Cable Forum - ID cards rethink to be unveiled

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Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheNorm (Post 34502216)

The use of ID cards, by themselves, does not mean that Britain will become a "police state". Much more worrying is the eroding of rights of free speech and public assembly.

True, and I am concerned about the ID card as part of that.

Quote:

I'm all for it if means I only have to carry one card instead of passport, drivers licence, staff ID, security swipe card, Oyster card, etc, etc.

I was going to say that you are in trouble if you lose it, but then if you carry all that stuff in your wallet, and lose your wallet, you are also in trouble.

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

2. The government already holds a great deal of data about you. I don't think ID cards will add to that.

This, although it's not actually true*, is actually an argument against - why should the country pay Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£19bn to collect and store data it already has?

* The ID scheme requires a lot more compulsory information than currently provided voluntarily. I can get by without a driving licence and if I'm not driving (like I didn't from about 1994 to 2003) I don't bother keeping DVLA informed of house moves. Ditto I've moved twice since getting my passport and haven't felt the need to inform them, and it's perfectly good ID, I took it the bank the other day, in fact, along with a water bill.

However, if I get a card and don't keep the ID card people IPS informed when I move I get whacked with a Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£2000 fine. What's in it for me, then, if on the rare occasions I need to prove who I am the other party is perfectly willing to accept my existing ID?

That's before getting onto the government repeatedly lying about the system anyway (biometrics are secure because they won't be online? How do you check the person in front of you has biometrics that match the database?). I don't trust them and don't think the scheme is necessary, although I'm prepared to accept that a free card for particularly low-paid people who find it difficult to prove who they are is actually positively beneficial.

---------- Post added at 12:34 ---------- Previous post was at 12:31 ----------

Quote:

I'm all for it if means I only have to carry one card instead of passport, drivers licence, staff ID, security swipe card, Oyster card, etc, etc.

Since the scheme doesn't actually include any of that stuff (although the ID card would be a passport equivalent within the EU, but not outside), what's the point here? Your staff ID and security swipe card are part of a private contract between you and your employer, Oyster is a way of carrying cash around, open anonymously to anyone, particularly tourists, and solely intended to make using public transport simple. Do you really want all those run by the incompetents at the Home Office? They'd ruin them.

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBKing (Post 34502221)

This, although it's not actually true....

Sorry, I should have clarified...

I'm referring to the general idea of an ID card - one card that securely identifies the owner, and carries some personal information. A bit like a passport and drivers licence combined. Not compulsory, but extremely convenient.

I'm NOT supporting the specific, ill-conceived and very expensive plan the government had in mind for ID cards. It looks like they aren't supporting it either.

By the way, are you sure you want to admit that you didn't tell the DVLA about a change of address?

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

By the way, are you sure you want to admit that you didn't tell the DVLA about a change of address?

They'll never take me alive.

The key thing is that it didn't actually harm anyone - I wasn't using the licence at the time, since I didn't have a car. As soon as I did start driving, I dug it out and sent it off (IIRC I'd moved from Suffolk to Manchester to Hamburg to Manchester to Birmingham to London and three times within London too in the meantime). No harm done and paperwork avoided all round.

Quote:

Originally Posted by me

biometrics are secure because they won't be online? How do you check the person in front of you has biometrics that match the database?

The Register has spotted this, I'm glad to say. Where I lead, others follow :P

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03...atabase_gaffe/

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBKing (Post 34502273)

They'll never take me alive....

They might not care if they take you alive or not! I'm sure I've seen a poster about this, be suspicious of people who have several addresses. Or was that mobile phones?

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheNorm (Post 34502327)

They might not care if they take you alive or not! I'm sure I've seen a poster about this, be suspicious of people who have several addresses. Or was that mobile phones?

I thought it was heads, be suspicious of people who have several heads...

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBKing (Post 34502273)

The Register has spotted this, I'm glad to say. Where I lead, others follow :P

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03...atabase_gaffe/

A very good quote from there...

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Register

Munro [MD of GCHQ accredited penetration testing firm SecureTest] describes [Home Secretary Jacqui] Smith's faith in the inherent security of databases kept off the internet as "misguided" and symptomatic of wider government IT security shortcomings. "The minister's lack of appreciation gives us great concern that government ministers have no significant understanding of security, as evidenced by the recent data losses on CD," he said. "What hope have we got that the National ID card database will be any more secure?"

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

What i don't understand and maybe i am being thick but if the information they want for the ID card is held in an offline database how can anyone verify the ID card. Surely when i am asked for my id card they need to verify it with a central database that cannot be tampered with as i am sure someone will find a way to tamper with the cards themself.

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

More joy about "secure" databases
Charlie's Diary 17th March 2008

"Take two news items about the same subject:
Firstly: MI5 want to data mine the Transport for London Oyster card database: "The Observer said this weekend that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has confirmed that the clandestine services have requested full Oyster access, and would target other cities' smartcard travel schemes as they come online. At present they can request details of an Oyster user's transactions - and hence, time-slugged locations - on an individual basis only, rather than having free rein to search the system as they please. This could include mining the entire database to look for suspicious patterns, and tracking named individuals."

Secondly: Wireless subway cards cracked: "Karsten Nohl, a computer science researcher at the University of Virginia, claims to have broken the encryption used by the RFID (radio frequency identification) chip found in the Charlie Card on the Boston T subway system and in the Oyster Card on the London Underground.".....

.....Now. If you were a miffed anti-authoritarian prankster ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Â and you knew the Thought Police would be looking for suspicious patterns of travel in a database, and if the data going into the database was amenable to hacking (if, for example, you could run off fake Oyster cards in the name of, say, Sir Ian Blair), wouldn't it be fun to see if you could make the Security Elephant dance? Mark Thomas fans, I'm looking at you.

Alternatively, if you were a really smart terrorist, you'd never use the same (fake) Oyster card twice"

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Hmm...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../12/do1202.xml

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philip Johnston @ The Telegraph

Almost unnoticed last week, the Government announced it had shaved another Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£1 billion off the cost of its proposed identity card scheme.

It did so by deciding to let the "open market" capture citizens' biometrics, effectively outsourcing the cost of enrolling people on to the ID database. You could end up getting your fingerprints taken at a supermarket, rather than at a passport office as originally proposed.

Almost imperceptibly, the security architecture originally built around the ID card project has been dismantled.

When it was proposed in 2002, the intention was to establish a bespoke database. David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, said: "We've got to build a clean identity database from scratch. We can't use the National Insurance numbers, as there are 20 million more National Insurance numbers than there are people in the country."

But this idea was abandoned. Instead, biometrics will be stored on an existing system in the Home Office used for asylum seekers, biographical information will be held on a National Insurance database in the Department for Work and Pensions and a third database at the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) will hold administrative details related to the issue and use of the ID cards.

It was also envisaged that everyone would have to give an iris print, which is the most secure biometric with a far lower chance of false readings than fingerprints. Last year, however, the Identity and Passport Agency said it would proceed only with fingerprints, which are far cheaper to capture.

Still, at least these fingerprints would be taken in the secure and official environs of a government passport office, one of 70 being set up for this purpose. But when it became clear that far more than 70 offices would be needed to enrol 60 million people on to a database, and it would be costly, this changed as well. Hence the announcement that private contractors will be asked to bid for the work.

Does any of this sound secure to you? It seems to defeat the purpose of the whole exercise, which is to protect identities, capture terrorists, bear down on benefit fraud and stop illegal immigration. But of course none of these will be ameliorated by the possession of an ID card, which nobody will be required to carry with them.

As one perplexed campaigner said after the publication of the new costings: "The Government now appears to have junked the primary pretext for the scheme. So what is it for?"

(big big snip)

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

BBC News - ID cards 'could threaten privacy'

In other news...

"Bears crap in the woods"

"The Pope is Catholic"

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt D (Post 34571099)

BBC News - ID cards 'could threaten privacy'

In other news...

"Bears crap in the woods"

"The Pope is Catholic"

I no longer have any faith in this system being secure. Therefore i for one will NOT be signing up to it.

Re: ID cards rethink to be unveiled

Quote:

Therefore i for one will NOT be signing up to it

Are you going to campaign against it? If not, you may find yourself with the choice of signing up or a large fine.

If you've got a Labour MP, write to them saying you'll only vote for a candidate opposed to ID cards (Labour may well listen to this now, their candidate in Crewe & Nantwich included 'ID cards for foreigners' in their spectacularly unsuccessful campaign, and they need to know it's not a vote-winner for two reasons - the expense and the inconvenience). Join no2id. It's nearly dead, so let's kill it.