Rather overlooked in the whole grim farrago was a report, cunningly released yesterday when everyone was looking the other way, which completely undercuts the entire scheme. Basically it says there is a need for a voluntary ID scheme from a *consumer* viewpoint, to prove ID at banks etc., but this is incompatible with the massive compulsory centralised database idea which is what the Government are clinging on to and trying to force people into (e.g. you can't work in certain industries without one, which is as far from voluntary, consumer-led as you can get).
Quote:
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At an early stage, we recognised that consumers constitute the common ground between the public and private sectors. And our focus switched from "ID management" to "ID assurance". The expression "ID management" suggests data sharing and database consolidation, concepts which principally serve the interests of the owner of the database, for example the Government or the banks. Whereas we think of “ID assurance†as a consumer-led concept, a process that meets an important consumer need without necessarily providing any spin-off benefits to the owner of any database. This distinction is fundamental. An ID system built primarily to deliver high levels of assurance for consumers and to command their trust has little in common with one inspired mainly by the ambitions of its owner. In the case of the former, consumers will extend use both across the population and in terms of applications such as travel and banking. While almost inevitably the opposite is true for systems principally designed to save costs and to transfer or share data.
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I think that counts as 'opening a can of whup-ass'.
http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog....sby_repor.html