Bad law based on half truths
It is difficult to be anything but disillusioned by the lying, cheating and stonewalling of the government over the ID cards bill, and even more so by the fact that it seems destined to bring them victory.
Not only will the cards not protect us from terrorists (suicide bombers don't need fake identity documents), will not prevent identity theft (I don't need to present ID to buy stuff with your credit card on the net), will not stop benefit cheats (they fake their circumstances, not their identity), will not curb illegal immigration (asylum seekers won't qualify for a card, and smuggled individuals will continue to avoid identity checks) and are not necessary for travel (the ICAO agreement on biometric passports requires only a photograph, despite what the government repeatedly implies), but they also won't work. Smart card technology is not able to hold the amount of information required; as a result the central database simply cannot work the way the government describes it, since it relies on non-database checks in many situations; and the concatenation of multiple forms of ID into one will make us less secure, not more, because it will become a single trusted standard, and yet, as a physical item, will be able to be forged. Not to mention the huge risk of attempting to implement the world's largest full-population database system (by several orders of magnitude) when you have one of the world's worst track records for IT project management. It's a recipe for disaster.
Rather than engage honestly with these problems, time and again we have had obfuscation and circular arguments, deliberate confusion and truth avoidance. For example, the poll cited as showing that 70% of the public is in favour of the scheme never actually asked that question - it asked people to differentiate between different options on the assumption that a scheme of some sort was already going to happen. The £1.7 billion we are told can be saved by defeating identity fraud includes not only the £500m that transactions with lost or stolen credit cards cost the issuing banks, and £400m estimated for customs fraud which is unrelated to ID theft, but also the current £62m cost of ID checks carried out by the government! Yet both of these are trotted out time and again, as if repetition were somehow proof.
This web of deceitful justification seems to be the unintended result of private-sector management consultants gaining too much leverage in Downing Street, thereby producing policy to suit business objectives rather than good governance. A business is a fundamentally different animal from a government, in command and control, in inclusivity and choice, and in responsibility and action. It is not unreasonable that many large companies should introduce compulsory ID cards and maintain extensive employee records. But it is unreasonable that the government should do so, because it is the government of all the people. A condition of employment is not equivalent to a condition of citizenship. We are neither employees nor customers of the state; our relationship as individuals with government is complex, and cannot be shoehorned into commercial models. It is time the government realised that.
Not only will the cards not protect us from terrorists (suicide bombers don't need fake identity documents), will not prevent identity theft (I don't need to present ID to buy stuff with your credit card on the net), will not stop benefit cheats (they fake their circumstances, not their identity), will not curb illegal immigration (asylum seekers won't qualify for a card, and smuggled individuals will continue to avoid identity checks) and are not necessary for travel (the ICAO agreement on biometric passports requires only a photograph, despite what the government repeatedly implies), but they also won't work. Smart card technology is not able to hold the amount of information required; as a result the central database simply cannot work the way the government describes it, since it relies on non-database checks in many situations; and the concatenation of multiple forms of ID into one will make us less secure, not more, because it will become a single trusted standard, and yet, as a physical item, will be able to be forged. Not to mention the huge risk of attempting to implement the world's largest full-population database system (by several orders of magnitude) when you have one of the world's worst track records for IT project management. It's a recipe for disaster.
Rather than engage honestly with these problems, time and again we have had obfuscation and circular arguments, deliberate confusion and truth avoidance. For example, the poll cited as showing that 70% of the public is in favour of the scheme never actually asked that question - it asked people to differentiate between different options on the assumption that a scheme of some sort was already going to happen. The £1.7 billion we are told can be saved by defeating identity fraud includes not only the £500m that transactions with lost or stolen credit cards cost the issuing banks, and £400m estimated for customs fraud which is unrelated to ID theft, but also the current £62m cost of ID checks carried out by the government! Yet both of these are trotted out time and again, as if repetition were somehow proof.
This web of deceitful justification seems to be the unintended result of private-sector management consultants gaining too much leverage in Downing Street, thereby producing policy to suit business objectives rather than good governance. A business is a fundamentally different animal from a government, in command and control, in inclusivity and choice, and in responsibility and action. It is not unreasonable that many large companies should introduce compulsory ID cards and maintain extensive employee records. But it is unreasonable that the government should do so, because it is the government of all the people. A condition of employment is not equivalent to a condition of citizenship. We are neither employees nor customers of the state; our relationship as individuals with government is complex, and cannot be shoehorned into commercial models. It is time the government realised that.
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