You are going to have to pay for an ID card that has no proven benefits out of your own pocket. This is the Labour government’s most inane and autocratic project. It is legislation made not for greater utility in your life, but instead to justify the egos of politicians. Sign the petition. Write to your MP. Do whatever you can.
I, for one, am digging the escape tunnel.
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May 25th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Not only that, but it’s potentially one of the biggest government-sanctioned invasions of privacy ever devised.
It’s a scary truth I read a while back that the UK is one of the biggest “Big Brother” nations in the world.
May 25th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
We are a big brother state but mainly at the behest of the US and much of it not controlled by the UK. On the positive side we are free to protest about it.
The ID cards will either be dropped or fail as every other major UK governmental computer system has. I have been peripherally involved in two and the ineptness is scary. We are talking back to the sixties the list of failed database projects is staggering.
The technology is not there (or if it is they will cost cut to the extent it doesnt work).
Interestingly there is very little info available on Camelot which was one of the biggest historical fuck ups but notice the CSA being quietly swept under the carpet.
Oppose it, sign the on line petitions but in the end the only winners here are the IT companies who get the contracts. If the HM government deliver this it will be their first succesful IT project in 50 years.
Jon
May 25th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
It’s interesting that the whole ID question is presented as a prevention of Identity fraud, when the reality of biometrics is an extension of Bentham’s Panopticon – the biometric signatures planting nodes with imaginary lines drawn between; an eye for an all-seeing-eye. As more companies feel the need to use biometric identification, the nodes increase and the data can be collated and mined in many different ways.
May 26th, 2005 at 7:58 am
Don’t know if you all saw this or not…
I know the government’s record in IT projects, too – I’ve been exposed to some of the NHS-related stuff. But to be honest, I think it scares me more that they might still implement the ID card scheme despite the lack of a secure and supportable infrastructure. I don’t mind carrying a piece of card/plastic around with me, but the thought of my personal details being on a commercially-available, insecure lump of HM Gov’s software frightens the bejeezus out of me.
So, I’m with Jim on this one. I want this one stopped soon because, if they fuck it up, it could be a lot more annoying than your doctor not being able to find your prescriptions.
May 26th, 2005 at 8:00 am
eep, apologies for the many posts… browser’s having a fit. (luckily I have editor-power over all posts) – Jim
June 2nd, 2005 at 3:34 pm
Christ. It’s all happening to soon. I hope those bastards get the fucking they deserve.