rjh04 wrote:
This argument is crazy, we are all already just numbers,
It can feel like that sometimes, but it is something to resist, as you know it is wrong to treat anyone as "sub-human" - that attitude eventually leads to genocide.
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only we have many separate ones, like drivers licences in the DVLA database, no one is kicking up a fuss about that.
I am. The up to 40% innaccuracy of the DVLA records is one of the major reasons for not trusting the Government's record on large scale databases.
The recent case of Barry Saul Dickinson who abused his access to the DVLA database to pass on private details of potential victims to his fellow so called "animal rights" extremists also shows that once such a database as the National Identity Register is created, it cannot ever be secured properly, and it presents a target worth investing a large amount of effort to infiltrate or compromise.
Keeping multiple voluntary and partial identity details, your "biographical footprint", like we have now, is a far more secure system than the "single point of failure" which the Government is planning to create.
http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/2004/10/dvla_database_c.htmlQuote:
Must of the data that will be stored on the ID cards the government has more than likely already got anyway.
The large amount of data that the Government is planning to grab from you will not fit onto even the top of the range Smart Cards, it will reside on a centralised online database system.
Government department do not share this data very efficiently internally, let alone between them, mostly because even "simple" things like name and address fields have been implemented in a hundred different non standard ways over the years. Look at the mess involved with the Criminal and Intelligence records not being shared properly between the 43 or so UK Police forces as highlighted by the Bichard Inquiry set up following the notorious Soham murders.
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The only people who should be opposed to the scheme are those with something to hide, criminal record etc...
I oppose the ID card scheme and I have nothing criminal to hide, and to imply otherwise is libellous.
If you really have nothing to hide, then why not publish here online, your full name, all other names you have ever used, your current address, all previous addresses you have ever resided at both in the UK and abroad etc, and all the other "51 registerable facts " that the Identity Cards Bill will force you to hand over and to keep up to date under threat of a fine or prison.
Your personal details will be at far less risk of being abused by criminals or overzealous petty officials on this small internet discussion forum than when they get onto the National Identity Cards Register.
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The only thing you should really be worried about is the security of the database.
Every professional security expert who has contemplated the scale of what the Government is proposing with a centralised online biometric database cannot see any way of securing it adequately. Remember that unlike any normal database or computer system, if there is any security compromise in the future (and the future means for the rest of your life, and even after you are dead, not just a couple of years ahead) and your inflexible Biometric Identifiers are compromised, then you are screwed for life, as, short of major surgery, you cannot change your Biometric Identifiers and your identity credentials can be forged or replayed.
Only the Government Ministers talk of "unique" or "unforgeable" biometrics, nobody actually selling the technology dares to claim that for fear of ridicule and lawsuits.
There are other ways of implementing even a Biometric Smart Card ID system, but we have not been given the choice or even consulted on the alternatives, such as what other countries like Belgium or Sweden are implementing.