political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Thursday, December 07, 2006
George Orwell's Nightmare Come True
THIS is why I'm against ID cards. Make sure you have the sound turned up.
You'd be surprised at how much of that happens right now. In the US for instance, some employers are requesting medical records before they'll hire you, because they don't want anybody who's going to be expensive in terms of medical benefits working for them.
It's blissful not having a landline or credit card, actually. Nothing to subpoena.
Raincoaster - I don't want to share my health costs with somebody who is going to put the rates up for me any more than I want to share my life insurance costs with a residents of the Gaza Strip. Your ignorance must indeed be bliss.
You don't need ID cards for this sort of thing. The problem with the government's ID card proposals is that they have gone for a maximal technology solution instead of incremental improvements to existing government systems, which would be much cheaper and might actually work.
William Hague was cornered and restated his belief in the principle of ID cards to John Sopel just a few weeks ago.
He said his opposition was based on the government's costings.
Seeing as the Tories helped pass the core db part of the scheme, it seems reasonable to assume, that if in government, the Tories,once in charge of the costings etc, would actually push through ID cards too.
As to 'stopping this from happening' Well we are miles beyond that now. The only way this can be reduced is by punitive legal damages for invasions of privacy, withdrawal of legislation (never known yet!), and - probably - armed insurrection.
....maybe I shouldn't have mentioned an insurrection. Most unsually, there seems to be a police car cruising down our street. Am I paranoid? You bet!
It's actually worse that this. Given the Governments far-from-exemplary record of delivering complex IT projects, the data is likely to be wrong. To compound that the cards will be easily cloned or faked as they have to be mass producable at low unit-cost. Criminals won't be able to clone the biometrics? ...But the local Pizza Shed is unlikley to purchase the highly-expensive retinal scanners required to verify the ID cards it sees with each purchase! So the use of a single point of ID verifcation actually makes it easier to steal identity and commit fraud. Welcome to Blair's legacy. The only hope we have (not the Not-Convervatives) is that PM Brown decides the whole thing is too expensive, but I note EDS is funding the Smith Institute, I wonder why?
expat, you don't understand. The kind of thing I'm talking about is finding out if you've ever been tested for STDs or been prescribed birth control and on that basis rejecting you as an AIDS risk. Finding out if you've ever had genetic testing done to see if you're predisposed to a disease and rejecting you on that basis. I'm not talking about a million anonymous strangers; I'm talking about it happening to you.
Following Mark Williams "Anyway, we know where you live"
"... and we also have comprehensive information about your interests, likely political inclinations, medical history and movements (especially by road) but other means too from - for example - purchases and all those occasions when you are required to identify yourself in order to get through the door or receive pretty much ANY kind of service.
What's that? The possibility of misuse?? - perish the thought. We're from the government don't you know; and we're here to help you - unless you are in breach of the 'social contract' of course, in which case we can soon put you back on the right track.
The Social Contract?? Big Brother promises to be steadfast in promoting and safeguarding the interests of the citizen, just so long as the citizen see things his way."
As a previous poster said: Wake up and smell the coffee. It IS happening. It's going to get a whole lot worse too and no political party is likely to make a principled stand against it.
Ironic that George Orwell should share surnames with the one who has really set this ball rolling.
"Tescos here. I see you have a £100 (disputed) speeding fine outstanding and you owe a further £75 for the rush hour journey between your house and local hospital. I'm afraid I will have ask for that money before I can deliver your groceries and new baby milk. We do offer credit at 25%"
When talking recently to someone who is advising Tony's health fascists on the best ways to get us to eat more healthily I discovered that the government are planning to use information gleaned by Tesco Club Cards to target people they believe are eating the wrong things, judging by the contents of their shopping baskets. There are millions of those cards out there - it's quite clever, really. And perhaps Tesco would like to explain why they are happy to share this information with the government.
The Government has stated that the idea of identity cards is popular with the public.
Ministers have, however, omitted to explain that behind the identity cards will be the most intrusive database this country has ever seen.
It will change the relationship between the citizen and the state, with the balance of power being further shifted away from the citizen.
The Government has not produced evidence to show that identity cards will stop terrorism, nor that the cards will reduce benefit fraud - the great majority of benefit fraud is lying about circumstances, not about who you are.
Nor can the Government produce evidence to show that it will control illegal immigration.
A new set of criminal offences will come into force with swingeing fines and imprisonment for failing to notify the authorities of changes in one's personal life.
The Government admits the minimum cost is already £5.8bn - something that will undoubtedly rise.
There are those who say that, if one is innocent, there is nothing to fear from ID cards.
I suspect that the 2,700 citizens wrongly labelled as criminals by the Criminal Records Bureau would not agree with that.
Surely ID cards would mean that the Government would be empowered to add information to the citizens' database without their knowledge.
Most concerning of all, however, is the fact that the database would be in the charge of the Home Office!
I hear so many people tell me that they will never carry an imposed ID card and to a certain extent I agree with them.
Afterall, our ancestors didn't fight two world wars and die in such numbers to have a bunch of misguided politicians make us "carry papers" to be handed over to any civil servant who asks for them.
My vision, in this internet age, is to get everyone who fundamentally disagrees with this awful proposal to unite via the web, under the pseudonym "PANIC" standing for People Against National Identity Cards".
I reckon we would have a few million conscientious objectors with just a little publicity.
The basis could be that all who sign up assert that the idea is fundamentally un-British and completely undermines our own freedom in society.
The prospect of filling the small courts with massive numbers of like minded citizens should be enough to put the fear of God into any political party seeking election in this finely balanced "democracy".
Funny, naturally but as usual completely overhyped. The tactics used by the anti ID card lobby consist of playing up fears and lining up straw men to knock down.
ID cards will be of immense benefit to the citizens of this country. They will help fight terrorism, reduce health tourism, benefit fraud, identity theft. They will drastically reduces the amount of time required to perform identity checks and also make identity checking far more reliable.
Boris Johnson did a good piece about how weird it was that the public was ready to roll over on this issue. It is strange to watch people fall on their knees to their government; I'd have thought it should be the other way around.
Sabretache, I am far from naive on this subject. My "Be About Your Business Citizen" exist simply because thought it would be funny to pose as a loyal citizen in some kind of strange authoritarian future government.
My blog itself is devoted to exposing a number of the myths perpetuated by the anti ID card lobby. I have a suitable background in IT that gives me an insight into the subject that many people don't posess.
I should add that the 2,700 citizens who were wrongly labelled as criminals due to the difficulty the government has in keeping track of peoples identities.
ID cards would add far more certainty in determining identity minimising the chances that you might be mistaken as someone else.
If you are innocent, then you have nothing to fear...
I remember working for a bank a few years ago where they were integrating all the databases. Courtesy of a single customer ID...
Customers who had been in the lovely silo of Private Banking had their details put on the same system as the hoi-polloi. There was great opposition to it, but hey ho, that's progress. And there was a long legal argument about whether the bank down south should be able to see records opened in scotland. but soon the branch staff had information about mortgages, loans, credit cards, Peps, Isas, the lot. Understandable within one organisation, but not so good when the health records and tax records are merged - do we really want Revenue and Customs peering into these files.
Once the ID card has given us all a unique number, all this will be possible. Oh, they say there will be 'safeguards' - just as they said to the senior managers at Private Banking...
And what happens when processing changes to the information is outsourced to India ?
Yes it is scary stuff and it's much much scarier than that little flash movie shows. Once you factor in image recognition, web footprints etc then the surveilance society is far more intrusive than that.
If you ever get around to reading the outline movie script I sent you a few weeks ago - you will see what I mean !
What happens if they start using the kind of 'behaviour scoring' which is used by the supermarkets ?
Someone once asked why the supermarkets were moving into the insurance market. It was because they already knew so much about their customers.
'So you will be able to target them for life insurance if they are buying nappies?'
'No, we target them for life insurance as soon as we see that they have stopped buying condoms'.
That is just one example - if you have a 'Clubcard' then you have already given away most of your privacy already. And since the banks are analysing all your direct debits to determine your purchase behaviour my guess is most people will sign up for ID cards like sheep...
Sheesh!!! Am I glad I is just an old Git. Mind you, we all had Identity cards in WW2, AND points/coupons to buy our allocation of whatever, even sweets. Perhaps that is why I still have most of my own teeth. BUT... I was not aware there was a war on around here. Perhaps Messrs Bliar and Brown are cooking one up.
The government are about to trial a new system at termnal 3 Heathrow, it is being sold to the public on the basis that it will speed up time through security and alleviate any worries over ID cards.
This will use biometric data to allow you to speed through security. It says nothing about allowing non UK citizens who can't use the same system slowing you up by having to go through traditional security.
I think that this will be the thin end of the wedge in terms of ID cards.
We simply do not need them. Home grown terrorists will be able to apply for one, I personaly carry ID to prove who I am. Why should I fork out another £80 to satisfy the need for this government to control every aspect of my life.
I was born into a democracy tha practiced the right to freedom and free speech. This Labour government has slowly eroded these rights.
Your post, while very valid, is not just about ID cards. It is about the sharing of informaton on databases and the uses convergence in technology can be put to. As a consultancy project I implemented ther first automated call centre in the UK. Later I was horrified by the uses people were prepared to put Computer/Telephony Integration to. And in those days gobernments were not involved. We should be thankful the civil service are so incompetent at managing their technology.
There is no chance that a future Lab/Tory/LibDem government will refrain from this sort of scheme. We should campaign for access to the db. A card holder should be able to walk into their local police station, insert card and get a read out of the data held on them, plus the audit trail of who has looked at it.
We should also remember the NHS IT project, which aims to provide at least 400,000 NHS employees (including perhaps that nice lady who lives next door to you and who does something or other in the Health Service) with the most intimate details of your confidential medical records. You thought they were confidential to you and your GP? Forget it. Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, knows otherwise.
If any of this surveillance madness gets anywhere near to reality it will provoke civil terrorism, carried out by perfectly ordinary citizens against the Government. Not extremists. Ordinary people in their millions.
Let's just hope the saving grace will be the sheer depths of official incompetence, the expectations and political pronouncements which are so far beyond any comprehension of what will actually work in practice.
proud to be anonymous - I have just had a letter from the Department of Health today ! I wrote to them in no uncertain terms telling them not to put my data on the 'spine' as they call it.
Rather than comply with my request, they have sent me a pamphlet with information and 'questions and answers' to help with my re-education.
Orwellian Nightmare quite right.
I will post some more information when I have had a chance to peruse 'Patronising Patricia's missive..
Compulsory ID Cards could be used for progressive purposes. Electoral registration is in a mess because we are a highly mobile society. It is not difficult to work out an ID card system which ensures that our voting rights follow us around automatically. It is often the non-registrred that have a greater need for the franchise because society mucks them about.
There's a bit in the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill that I am grinding my way through at the moment (section 90 onwards, since you asked) that allows a court to apply to government (including the Inland Revenue) for all and any information that government holds on a debtor, and then to use that information to help a creditor of a judgment debt to get his money back.
Each time the government proposes some new invasion of our privacy they produce a good reason for it -- except, thank goodness, identity cards which (being promoted by the Home Office) they have forgotten to find any useful justification for at all.
That was brilliant, I have never trusted Labour's I.D. scheme and have been blogging on about it for some time, unfortunately there are a lot of people still content to sleepwalk into this nightmare!
Mr Potato - 3.46AM That is a very interesting bit of social history. I should be most interested in discussing a WW2 ID card with you. I was too young. My father referred to his once - in favour, so they must be wrong. I should very much like to see a UK WW2 ID Card.
Mr Potato 3.46am. A WW2 UK ID Card. Most interesting. Please contact to discuss. My father had one and was in favour so it had to be wrong for later (now). I should so like to see one. A piece of social history.
Identity cards (made of card) are used throughout continental Europe without hesitation by all citizens and facilitate everyday life enormously.
As Ian Thorpe indicates, it is the orwellian database already constructed and currently being expanded by the NuLabour administration, undiscussed and without democratic acquiesence, that should, and must, be resisted.
Identity cards are not used for maintaining the kind of tabs on the continental European population at large that NuLabour pretends to. There would be a riot if any national government were to try. But then, they haven't forgotten what unbridled state authoritarianism was; when you think that it was the UK that helped them to end it the current goings-on in the UK are enough to make you weep.
I will never carry one of these abberations. Anybody who signs up to this monstrous database can expect the same fate as those who responded to a certain 1939 census.
Hell, the Sun has even started advocating the use of disused army camps as prisons. Never mind eh? Work will set you free.
Arbeit macht frei doesn't mean work will set you free; it means work makes you free. No-one in that terrible place was to be freed physically, they were to learn that work, which by implication they did not do, would make them free of their previous status as an encumbrance on the Nazi society,
Somchai I will also bring my old Thai ID card.Yes I have one! (Of course having ID cards has not stopped illegal immigration, crime,or insurgency in Thailand.There is no benefit system,hence no benefit fraud.)
54 comments:
Brilliant.
But as Tony tells us, it's all in our best interests and we have nothing to fear.....
You'd be surprised at how much of that happens right now. In the US for instance, some employers are requesting medical records before they'll hire you, because they don't want anybody who's going to be expensive in terms of medical benefits working for them.
It's blissful not having a landline or credit card, actually. Nothing to subpoena.
You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.
And it's the only way to stop terrorists ... or should that be immigration, .. I mean illegal immigration ... asylum seekers, .. er. bogus ones.
And it optimises the customer interface for the delivery of government services.
Anyway, we know where you live.
She seemed very helpful, but isn't it just a little bit creepy?
I won't show my Dad this, he hasn't got over Google Earth yet.
Excellent, they've nailed it.
This is not a threat if ID cards are introduced - this is reality now. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Raincoaster - I don't want to share my health costs with somebody who is going to put the rates up for me any more than I want to share my life insurance costs with a residents of the Gaza Strip.
Your ignorance must indeed be bliss.
You don't need ID cards for this sort of thing. The problem with the government's ID card proposals is that they have gone for a maximal technology solution instead of incremental improvements to existing government systems, which would be much cheaper and might actually work.
You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.
How much do you have in your bank account ?
William Hague was cornered and restated his belief in the principle of ID cards to John Sopel just a few weeks ago.
He said his opposition was based on the government's costings.
Seeing as the Tories helped pass the core db part of the scheme, it seems reasonable to assume, that if in government, the Tories,once in charge of the costings etc, would actually push through ID cards too.
Hey - if he had nothing to hide then why should people keep data about you.
err.. YOU, like me oppose ID cards.
Pity that the Conservative front bench have been so equivical... to say the least
Well, she was only doing her job.
As to 'stopping this from happening' Well we are miles beyond that now. The only way this can be reduced is by punitive legal damages for invasions of privacy, withdrawal of legislation (never known yet!), and - probably - armed insurrection.
....maybe I shouldn't have mentioned an insurrection. Most unsually, there seems to be a police car cruising down our street. Am I paranoid? You bet!
Taken to that extreme, that is a slave state, not a nanny state, but that is not the system I think the Govt have in mind!
It's actually worse that this.
Given the Governments far-from-exemplary record of delivering complex IT projects, the data is likely to be wrong. To compound that the cards will be easily cloned or faked as they have to be mass producable at low unit-cost. Criminals won't be able to clone the biometrics? ...But the local Pizza Shed is unlikley to purchase the highly-expensive retinal scanners required to verify the ID cards it sees with each purchase! So the use of a single point of ID verifcation actually makes it easier to steal identity and commit fraud. Welcome to Blair's legacy. The only hope we have (not the Not-Convervatives) is that PM Brown decides the whole thing is too expensive, but I note EDS is funding the Smith Institute, I wonder why?
don't forget the cost either,especially with this govts record on computer systems
expat, you don't understand. The kind of thing I'm talking about is finding out if you've ever been tested for STDs or been prescribed birth control and on that basis rejecting you as an AIDS risk. Finding out if you've ever had genetic testing done to see if you're predisposed to a disease and rejecting you on that basis. I'm not talking about a million anonymous strangers; I'm talking about it happening to you.
Following Mark Williams "Anyway, we know where you live"
"... and we also have comprehensive information about your interests, likely political inclinations, medical history and movements (especially by road) but other means too from - for example - purchases and all those occasions when you are required to identify yourself in order to get through the door or receive pretty much ANY kind of service.
What's that? The possibility of misuse?? - perish the thought. We're from the government don't you know; and we're here to help you - unless you are in breach of the 'social contract' of course, in which case we can soon put you back on the right track.
The Social Contract?? Big Brother promises to be steadfast in promoting and safeguarding the interests of the citizen, just so long as the citizen see things his way."
As a previous poster said: Wake up and smell the coffee. It IS happening. It's going to get a whole lot worse too and no political party is likely to make a principled stand against it.
Ironic that George Orwell should share surnames with the one who has really set this ball rolling.
Just to check... you Tories currently voting for or against this absurd scheme? It's hard to keep up.
In the UK it would say something like.
"Tescos here. I see you have a £100 (disputed) speeding fine outstanding and you owe a further £75 for the rush hour journey between your house and local hospital. I'm afraid I will have ask for that money before I can deliver your groceries and new baby milk. We do offer credit at 25%"
When talking recently to someone who is advising Tony's health fascists on the best ways to get us to eat more healthily I discovered that the government are planning to use information gleaned by Tesco Club Cards to target people they believe are eating the wrong things, judging by the contents of their shopping baskets. There are millions of those cards out there - it's quite clever, really. And perhaps Tesco would like to explain why they are happy to share this information with the government.
12.54am - You were late to bed last night Iain.
The Government has stated that the idea of identity cards is popular with the public.
Ministers have, however, omitted to explain that behind the identity cards will be the most intrusive database this country has ever seen.
It will change the relationship between the citizen and the state, with the balance of power being further shifted away from the citizen.
The Government has not produced evidence to show that identity cards will stop terrorism, nor that the cards will reduce benefit fraud - the great majority of benefit fraud is lying about circumstances, not about who you are.
Nor can the Government produce evidence to show that it will control illegal immigration.
A new set of criminal offences will come into force with swingeing fines and imprisonment for failing to notify the authorities of changes in one's personal life.
The Government admits the minimum cost is already £5.8bn - something that will undoubtedly rise.
There are those who say that, if one is innocent, there is nothing to fear from ID cards.
I suspect that the 2,700 citizens wrongly labelled as criminals by the Criminal Records Bureau would not agree with that.
Surely ID cards would mean that the Government would be empowered to add information to the citizens' database without their knowledge.
Most concerning of all, however, is the fact that the database would be in the charge of the Home Office!
I hear so many people tell me that they will never carry an imposed ID card and to a certain extent I agree with them.
Afterall, our ancestors didn't fight two world wars and die in such numbers to have a bunch of misguided politicians make us "carry papers" to be handed over to any civil servant who asks for them.
My vision, in this internet age, is to get everyone who fundamentally disagrees with this awful proposal to unite via the web, under the pseudonym "PANIC" standing for People Against National Identity Cards".
I reckon we would have a few million conscientious objectors with just a little publicity.
The basis could be that all who sign up assert that the idea is fundamentally un-British and completely undermines our own freedom in society.
The prospect of filling the small courts with massive numbers of like minded citizens should be enough to put the fear of God into any political party seeking election in this finely balanced "democracy".
Funny, naturally but as usual completely overhyped. The tactics used by the anti ID card lobby consist of playing up fears and lining up straw men to knock down.
ID cards will be of immense benefit to the citizens of this country. They will help fight terrorism, reduce health tourism, benefit fraud, identity theft. They will drastically reduces the amount of time required to perform identity checks and also make identity checking far more reliable.
Very good, but still not a patch on tis
http://eclectech.co.uk/clarkeidcards.php
Boris Johnson did a good piece about how weird it was that the public was ready to roll over on this issue. It is strange to watch people fall on their knees to their government; I'd have thought it should be the other way around.
Further to my 9:52 comment and apropos citizen andreas' strapline:
'Be about your business citizen' He should add: 'and remember BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU'
Oh the touching wide-eyed naivety of those who equate the interests of The State with their own.
Alarmist mumbo-jumbo.
Sabretache, I am far from naive on this subject. My "Be About Your Business Citizen" exist simply because thought it would be funny to pose as a loyal citizen in some kind of strange authoritarian future government.
My blog itself is devoted to exposing a number of the myths perpetuated by the anti ID card lobby. I have a suitable background in IT that gives me an insight into the subject that many people don't posess.
I should add that the 2,700 citizens who were wrongly labelled as criminals due to the difficulty the government has in keeping track of peoples identities.
ID cards would add far more certainty in determining identity minimising the chances that you might be mistaken as someone else.
I thought that the clip was amusing. I think that ID cards would not be so amusing. It would be like electronic tagging the innocent...
If you are innocent, then you have nothing to fear...
I remember working for a bank a few years ago where they were integrating all the databases.
Courtesy of a single customer ID...
Customers who had been in the lovely silo of Private Banking had their details put on the same system as the hoi-polloi. There was great opposition to it, but hey ho, that's progress. And there was a long legal argument about whether the bank down south should be able to see records opened in scotland. but soon the branch staff had information about mortgages, loans, credit cards, Peps, Isas, the lot. Understandable within one organisation, but not so good when the health records and tax records are merged - do we really want Revenue and Customs peering into these files.
Once the ID card has given us all a unique number, all this will be possible. Oh, they say there will be 'safeguards' - just as they said to the senior managers at Private Banking...
And what happens when processing changes to the information is outsourced to India ?
Iain,
Yes it is scary stuff and it's much much scarier than that little flash movie shows. Once you factor in image recognition, web footprints etc then the surveilance society is far more intrusive than that.
If you ever get around to reading the outline movie script I sent you a few weeks ago - you will see what I mean !
What happens if they start using the kind of 'behaviour scoring' which is used by the supermarkets ?
Someone once asked why the supermarkets were moving into the insurance market. It was because they already knew so much about their customers.
'So you will be able to target them for life insurance if they are buying nappies?'
'No, we target them for life insurance as soon as we see that they have stopped buying condoms'.
That is just one example - if you have a 'Clubcard' then you have already given away most of your privacy already. And since the banks are analysing all your direct debits to determine your purchase behaviour my guess is most people will sign up for ID cards like sheep...
Sheesh!!! Am I glad I is just an old Git. Mind you, we all had Identity cards in WW2, AND points/coupons to buy our allocation of whatever, even sweets. Perhaps that is why I still have most of my own teeth.
BUT... I was not aware there was a war on around here. Perhaps Messrs Bliar and Brown are cooking one up.
The government are about to trial a new system at termnal 3 Heathrow, it is being sold to the public on the basis that it will speed up time through security and alleviate any worries over ID cards.
This will use biometric data to allow you to speed through security.
It says nothing about allowing non UK citizens who can't use the same system slowing you up by having to go through traditional security.
I think that this will be the thin end of the wedge in terms of ID cards.
We simply do not need them. Home grown terrorists will be able to apply for one, I personaly carry ID to prove who I am. Why should I fork out another £80 to satisfy the need for this government to control every aspect of my life.
I was born into a democracy tha practiced the right to freedom and free speech. This Labour government has slowly eroded these rights.
Your post, while very valid, is not just about ID cards. It is about the sharing of informaton on databases and the uses convergence in technology can be put to.
As a consultancy project I implemented ther first automated call centre in the UK.
Later I was horrified by the uses people were prepared to put Computer/Telephony Integration to. And in those days gobernments were not involved.
We should be thankful the civil service are so incompetent at managing their technology.
I'm looking forward to the riots..
Not since the hubris of your mentor have we Brits had a good excuse to say no..
There is no chance that a future Lab/Tory/LibDem government will refrain from this sort of scheme. We should campaign for access to the db. A card holder should be able to walk into their local police station, insert card and get a read out of the data held on them, plus the audit trail of who has looked at it.
After all - what have they got to fear?
We should also remember the NHS IT project, which aims to provide at least 400,000 NHS employees (including perhaps that nice lady who lives next door to you and who does something or other in the Health Service) with the most intimate details of your confidential medical records. You thought they were confidential to you and your GP? Forget it. Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, knows otherwise.
If any of this surveillance madness gets anywhere near to reality it will provoke civil terrorism, carried out by perfectly ordinary citizens against the Government. Not extremists. Ordinary people in their millions.
Let's just hope the saving grace will be the sheer depths of official incompetence, the expectations and political pronouncements which are so far beyond any comprehension of what will actually work in practice.
proud to be anonymous - I have just had a letter from the Department of Health today ! I wrote to them in no uncertain terms telling them not to put my data on the 'spine' as they call it.
Rather than comply with my request, they have sent me a pamphlet with information and 'questions and answers' to help with my re-education.
Orwellian Nightmare quite right.
I will post some more information when I have had a chance to peruse 'Patronising Patricia's missive..
Compulsory ID Cards could be used for progressive purposes. Electoral registration is in a mess
because we are a highly mobile society. It is not difficult to work out an ID card system which ensures that our voting rights follow us around automatically. It is often the non-registrred that have a greater need for the franchise because society mucks them about.
There's a bit in the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill that I am grinding my way through at the moment (section 90 onwards, since you asked) that allows a court to apply to government (including the Inland Revenue) for all and any information that government holds on a debtor, and then to use that information to help a creditor of a judgment debt to get his money back.
Each time the government proposes some new invasion of our privacy they produce a good reason for it -- except, thank goodness, identity cards which (being promoted by the Home Office) they have forgotten to find any useful justification for at all.
Seen this before Iain. Very funny but alaming.
That was brilliant, I have never trusted Labour's I.D. scheme and have been blogging on about it for some time, unfortunately there are a lot of people still content to sleepwalk into this nightmare!
Anonymous old Git 3:14pm
ID cards contiued to be issued for some years after WWW2.I still have mine in fact.Just a piece of cardboard.
Good - we needed solid evidence beyond paranoia. Thanks.
Mr Potato - 3.46AM That is a very interesting bit of social history. I should be most interested in discussing a WW2 ID card with you. I was too young. My father referred to his once - in favour, so they must be wrong. I should very much like to see a UK WW2 ID Card.
rgds
Somchai
Mr Potato 3.46am. A WW2 UK ID Card. Most interesting. Please contact to discuss. My father had one and was in favour so it had to be wrong for later (now). I should so like to see one. A piece of social history.
Tks & rgds
Somchai
Identity cards (made of card) are used throughout continental Europe without hesitation by all citizens and facilitate everyday life enormously.
As Ian Thorpe indicates, it is the orwellian database already constructed and currently being expanded by the NuLabour administration, undiscussed and without democratic acquiesence, that should, and must, be resisted.
Identity cards are not used for maintaining the kind of tabs on the continental European population at large that NuLabour pretends to. There would be a riot if any national government were to try. But then, they haven't forgotten what unbridled state authoritarianism was; when you think that it was the UK that helped them to end it the current goings-on in the UK are enough to make you weep.
I will never carry one of these abberations. Anybody who signs up to this monstrous database can expect the same fate as those who responded to a certain 1939 census.
Hell, the Sun has even started advocating the use of disused army camps as prisons. Never mind eh? Work will set you free.
Arbeit macht frei doesn't mean work will set you free; it means work makes you free. No-one in that terrible place was to be freed physically, they were to learn that work, which by implication they did not do, would make them free of their previous status as an encumbrance on the Nazi society,
Somchai 11:51am
Meet me at the Muang Thai restaurant Black Rock and I will show you the ID card.
Somchai
I will also bring my old Thai ID card.Yes I have one!
(Of course having ID cards has not stopped illegal immigration, crime,or insurgency in Thailand.There is no benefit system,hence no benefit fraud.)
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