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."
800-Million pound cost (Score:1, Interesting)
wow (Score:5, Interesting)
A government that actually gives up some power over people. I am speechless.
Re:wow (Score:2, Interesting)
well, at least the 15,000 folks that bought one won't be getting a refund.
And the project isn't really canned, as it will be rolled out for non-EU foreign nationals wishing to stay (cue thin end of wedge) so most of the contractors will still stay on the gravy train.
Re:wow (Score:5, Interesting)
The wonder of a coalition government. Neither side has the support to hammer through anything too extreme. So they're forced to actually do their jobs, rather than repeatedly kicking the electorate in the nuts and claiming they have a mandate to do so.
It probably won't last, but as long as it does, this current lot may actually accomplish some good for the country.
Link to source, and my favourite quote of the week (Score:4, Interesting)
Blunkett wants to sue (Score:5, Interesting)
New Labour (Score:5, Interesting)
Who would've predicted 20 years ago that a Conservative government is now more liberal than a labour one. What did labour bring the UK in respect to civil liberties?
- Huge amounts of CCTV - one estimate claims the it's the highest in the world
- Useless passports that don't work in most airports
- An illegal war or two
- Sponging off the state is more attractive than working
I voted labour in 1997 and was fairly anti-conservative back then. Since that time something happened to the party (Tony Blair) that has completely transformed them in my view.
Trying to grip the issues involved... (Score:5, Interesting)
I Finland everyone has a national identification number. Censuses haven't been done in my lifetime, no need. A drivers license, passport, social security card or ID card identifies the citizens with this number. I'm not sure if there's a law that says you have to posess one of the above, it's just something everyone has anyway.
Still there haven't been any major issues. Is this because the Finnish government is simply less corrupt that many others? I don't have a problem with having a number assigned to me. In fact that number ensures I can use all the services my taxes pay for, like working health care.
So am I living in some socialist police state, or is it just a matter of what kind of government implements this kind of a scheme?
Re:New Labour (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:800-Million pound cost (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, 800 Million is the implementation cost. There would still be running costs long term. Also, this seems to be a low number; No2ID identified a billion worth [no2id.net] of contracts.
There are also other costs; e.g. organisations which would be required to check the ID card would have to link into the scheme. And finally, this isn't the only one in this set of pointless database schemes. If they also cancelled the scheme to link the whole NHS together that would save really lots.
As they say, a billion here, a billion there. Soon it starts to add up to real money.
Getting rid of the CARDS not the DATABASE (Score:1, Interesting)
Hold yer hallelujahs, people. They're getting rid of the ID *CARDS*, not the database. The biometric database will continue as part of the requirements for passports. These biometric passports are required for travel to a number of countries including the US (the irony has not passed me by; US freedom-nuts, wittering on about how restrictive the UK is, when our passports basically only contain biometric data in order to meet US visa-waiver requirements). The biometric passport database will continue to share data (as it already does) with the relatively new photo driving licences (for example, if you want to get a photo driving licence online, you don't need to submit a photo if you already have a passport, it just connects to the passport database and retrieves your existing passport photo).
The only things being scrapped here are some bits of plastic and a few off-the-shelf smartcard readers. The data is still very much in the cloud, you just won't be able to touch it anymore.
Re:What is the privacy debate about? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand the privacy issue. I like the lib dems, I'm glad they are in power, and I think ID cards are expensive - but I don't understand why this is such a massive issue for so many people. I'm not afraid of CCTV and I'm not afraid of ID cards. I can't say I'm an expert in the issues (the wiki article is pretty lame, for example), so please feel free to educate me.
I realised your lack of expertise (or thought) from the rest of your post. As for educating you, I'm sure others will help me out here...
The reason I want ID cards, is not really for ID cards. I want my identity to be electronic, to make real world transactions, authentication etc as easy as internet authentication. On the internet I can access any site and make any payments with just a username and password. In the real world there are a bunch of ass backwards tools - coins, keys, access cards, phone sim cards and other bull. One of the reasons I can't shed this crap is because of "privacy concerns", which I don't worry about. For example, I share almost all of my personal information with google - and I don't worry about them trying to misuse it. I also share all of my wealth with the Bank Of England - I don't worry about them either. Germany also has a system of ID cards, which works.
You're doing better than me, I need several userids and passwords - Verrified by Visa and the Mastercard equivalents or paypal spring to mind. And please tell me that you really expect to replace coins and keys with an ID card. These things would soon have been cloned you realise. And how are you going to get mulinational phone companies to use a national ID card as a sim? And how often do you need to worry about your sim card(s)? As you don't have any privacy concerns please tell us you name, d.o.b. address and bank account details - or did you miss Jeremy Clarksons little cock up by doing this? The Bank Of England doesn't have all my wealth, no one institution does. Does Germany also have the Big Brother database that was going to go with these useless cards?
The reason I want CCTV is because it should make solving crime a lot easier. Combine it with face recognition and you can build a map of where people go and when. Add datamining, and perhaps you can start to track down drug dealers, burglars, rapists, etc. It starts to get very difficult to commit the really nasty crimes that still happen (although not nearly as much as people think)
They have a miserably small effect on crime solving at present, and I'm sure the rest would have been great for the Staasi. You should consider the possible unintended conseauences as well as the stated aim. The fact that it is possible to identify how anybody voted in UK General Elections also makes me unhappy, or did you not realise that the ballot papers are traceable?
The best/most frequent arguments against seem to me to be that it would give a corrupt government the power to identify certain elements of society, who could then be, say, put in camps, and it would give police power which they could use to victimise certain groups
The trouble is these things normally tend to happen, laws get applied more loosely than may have been intended: 'sus', 'stop and search'. and the unlwaful harrasing of phorographers (stretching some 'anti-terror' legislation). Someone one descibed Jack Straw (as Home Secretary) as too right wing for Mrs Thatchers government. Another oft-quoted saying is that Labour do what the Police tell them and the Tories tell the Police what to do. Look at the number of laws passed in the last 13 years which can result in imprisonment and read the 'Great Repeal' bill just announced - and be grateful we know have a Con/Dem coalition. I hope they are looking at Detention Orders too.
From a purely personal standpoint I don't see these things happening in Britain. The progress of Nazi Germany towards the holocaust was
Finally Slashdot. (Score:5, Interesting)
You post a story about the new British regime.
For those unaware, Britain has had a new coalition government for the past 3 weeks, and it's been active in stating it's goals of rolling back many of the civil liberties infringements in the UK that came about under Labour.
There have been countless stories on Firehose, but positive stories about a final change of state of British politics that has massive meaningful benefits for improving the state of civil liberties here in the UK are apparently not newsworthy, it's better to stick to negative stories about how the world is going to end. Apparently.
It's a shame because Slashdot could use some positive news on the civil liberties front, and there has been a lot from the UK this last few weeks. To sum most of them up, the stated intentions of the new coalition government are:
- The removal of the DNA database
- The removal of the national identity register
- Cancelling the go ahead of enhanced biometric passports
- Cancellation of the contact point database
- Removal of restrictions on right to peaceful protest
- Stronger restrictions on the use of CCTV cameras
- Ban fingerprinting of children in school without parental permission
- Increase the scope of the freedom of information act
- Remove innocent people from the DNA database
- Restore trial by jury as a right in all criminal cases
- Review and hopefully rework libel laws to prevent stifling of freedom of speech
- Introduce more legislation to prevent abuse of anti-terror laws
- Ban interception and storage of e-mail and other digital communications without good reason (i.e. a specific warrant)
Now, you wouldn't realise any of this if you simply read Slashdot of course, but there you go. Hopefully the UK is seeing a bit of a turnaround now that totalitarian Labour have been kicked out, and for the first time in about a hundred years, the Liberals are part of government again.
It's not all perfect of course, no one can like everything their government does. The new coalition has also said that they will allow citizens to put forward bills for repeal, whether the digital economy act can be included is yet to be seen, but right now, the things there are cold hard plans for are extremely promising and look set to get the go ahead.
It's just a shame Slashdot didn't post the full list of changes when Nick Clegg the new deputy PM did a speech on restoring civil liberties in the UK last week when there were like 20 firehose submissions on it, but oh well, I suppose we should be glad now that at least the fact a tiny miniscule portion of the goings on over here has been posted, albeit a week late.
Re:New Labour (Score:3, Interesting)
The Conservative-Liberal coalition is more liberal than Labour ....
The Conservatives proposed an ID card before labour, introduced widespread CCTV originally, the precursors of a war or two (technically legal ...but they would have done it anyway)
The Lib-Dems were against ID cards, against the war, against CCTV ....
Together they moderate each others extreme policies ....
Re:wow (Score:3, Interesting)
The big picture matters when it comes to government and electoral reform. For example, an elected second chamber based on PR, and an elected first chamber using AV rather than FPTP, would still be a big step up for democracy compared to what we have today.
As others have noted, the point of AV is not to achieve proportional representation, it is to negate tactical voting. Right now, anyone who claims to know what effect that would have in the long term is deluding themselves. There is no way to predict what would happen to turnout, what would happen in formerly marginal constituencies, or how smaller or single-issue parties would fare if voting for them as first choice did not mean you couldn't also express a preference between the big parties.
Re:Finally Slashdot. (Score:2, Interesting)
Most of this was also in the Lib-Dem-drafted Freedom Bill: http://freedom.libdems.org.uk/ [libdems.org.uk]
* Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.
* Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.
* Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.
* Abolish the flawed control orders regime.
* Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.
* Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.
* Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.
* Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the Information Commissioner and reducing exemptions.
* Stop criminalising trespass.
* Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.
* Prevent allegations of ‘bad character’ from being used in court.
* Restore the right to silence when accused in court.
* Prevent bailiffs from using force.
* Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.
* Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.
* Remove innocent people from the DNA database.
* Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.
* Scrap the ministerial veto which allowed the Government to block the release of Cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
* Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.
* Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.