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

[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.