they do). There are serious reservations about the validity of iris scan data in particular.

The government claim that 80% of the population support ID, but as there has been almost no public debate most people are uninformed about the issue, although apparently 3 to 1 oppose any further infringement on their civil liberties.

Who profits from ID?

The government has already spent £10 million of taxpayers’ money on promoting ID and is set to spend a huge amount more, with costs estimated in the billions of pounds and rising steadily. The government’s track record on outsourcing database management to private companies has been truly appalling, with vast sums of money spent on systems with a chaotic history of system breakdown, bugs and errors such as those of the Criminal Records Bureau, Passports, DSS and others.

The authorities have set up the ‘Whitehall and Industry Group’ and appointed a Head of Marketing for ID [salary advertised at £66,000], though ID is not even law yet. The government is using your money to pay private sector lobbyists to lobby its own Members of Parliament so they will vote for measures to restrict your freedom in the name of preserving it! The ‘development partner’ is PA Consulting who have an office in Manchester [Fountain Street?].

Numerous private companies are involved in providing technology and systems management skills. There has already been a trial with 10,000 volunteers (from private companies, such as Schlumberger) from April to December 2004.

Conferences have been held. One visitor at the Home Office Conference was the United States Biometrics Coordinator of the Department of Homeland Security.

Digital ID is already used at low level for many different swipe cards. A recent conference was entitled ‘Moving digital identity to population scale’ and sponsored by an arms company

The authorities have already admitted that the major users will be the police and health service and, of course, immigration.

The organisations working to promote ID have plans to ‘manage the views’ of people who oppose the idea, people Tony Blair has already referred to as ‘misguided’.

Monitoring

Along with entitlement needs and the threat to civil liberties the card and associated technologies carry other risks. One area of technology which is moving rapidly is monitoring of the individual. The technology already exists to read data stored on chips from a distance – through your clothes, for example. This means you can be scanned without being aware of it and your data captured from a chip. Discussion is under way in the US as to the practical aspects of implanting a chip in the ear. This could be used to tag prisoners so as to be able to read information about them at any time. It is a simple matter to enable this chip to be located using a Global Positioning System (GPS). This means the individual can be monitored and located round the clock, wherever they are in the world. It is not possible to hide, except by wearing a jamming device.

People have already had chips implanted into their bodies.

It would be a short step from having the compulsory card to suggesting that the chip be located inside the body so that it cannot be lost. This would offer the authorities final and total control of the personal data and precise location and movement of each individual at all times, should they wish to monitor them. Ask yourself why they might want to do this. It is the perfect expression of the totalitarian state. If the Nazis had had this technology what would they have done with it?

ASK YOURSELF: HOW MUCH DO I TRUST MY GOVERNMENT?

It is already possible to log people’s movements by checking their mobile phone signals, bank card use etc. so there is no need to guarantee 100% traceability at all times.