Comments on: ID CARDS —THE FIGHT GOES ON

By: The Skakagrall

The Skakagrall — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:03:32 +0000

ID theft

Hackers in California have stolen sensitive data, including social security numbers, on 35,000 people from a company working for the government. It’s happened before. California now has a unique law requiring customers to be alerted if there are …

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By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:28:28 +0000

Scary Duck – please no use of wooden sticks around: use an iron bar instead!

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By: Simon Holledge

Simon Holledge — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 18:44:40 +0000

Barry is absolutely right.

The verification of identity does not require centralized administration. Your ID card could be under your own control and still be viable.

Some people at the Home Office must understand this, even if senior bureaucrats probably don’t. What is infuriating about this whole project is that they won’t discuss the key technical aspects of the scheme in public.

It’s a bit like your doctor not telling you what illness you’ve got – because you wouldn’t understand – except that in this case the doctor doesn’t understand either!

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By: NO2ID NewsBlog

NO2ID NewsBlog — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:48:17 +0000

Boris Johnson missed the vote

Boris Johnson apologises for missing the Identity Cards bill vote. Many members of his party chose to abstain on the vote. Abstention will let us walk into the disasterous scheme. We need action from our MPs!

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By: Scaryduck

Scaryduck — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:56:23 +0000

Missing in Action: Boris Johnson.

Melissa – hit him with the blogging stick until he posts something!

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By: Barry Dorrans

Barry Dorrans — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:24:53 +0000

The thing is it’s not necessary to keep the biometric data in a central database to prove identity; you can store them on the card and just keep a card ID on a database so you can say if a card is valid or not.

Then readers could be portable, and display the card embedded data.

Right now how would police patrols be able to use the proposed card? The data transfer would be rather large if they needed to pull a photo from a central database over a mobile/celluar link.

Information on the card would also allow a certain amount of control, you, the card holder could authorise display of data with a “chip and pin” like system. So, if as Labour wants, you need to identify yourself to the video store the video store system could be written to just display the photo upon your authorisation and takes away the need for every place that wants to validate id to have links into a central government database.

It would also make passport control abroad easier. If every EU country used the same system they wouldn’t need links into each others databases, just the same “Show me the biometrics on this card” system.

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By: Anoneumouse

Anoneumouse — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:16:23 +0000

Boris perhaps you should join the 1952 committee, an anti ID card group for Bloggers http://www.theenglandproject.net/1952committee.html

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By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:10:50 +0000

Psimon, have you seen Minority Report? Not for the whole precrime sci-fi bit, but for the background it’s cast against…

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By: Mark Gamon

Mark Gamon — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:10:59 +0000

Cute speech last night, Boris. Definitely the man of the moment. Personally, I think you were made for the Arts job – can’t quite picture you as Shadow Trade and Industry Sec. (or similar). That IS a compliment, by the way.

Do you think you’ll ever be offered it back?

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By: Psimon

Psimon — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:20:07 +0000

Strangeblueghost, you don’t need to carry it for it to be useful to the government and its agents. Part of the biometric data stored (centrally) is a scan of your face. This can be used with face recognition software to monitor exactly what you are up to (in the presence of a cctv camera). This technology is at least 10 years old – a cell of alledged IRA terrorists were arrested ten years ago after being spotted (on cctv) using the London Underground. 3 million people a day use that system, and no human could have spotted 5 faces in a crowd that big (especially if they had no idea who to look for!). Over 90% of the worlds cctv cameras are in this country, we are the most watched country in the world.

But at least we are still (currently) anonymous!

If only Orwell had foreseen computers…then everyone really WOULD be frightened now!

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