ID cards combined with register of births, deaths and marriages

[matgb]

Bad news. El Reg reports UK ID card service mounts birth, marriage, death landgrab:

The UK Identity & Passport Service (IPS) has staged an identity landgrab on birth, marriage and death records. From April 2008 the General Register Office, which is responsible for recording these matters and is currently a directorate of the Office of National Statistics, is to become part of IPS, meaning that IPS will be logging you from the moment you're born until the moment you die.

The logic of the move is chilling.

There might be a little hyperbole in that report, but not much, and I agree with the general thrust. You will be stamped, you will be categorised, you will be numbered. Come in Number Six, your free time is up.

Other, possibly good, possibly bad news? They're getting efficient as well. Jennie's passport just arrived. Hand delivered. She only sent the forms off last week. So yay! we can book flights. But it seems they are now able to organise piss-ups in breweries.

Comments

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Hmm. It's all a bit sinister.

Still, at least it seems that we'll have an extre line of defense up here in Scotland.

[gominokouhai]

What extra line is that? As I understand it the devolved government doesn't deal with these matters.

[matgb]

Salmond (and a whole chunk of local authorities) have declared they'll have nothing to do with ID cards and won't co-operate on the implementation.

One of the posited uses is the 'entitlement card' which you use to get access to local services. Take away that use, they become merely an element of state control.

[gominokouhai]

I didn't know that. And there was me, thinking the SNP were good for nowt.

I'm not sure how much say they'll actually get in the matter, though.

[matgb]

I think the basic thing is that if there's enough resistence then the scheme, especially the compulsory elements, will fold.

I adopted the icon of this post ages ago, I'm on the first 'Refuse' pledge on pledgebank and I stand by that one. They're going to happen, we just have to make them too expensive and politically damaging for Gordon to want to keep them.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

The SNP do talk a lot of utter shite, but like a stopped clock they do occasionally get it right.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

As it says in the article:

Passports are a UK national issue, births, marriages and deaths are devolved - in Scotland, to a hostile Nationalist administration.

[gominokouhai]

Hmm, no good to me then---I wisnae born here.

[andrewducker]

From a purely technical point of view I'm in favour of it.

From a social point of view I'm in favour of it, providing it's followed by a few public scandals and the imposition of decent controls over it.

[matgb]

I've been completely opposed since before they pushed it through. The big thing for me isn't the idea of an ID card, it's the national register and the fines &c you get hit by if you fail to tell them you've changed circumstances, etc.

Voluntary to carry reprint of the ID section of your passport would be fine, and could be useful, especially on polling day, but compulsory to have biometric linked to a national database which they're selling info from? No thanks.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

But apart from the ethical questions, isn't it a bit dangerous to have all that data centralised? All your eggs in one basket, and all that?

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

What Moodie said

[andrewducker]

There are plus and minus points. On the plus side, having it all coherently connected and right is easier if it's all in one place. The data can't contradict itself, as it can if it's spread all over the place.

Additionally, you can make sure that the procedures are right for backups, redundancy, etc. and only have to apply them once.

On the minus side, if it goes wrong, it goes _really_ wrong.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

if it goes wrong

You mean WHEN. Also, it's like DNA evidence: if the perception arises that it's infallible, when it's actually a good long way from infallible, it causes all sorts of problems.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Like Snapes, I tend to be of the belief that if something can go wrong, it WILL go wrong.

So I hope they're planning to back up all that data and keep it somewhere safe...

[gominokouhai]

It's not really a question of if it goes wrong, though. It's more a question of what happens every time you lose your wallet.

[fearmeforiampink]

Something that's there to be used on as many things as this will be a very tempting target for organised crime, and with the resources and skills they can throw at it, it will be broken. Think of how many people will be involved in administering these things, will every one of them be immune to corruption? America has some real issues from identity theft based on the way that so many things are tied into your Social Security Number there, and this will do the same.

There's also the great stonking issue that it doesn't really do that much to solve most of the things its supposed to be solving.

[tyrell.livejournal.com]

Ooooh yeah.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Wonder what will happen if the database gets entrusted to EDS or similar?

Stuff 'em. I'm going to become Irish before HMG abolishes the '49 Agreement.

[matgb]

You at least have that option—what are their citizenship rules again?

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

1 grandparent born in Ireland would be enough to claim eligibility. However, there are also ways and means of claiming Irish citizenship even if you have no Irish ancestry; see here (http://www.irishlinks.co.uk/irish-citizenship-grandparents.htm) for more details.

[tyrell.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I could do that.

Hee! He's kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse! That'll never get old. The 6x8-foot photo was genius.