Do you actually know anyone in real life who is in favour of ID Cards?

[AtheneNoctua]

I am baffled. It seems everyone hates them either on grounds of cost or invation of civil liberties.

But go on, enlighten me, are there real people (MPS excluded from the definition of Real People) who want them rolled out?

Related article here about the Tories warning the bidders that the scheme will be scrapped and that they shouldn't invest heavily in a contract that is going to be cancelled if when they win the general election.

Verytiredmummy - I was shocked by this too. As a foreign resident here in Greece I am required to register with the police, and I had to have this registration transferred when I moved house. However, no one ever came to check if I was really living here or not!

I've always been in support of them. Benefit fraud alone is a good reason to have them.

Why should people have to pay for them if they are compulsory? If they were free people wouldn't mind or be bothered.

I have absolutely no issue with the concept of an identity card, and am happy to stand up and say that publically.

Of course there's always a risk that data will be used inappropriately, but if we were all really worried about that, we wouldn't shop online, get passports, sign up at doctors' offices etc.

And for my money, a single card that meant I don't have to carry 4 different types of id, all of which require proof of address etc, would be fantastic.

If they do it though, it should be compulsory. And it should not cost individuals anything - it's compulsary, fine, but don't then ask me to fund it myself.

I applaud the Tories for both their general stance against ID cards and the national database (which is the most pernicious aspect of the whole thing) and especially for warning off potential bidders.

Appalling idea on so many grounds but cost alone should see it scrapped.

The only people I've asked who don't mind - not met one who is actually in favour - say vaguely 'oh, well, if you've nothing to hide...'

Which I would guess means they haven't really thought about it, haven't realised the implications of the database or the fact that they will be charged for the pleasure of being forced to have one (and as people have pointed out, are already bloody well paying if they have to renew their passports).

Same people were very pissed off about the loss of data re. child benefit, so I think they would object if they stopped to think about it.

Funny, I haven't seen anyone who says 'if you've nothing to hide' walking around with a massive sandwich board advertising all their personal information to all and sundry...

Bling, mybox, really think you are being naive thinking the government will do this for free. Of course you'll be made to pay! Twice - once for your own and your family's cards, and again through your taxes for the ridiculous cost of the whole project, which is spiralling out a control (as massive government IT projects always do).

Last time I heard any minister talk about costs think it was £40 a head, which obviously is £160 for a family of four - but the project spend has gone up massively since then. Could well be the same price as a new passport, which is already at 'ow' levels.

The project to introduce ID cards, if it goes ahead, will be a vastly over-time, over-budget screw-up.

If a teeny tiny fraction of that money were spent on improving existing databases and the interfaces between them then most of the stated aims (e.g. avoiding benefit fraud) would be far more effectively achieved than they will be under an ID card scheme.

I don't mind ID cards

1)Atleast there is some code/control around govt info on us. How about all the info that corporates have on us which is kicking around cyberspace?

2)If we don't improve ID proof then ID theft will beome more of a threat in future

3)If we don't consolidate and centralise govt and ID data then we will be more vulnerable to criminals etc in the future. The trouble is that we have very fragmented systems with poor control security. A centralised data base as golden source should make it much easier to improve data access control.

I have had my ID stolen and bank accounts hijac ed; it is not nice. It is the international criminals I worry about, not so much the govt.

I don't see how we expect to fight sophisticated internal crime without system upgrade including consolidation and unique source.

the government claims it will cost each person £60 but there is a history here of govt. under-estimating the costs of the scheme (and every other new govt. database).

They have to make that money back somehow, especially with public spending being squeezed.

Currently govt. claims it is costing £5bn (yeah, right) but the experts at the LSE who have been through all the paperwork and every dot and comma say £10-£20 billion.

Every single time the government has brought in a new database the costs have spiralled out of control - NHS personal records, HM Customs and Revenue, loads of others - even congestion charging in London.

Even if you actually want an ID card, surely you don't want to have to fork out a minimum of £240 for the pleasure and £10-20bn in extra taxes? That's up to a fifth of the entire NHS budget!

(£240 for a family of four)

ToughDaddy, do you really believe this will combat ID fraud, rather than making it many times worse? Thousands of people in the public and private sectors will have access to all the information about you in one handy place. Are you sure every single one will be honourable and trustworthy? They'd be a very unusual bunch of people if so...

Do you think hackers won't bother to try to find a way into this system? Or that no-one will be daft/greedy enough to download info and hand over a memory stick to someone willing to pay? Or leave it in the pub? All of these things have already happened with existing databases - ID cards will make this far more likely to happen far more often AND give criminals the gift of all this info in one place.

It's easy to fake biometric data - look up Ben Goldacre's bad science column - and once some thief has stolen your fingerprints or eyeball patterns, how the hell are you going to overcome that? Tad more difficult than changing your password...

edam- current framented poxy systems very insecure. Consolidation offers the possibility for access to be treated like the nuclear button, IYWIM.

Offers the possibility of restricted access in terms of who sees what.

Stops people fetching data around on USB sticks!!!

ALtho' we have some risk with govt, it is funny to watch people obsess about that whilst criminals are running riot. We are watching the wrong guys I am afraid.

framented fragmented

Tougdaddy, as far as I know no one is talking about consolidating anything. They are talking about making an additional database. But I have not heard squat about a plan for the others to be shut down.

Alexpolismum, I did not mean that I wanted all of that information carried around on an ID card. Just that I personally don't really care if the government has all of that information somewhere, which they already do. So why do they need me to carry an ID card?

I can not imagine why I would need an ID card and a drivers license. Surely, they have everything they need to know included in my DL. And if they don't then they should collect a bit more data through the DL renewal process.

PandL, Hello! And nice post. I completely agree.

And if the information is corrupted or wrong? The CRB checks have been proven to be unreliable and so we are going to trust and pay another bunch of incompetents with more information??

What about the homeless ? Or those who don't want to be found by abusive partners ??

AtheneNoctua - not everyone has a driving licence. I don't have one. I agree that you should not need two cards with very similar info on them, but perhaps a space could be made on an ID card to state that you have passed driving test in whatever category.

I think ToughDaddy makes a good point - yes, of course there is always the risk of dodgy people in government, but that's true in the rest of what we do too, like the waiter who nicked my credit card when I paid a restuarant bill...

The fact that it might not work, or that the system will be expensive are things that need to be overcome, not reasons to cancel the whole idea completely.

Ohbling - the fact that it might not work isn't just a tricky issue that needs to be resolved, it calls into question the whole project. And the expense will not be reined in - every single one of the massive databases this government has indulged in has been a disaster for public finances. The government has form for fucking up IT and costing us an arm and a leg while they are at it.

Toughdaddy, don't know if you've looked into the electronic patient record but I can tell you know the idea of access being at all secure is laughable. Just one example: docs and nurses and others are supposed to log on using a specific key that is traceable to them - so you can track who has been looking at what.

Only they forgot to allow for human behaviour. What really happens is Dr X or Nurse Y stuffs their card in and leaves it there for everyone else on the shift to use. Dr X, Nurse Y and their colleagues are busy and have more important things to do than faff around with ruddy key cards.

This means your confidential medical information is available to anyone who wonders past and feels a bit nosey. Not just registered users.

dunno dittany but they do seem to be drawn to massive IT databases containing confidential personal information. Maybe big IT stuff sounds sexy and exciting and makes them feel big and important? Or makes it appear they are doing something useful? (ID cards stuff in 2005 manifesto was in the section on immigration and secure borders - and it wasn't as clear as 'we will force you to have an ID card and make you pay for it and put your details on a massive database', either.)

My godmother's husband, an eminent (left-wing) historian, warned that we would have a fascist government in this country within the next 50 years. Think he died eight years ago. At the time, I thought he was nuts...

where I come from everyone is finger printed and issued with ID card at 10yrs old, or at least was when I was young
it used to puzzle me watching American Cop shows when they has prints but no one to match it to, wasn't every where the same?

anyway I do believe it was so following on from the dictatorship, it was common to carry your ID and if stopped by the police for whatever reason, without it, you'd have to agree to present yourself and said ID to a police station

it does not stop crime obviously
poses many questions regarding personal freedom and state interference not to mention their doubtful ability to keep confidential records safe

Guys, the technology is there to make data much more safe. You would not run a private business with this level of fragmentation and data insecurity given the importance of the data. There are tremendous efficiency and security gains. The govt is very timid and very bad at explaining the potential. The scope for error and abuse in the current system(s) is what scares me. And this will get worse. We will have to make massive changes at some point given the opportunities that conmsolidation and encryption offer. Also given the increase in fraud etc. There are many aspects that politicians don't want to discuss such as the reduction in benefit fraud. I am all for civil liberties but the problem we have is that technology and globalisation has changed the world and people who think that doing nothing and working with outdated systems is an option will eventually have to see the the light.

In any =case the younger generation are happy to hang themselves out on Twitter and Facebook. Their attitude to personal data is very very different to us. Their security needs will be even greater. Authentication will be a huge issue in the future given the ease with which we can interrogate systems. There is scope for massive cloning out there and actually it has started to happen. So our liberties are currently being encroached by criminals. But we have a cyncial view towards govt so it is easy to see them as the bad guys forgetting that crime is a bigger threat. People can track you down by your mobile anyway? London Underground have a good idea of roughly where you are. People can fifure out your IP address. They can tell if you are logged in. Goodle knows what you are seraching for and will see the "heat map" to companies for sales purposes. We don't know how granular the data is that they are selling.

Some risks out there with govt data but we have much much bigger issues and we need more robust security whatever you say. And more security might be the only thing that preserves some of our civil liberties.