It seems that Neil Harding is not alone in this world. Bob B commenting on Tim’s post about the TK Maxx hacking story reiterates the same tired, tedious and frankly nonsensical case for the government’s identity card plan:
But there is a chance ID Cards will make it much more difficult to set up multiple personal identities to obtain multiple passports and conduct benefits fraud and money laundering through bank accounts under different identities and ID Cards will make it more difficult for criminals to hide with multiple aliases. Hundreds of laws over centuries haven’t prevented murders, woundings, burglary, theft, arson and fraud but it doesn’t follow that we should therefore repeal all criminal law.
Yup, the usual fuckwitted comparison of apples with oranges used by the supporters of totalitarian measures; i.e. because we already have laws, another one is all okay then, because it “might just work”.
No one has suggested repealing all criminal law, merely that we should not have laws that place us at greater risk, nor give government draconian powers over us. Identity cards will be a honey pot for thieves and fraudsters while making ordinary citizens’ lives more difficult. As Tim points out in the original post:
That such details can be stolen makes ID cards less secure, not more, but don’t expect him [Blair] to admit that.
Quite. Never mind, Bob B and Neil want us to sacrifice our privacy and risk the theft of our identities on the “chance” that it will make things more difficult for the bad guys. On the matter of the database – the primary objection – Bob B excels himself:
In these times, I profoundly hope that will be so for every use of biometric passports.
Move over Neil, a new fuckwit is in town and he’s looking to steal your crown of totalitarian twit of the year.
Identity was clearly at issue in the case where a party claiming my name and telephone number sold computer memory on eBay. A major problem in that and similar cases is that the potential costs of investigating and tracing the identities of fraudsters are greater than the individual amounts lost in the fraudulent transactions. The investigations are therefore not always pursued for cost reasons and the fraudsters are left to continue their criminal business of ripping off a long succession of victims.
Bob, old bean, the cost of me sacrificing my identity in order that yours may have an illusion of being safer is too great for me to accept. Your identity is your problem, and my identity is mine; it is fuck all to do with the government and I intend to do all in my power to keep it that way. To presume that this perfidious bill would have prevented the eBay fraud is at best speculation and I’m not prepared to sacrifice my privacy and my identity on the basis of your speculation.
The application of satellite tracking of vehicles for road pricing and vehicle security will also trace and record vehicle movements. Biometric passports are becoming obligatory and properly so IMO. How else will it be possible to track illegal migrants, slave traders and other international criminals in these times?
And it hasn’t occurred to you that these people will have thought of that? That forged identity documents will become lucrative currency? The higher the value of the document the more worthwhile becomes the effort in reproducing it. The wonderful biometric passports you are salivating over have already been cracked.
The argument that we already have to provide proof of identity for a number of small transactions is because government has made life more difficult for banks and businesses by insisting that they ask for it to “prevent money laundering”. This is simply a self fulfilling need. Having created the need, they now intend to produce the cure. Ain’t that sweet?
Over my dead body.
Everyone here seems to be dodging the issue of tracing illegal migrants.
Sigh… the clue is in the word “illegal”. Jesus!
The populist campaign against ID cards is simply dodging the real criminal issues of identity theft and fraud.
Bollocks. Identity fraud has been exaggerated out of proportion to make the case for the “cure”.
You slightly miss the core of the government’s objective here.
It is the purpose of the National Identity Register (of which the ID card itself is the merest and least objectionable part) to make ordinary citizens’ lives more difficult (by making them transparent to agents of the governing clique.) This is not just an inconvenient side effect. The rest of your points, clearly, are entirely valid.
S-E
Indeed. I’ve discussed NIR and its insidious purpose at some length on and off over the past couple of years. On this occasion, I wasn’t planning to go into a great depth, merely that as this character was being such a complete tit, it was worth highlighting. 😉