ID Theft

Just as the ID Cards bill becomes the Identity Cards Act 2006, a story appears in the Grauniad. I’m not sure if this is fortuitous or not. After all, the bumbling fuckwit Burnham tells us that ID theft is “on the rise” as a justification for this highly illiberal piece of legislation. Indeed, he would have anyone who stops long enough to listen to his inane lies that it costs the British taxpayer £1.7Bn a year. This is a figure plucked from the ether to justify logging all our personal details on one point of failure; the Stasi database that will be the National Identity Register.

Anyway, it seems that call centre staff working for Abbey are being accosted by potential identity thieves with the offers of bribes to divulge sensitive information on Abbey customers:

if you have been a victim of identity theft, there’s a chance the crime began in the underpass that connects Bradford’s main railway station with the city’s bus garage. Thieves have been seen lurking in the shadows. But they are not out to mug passers-by. Instead, they try to tempt bank call centre workers streaming out of nearby offices, offering good money if they will part with the banking details of customers. It’s the kind of personal information that is crucial if thieves want to defraud customers or the bank.

In a few years you could rewrite that passage:

if you have been a victim of identity theft, there’s a chance the crime began in Westminster. Thieves have been seen lurking in the shadows. But they are not out to mug passers-by. Instead, they try to tempt Crapita call centre workers streaming out of nearby offices, offering good money if they will part with the NIR details of registrants. It’s the kind of personal information that is crucial if thieves want to defraud registrants.

It doesn’t take a huge stretch of imagination and it only takes one person to succumb for the whole edifice to be compromised. Only a fool would believe this couldn’t happen. Step forward Messrs Burnham and Clarke.