UK Home Office Set To Scrap National ID Cards 334
mjwx writes "In what would seem to be a sudden outbreak of common sense for the UK, the Home Office has put forward a plan to scrap the national ID card system put into place by the previous government. From the BBC: 'The Home Office is to reveal later how it will abolish the national identity card programme for UK citizens. The bill, a Queen's Speech pledge, includes scrapping the National Identity Register and the next generation of biometric passports.' The national ID card system, meant to tackle fraud and illegal immigration, has drawn widespread criticism for infringing on privacy and civil rights. However, the main driver for the change in this policy seems to be the 800-million-pound cost. Also in the article, indications of a larger bill aimed at reforms to the DNA database, tighter regulation of CCTV, and a review of libel laws."
No surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Hardly "sudden" (Score:5, Informative)
In what would seem to be a sudden outbreak of common sense
Hardly a "sudden" outbreak. We had an election that was hardly a surprise (it was held at basically the last minute it could be, as everyone expected). As a result the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have formed a coalition governement. Both coalition parties have pledged for a long time to scrap ID cards. It was also set out in their initial coalition agreement and it's one of the "freedom" things they feel they have a common platform on. Anyone who is surprised by the suddeness of the plan to scrap ID cards is... well, foreign. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course.
Nothing to do with cost.. (Score:5, Informative)
It had long been thought by everyone (other than the last government, who just got sent packing) that the ID cards just wouldn't work the way they were meant to (i.e. they don't protect anyone, and are just infringements on privacy and civil liberty, costing the citizenry money they shouldn't have to pay).
The £800 million was supposed to be recouped by the Government by charging to have the card (they were intended to be mandatory eventually with every passport). In other words, another tax to fund a scheme that wouldn't work as advertised and gave the populace no benefit while giving even more personal info to the government.
It'd been a promise since the early days (years back) by every other party to scrap this waste of time and money if they ever came into power. Labour were hoping to have it in place and active (making it much harder to scrap) before they were voted out. Thankfully they failed.
Re:Quaint system... (Score:4, Informative)
To travel to Europe you need to fork out the full fee for a "real passport"
That's nothing to do with ID of any sort, it's because the UK is not a member of the Schengen Agreement [wikipedia.org].
Re:800-Million pound cost (Score:5, Informative)
The UK military expenditure currently costs about 2.5% of the £1.8 trillion GDP. That's about £45 billion. Therefore ID cards for every citizen in the country cost, in total over the last ten years, approximately 1.7% of the total military (peacetime) budget for *this* year. Call it 2% to actually finish the scheme and issue the cards for free.
Depending on how you look at it, that can be read as ridiculous in any number of ways. Or to put it in perspective - £800m is approximately 25% of the EU farming subsidies that we pay each year, or twice the amount we pay in "R&D for Environmental protection" each year, or 1% of the old-age-pensions for this year. Now consider that the £800m is the TOTAL for the whole scheme from start to finish to create a national ID card, and that's not actually that much. It's just because it's stated in big numbers, but you're taking those from HUMONGOUS numbers to jump to conclusions. £800m over ten years is £80m a year, which is about £2.70 per working taxpayer per year, roughly. Now consider that the average working UK citizen probably pays about £4000 per year in income tax alone, from a salary of £24k. In actual fact, having http://www.goal.com/en-india/news/2171/premier-league/2010/04/18/1883371/liverpool-owner-tom-hicks-wants-800m-for-the-club
(PS: Got my data from World Bank / ukpublicspending.co.uk / HMRC statistics / other reliable sources).
Re:800-Million pound cost (Score:3, Informative)
Mmm... post got cut off halfway:
The UK military expenditure currently costs about 2.5% of the £1.8 trillion GDP. That's about £45 billion. Therefore ID cards for every citizen in the country cost, in total over the last ten years, approximately 1.7% of the total military (peacetime) budget for *this* year. Call it 2% to actually finish the scheme and issue the cards for free.
Depending on how you look at it, that can be read as ridiculous in any number of ways. Or to put it in perspective - £800m is approximately 25% of the EU farming subsidies that we pay each year, or twice the amount we pay in "R&D for Environmental protection" each year, or 1% of the old-age-pensions for this year. Now consider that the £800m is the TOTAL for the whole scheme from start to finish to create a national ID card, and that's not actually that much. It's just because it's stated in big numbers, but you're taking those from HUMONGOUS numbers to jump to conclusions. £800m over ten years is £80m a year, which is about £2.70 per working taxpayer per year, roughly. Now consider that the average working UK citizen probably pays about £4000 per year in income tax alone, from a salary of £24k. In actual fact, having less than 75% of working age in employment means that we lose £40b a year in income tax from those people, not counting the benefits, etc. that are paid to them.
£800m for a nationwide offical government project is *NOTHING* and people should really worry about other things (like how they are going to survive in their old age if pensions cost already more than ANYTHING else in the UK government budgets). I'm not a supporter of ID cards AT ALL, but stating figures and then going "OOhh, that's a lot" is pointless unless you put them in perspective. The council tax owing to local councils at the moment probably covers the entire 10-year-expenditure on ID cards.
In perspective, £800m is nothing. Liverpool football club would cost about that to buy, according to this horribly-pop-up'ped page: http://www.goal.com/en-india/news/2171/premier-league/2010/04/18/1883371/liverpool-owner-tom-hicks-wants-800m-for-the-club [goal.com]
(PS: Got my data from World Bank / ukpublicspending.co.uk / HMRC statistics / other reliable sources).
Re:800-Million pound cost (Score:5, Informative)
The cards were never going to be issued for free; they were going to be forced on us and we would have had to pay for them (in fact the 15,000ish who had purchased the cards before the election have been told they will not get refunds but, instead, will have a souvenir of "historical" note).
The purchase price of the cards was meant to cover the operating costs of the scheme; government don't pay - we do. They take our taxes, then want more stealth taxes.
Re:Quaint system... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:As the summary says (Score:5, Informative)
As to the current Con/Dem government doing anything about these wider abuses, I remain very sceptical. Previous Tory governments have been equally as big on repressive legislation as the last Labour government was. And as everybody knows, politicians are generally loathe to give up any powers unless forced to by the population.
Well, the coalition document promises a "great repeal\freedom bill" and more regulation on CCTV and a review of the libel laws (as a side note, Lord Leicester has just introduced a libel reform bill - http://www.libelreform.org/news [libelreform.org] - in light of their pledge, I'm hoping that it will get government backing) amongst other things - full text: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8677933.stm [bbc.co.uk]
The relevant section for those who don't want to click on the link:
10. Civil liberties
The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour government and roll back state intrusion.
This will include:
A freedom or great repeal bill;
The scrapping of the ID card scheme, the national identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point database;
Outlawing the fingerprinting of children at school without parental permission;
The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency;
Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database;
The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury;
The restoration of rights to non-violent protest;
The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech;
Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation;
Further regulation of CCTV;
Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason;
A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Quaint system... (Score:5, Informative)
I need a random assortment of water bills, phone bills, as proof of address when opening a bank account in France, which does has ID cards. You need to somehow have somebody identify you to get a passport, but then you would to get an ID card too. Most other Europeans do not "make do with ID cards" to travel but are obliged by law to carry one on them at all times (whether traveling or not). You may not notice any border controls but you can be stopped at any time within those borders and asked for no reason to produce an identity card. I have American friends here in France that were thrown in jail for the night for not having their passport on them whilst walking in the street. Britain neither wants nor needs ID cards, and since we are traditionally rubbish at doing large IT projects it would have been an expensive flop anyway.
Phillip.
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Informative)
It was also irrelevant anyway since the vast majority of people in britain now have a photo driving licence that performs the same function. You are already legally required to tell the DVLA where you live, and they immediately inform the police to update on the Police National Computer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_National_Computer [wikipedia.org]
Since we already are required by law to carry our driving licence while driving most people just keep it in their wallet. This allows the police to stop and search you at any time and find out who you are. Stop and search in the UK does not require a warrant.
The ID card scheme was basically a way of legally requiring something which we already have pretty much by stealth anyway for most law abiding citizens. The difference is that they could have used it to hassle illegal immigrants and people who have something to hide more if it was more rigidly codified in law. We all are forced to carry our bankcards and god knows what else that proves who we are so who cares about on more piece of ID being forced upon us. I only objected to being charged for it, via txation or directly.
If the new government really want to sort out the crap Labour passed they need to repeal the Regulation of Investigatory Powers and Terrorism Acts. I have a feeling those are both here to stay though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000 [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2000 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Getting rid of the CARDS not the DATABASE (Score:3, Informative)
They're getting rid of the ID *CARDS*, not the database.
Yes, they are; the database will be deleted.
The coalition programme says "We will scrap the ID card scheme,
the National Identity register and the ContactPoint database, and halt the next generation of biometric passports." (http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/05/~/media/Files/Downloadable%20Files/coalition-programme.ashx?dl=true)
The BBC reports: "Once the cards are illegal, the National Identity Register will be "physically destroyed", say ministers." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8707355.stm)
Re:Mostly why I voted for them (Score:3, Informative)
That would be the monster debt that Labour inherited from the previous Conservative government that presided over the three day week. Most serious historians blame the mess at the end of the 1970's on the Heaths government and the oil crisis.
I would also point out that the last Labour government presided over the longest period of sustained economic growth in the history of the United Kingdom, and even going back further to include the history of Great Britain. Now you might claim that was the legacy of the Major government, but I would point out most western economies had a recession when the dot com bubble burst, but the UK *DID NOT*. Not only that we where last of the western economies to enter the recession this time around. Further it looks like we are coming out of it in better shape than most of the rest of Europe. This is not even the worst defect, it was over 200% of GDP back in 1815, at the moment it is around the 65% mark.
Oh, and in case you think I am a Labour supporter, I am have been a life long member of the Liberal Democrats. It just really peaves me when people spout incorrect rubbish.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Since we already are required by law to carry our driving licence while driving most people just keep it in their wallet. This allows the police to stop and search you at any time and find out who you are. Stop and search in the UK does not require a warrant.
We're not required to have it with us while driving. If you don't have it on you the Police can demand that you take it into a Police station within 7 days though.
Re:Getting rid of the CARDS not the DATABASE (Score:3, Informative)
So they are getting rid of the database too, which is the more important thing, but the combination of card and database was the really bad news.
Blunket profited as ID card "consultant" (Score:1, Informative)
The cheekey fucker
Blunket has made a fortune acting as a consultant for ID card vendors
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/26/blunkett_cashes_in/
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Road Traffic Act 1988, section 164 (8)
(8) In proceedings against any person for the offence of failing to produce a licence it shall be a defence for him to show that—
(a) within seven days after the production of his licence was required he produced it in person at a police station that was specified by him at the time its production was required
Re:800-Million pound cost (Score:5, Informative)
Hang on, try reading TFA. It says:
That's considerably more than 800 million quid.
Re:How do IDs infringe on privacy? (Score:2, Informative)
One thing that often gets missed is the fact that the ID Cards legislation allows for:
- fines for not keeping the database up to date with your details, roughly £1000 un UK money
- logging details of every occasion that the ID card is used to access the National Identity Register, e.g. id you get carded at a political event, open a bank account, details get logged.
The other issue was the spiralling costs of the system, and yet another issue was the complete ineptitude of the UK Government in keeping the data safe and secure. They have already lost personal details (names, addresses, details of children etc) of 2.5 million benefits claimants on DVD-roms they left on a train.
In addition to all these issues, was the simple fact that the cards provided almost no benefit at all to the average citizen. Kidz wanting to buy Booze already have ID cards that cost far less via private schemes (and that don't keep details of every transaction on a database either).
It really is a hugely extensive population tracking device, completely at odds with the ideas of privacy and freedom, and with little real benefit for anyone except a bloated State that wants to extend its tendrils into every aspect of our lives.
If you still really think that this massive Orwellian/Kafkaesque system is a good idea, then check out Terry Gilliam's excellent film 'Brazil'... :)