Labour minister says 14 year olds should get ID cards A government minister has spoken glowingly of the prospect of kids as young as six handing over their biometrics as she boasted that the Tories and LibDems would find it impossible to unpick the government’s ID card scheme. Meg Hillier, an under secretary at the Home Office, told a fringe meeting of tobacconists and …
You can just see it coming now, can't you.
<Official NuLanouria Child Delivery Check-list;
Clamp Umbilical Cord:
Cut Umbilical Cord:
Insert Identichip (TM) into infant's neck.>
Time for this rabble of control freaks to be removed from power. the sooner the better. At least the US will get the chance this year. Let's just hope they take it.
"Warming to her theme and no doubt ordering another vat of Kool-Aid, Hiller then told the meeting etc" - I couldn't help but read this as "Hitler then told the meeting". The names are similar. Meg Hitler.
A part of me wouldn't mind if kids (and just kids) had to carry around an ID card, on pain on instant arrest, but then again a part of me wouldn't mind if kids had their tongues stapled to their cheeks until the age of twenty-five.
It's a good deal easier to implement ID cards than to teach young people about alcohol and tobacco. Provided no one notices the flaws in the argument, if misuse decreases they can take the credit and conclude that similar measures will benefit other areas, while if misuse gets worse they can say how difficult the problem is and how even more draconian measures are needed.
By invaluable, she probably mean "for which value can't be established" or in other words: "an endless money pit"....
The idea to forcing the card on teenagers (6 to 14) makes perfect sense. There is a slight chance that they might even see the database up and running before their death (and freely send on CD/USB/Whatever unencrypted media to everybody). Given the public IT project management abilities, something anybody above 21 has clearly no chance of.
There is no evidence that the Computerised ID system, as planned by our beloved Government Consultants and Major IT suppliers, can work in anything other than a crippled, ineffective, insecure and monstrously expensive and unsupportable way.
Why do they continue with promotion of this nonsense? Why do they continue to delude themselves and try to delude the general and technically proficient public? Two simple questions and no answers. They are clearly working on the basis that rubbish repeated often enough will eventually be accepted as the accurate truth - well it wont be by this enraged MGP.
Just because ministers seem to find it hard to understand doesn't mean it is. The tricky bit is forcing the Home Office to shred and burn all the working papers so they can't simply resurrect the vampire in the next generation.
What ought to be considered while we're doing that should be buldozing Marsham Street and sowing the site with salt.
It is not difficult at all to roll back this monster - just scrap the idea, end of story.
Even if they ever manage to issue all some 70 million cards, they are going to be swamped with lost cards, stolen cards, clones, forgeries, cards chewed up in machines or accidentally de-activated through some means or other. This does not of course include the amount of new cards required every year plus trying to recover cards from the deceased.
At this time when the Countries finances are so damn strapped it is plain foolish to go ahead with this quite stupid expense.
Paris - cos she wouldn't be so foolish to waste money.
[14 year old attempts to buy alcohol]
Licensee: "Here, you look a bit young, let's see your ID card."
Scrappy kid: "Haven't got one, they're not compulsory. I've got this [fake] ID though..."
Stupid kid: "Yes I am, here's my National ID card. Oops."
You have to make ID cards compulsory for the over-18s before they'll stop younger kids pretending to be older, even if they've got a compulsory one (that they haven't lost yet).
"Gordon Brown wanted to roll the scheme out “quicker than it was possible.”"
And therefore condemned it to join the list of postponed achievements which currently includes a slimmed-down civil service, electoral reform, a more equal society, internet for everyone, a big conversation, a wired-up NHS, an ethical foreign policy, an elected second chamber, joined-up government, fairer taxation, three sorts of Britishness, proper icons and a stable economy.
I know he wants to get in the history books, but you'd think Terminal 5 and a windfarm would be enough to do the trick.
I was just coming here to say the very same thing. My boss has a teenaged son of around that age, and they've given up trusting him with door keys as he was losing them on an almost weekly basis and were getting expensive to replace.
I hate to think how quickly kids would lose their ID cards and how much they'd cost to replace, which would mean that parents would be far from happy to allow their kids to take them out of the house, negating their value as ID fairly quickly
Presumably even if Gordon the Brave gets his way - a roll back would be pretty easy.
Que one new PM throwing his ID card away, and urging the rest of us to do so too. I just hope there's a policeman at hand to slap a no littering fine on him, we know who you are.
I'm the one without ID and you know who I am.
This post has been deleted by its author
ID Cards will never be "lost". The optional biological unit (i.e. your 14 year old) attached to the card will be what's lost, as it will be they who find themselves with no identity and therefore no rights.
The Card will be just fine, having all the rights and protection of a citizen, and indeed will probably be having a great time lending them to some other optional biological unit.
Need an ID like when you tag a dog. All our lives would be a lot easier if we were properly tagged and governed. We can all still have our freedoms but the roads could be a lot kinder to nature if a central computer kept track of our movements and organized car sharing etc. All you would have to do is go online and say where you are going and why and the governing body could buddy you up with someone going in the same direction. Advisors could also organise healthy meal options and people who need special diets could be fined if they eat unhealthy food. How many of us are with our ideal partners? The UK could become stronger and healthier if by using the ID chip the relevant authorities could arrange our lives so we bump into and fall in love with our ideal genetic partner.
Oh we are heading into a wonderful brave new world....
which will mean the government will have to pay the same whether the scheme is implemented or canceled... wonder how many nu-lab ministers can look forward to cushy non-executive directorships when they lose their seats... it's looking like they've sorted out their golden parachutes for when they get kicked out...
"she boasted that the Tories and LibDems would find it impossible to unpick the government’s ID card scheme" - so... not sounding like the most elegant piece of solution architecture but an unmanagable, unmaintainable mess that will keep the consultants that built it in jobs for years to come.
"...off license staff needn’t make their own judgements on what an 18 year old might look like?" - Don't you mean "...off license staff need a fingerprint reader and broadband internet connection rather than make their own judgements on what an 18 year old might look like - then sell then the 5l bottle of White Lightening anyway?"
I beg to differ, I have a very easy solution to "unpick" the stazzi-esque database it's called a tonne of of high explosives in the building that houses the system.
A second solution is to line all the Labour MPs up against the wall and have the shot as an example to future politicans that they're job is too keep the economy running and that's more or less it.
My local pub knows i'm over 18, the school I work at accepted my Extended CRB check and allowed me to work with secondary and primary aged children, and the DVLA (as was) saw fit to send me a drivers license with my address printed on it.
I don't need any biometric ID; Everyone who needs to know who I am already knows, and those who don't know don't need to know.
Either way, you can bet i'll be buying large quanties of superglue to put over my fingertips if i'm ever forced into one. On a similar note, it would probably require force, too.
I won't be having a biometric ID card.
You know, I hoped I was just being cynical when I thought that labour ignored its public consulation about nuclear power. Now I know I was bang on the money.
Their *own* ID Card Forum is awash with negativity and hate for the ID cards, from all ages and spectrums. No one wants them. Least of all "the kids". And here they are forcing the issue anyway.
Democracy my arse.
Oh yes;
it will be popular (with the politicians)
It will make life easier (for them to control you)
It will be invaluable (to remove the last of your liberties)
So the question is, will they allow their children to be the first to be fingerprinted - no? Ah well, that's because they are so much more important than the rest of us plebs.
They have totally lost the plot - come the day of the revolution brothers....
The trouble is, when they get kicked out of office, they get a nice fat wedge, various incentives to sit on the boards of NGOs etc and can then get some nonce to write utter drivel about their time in office for even more money.
The total annihilation of the nu labour claque is inevitable - if the Kool Aid doesn't get into the water supply. Their madness at least grows more apparent by the day.
Brown is in his bunker, rehearsing ancient mantras and delusions of the Great Leader he will be - if only he is allowed to be. Darling is consumed with gloom and hopelessness. Smith fiddles with the curtains, and sees paedophiles everywhere. Harman entertains demented thoughts of the nation's men fighting it out at airports to leave the country. Miliband's clowning over Georgia gets him an earful of the F word from Russia's foreign minister, yet he still skips and dances for the media. And here is Hillier fantasizing about Tories and LibDems so emasculated they couldn't dispose the ID card project. (Whether they will or not is another matter).
One has to hope that in the next 18 months none of them grow so mad that they itch to see what the Big Red Button does. Still, the madness looks set to continue.
And so the continued erosion of our freedom rolls on - albeit targeted at the young, accepting and naturally naive. Congratulations to Labour on their continued waste of public money in their never ending pursuit of control freakery, measurement and observation. Time for another vitriolic letter to my MP me thinks.
"Que one new PM throwing his ID card away, and urging the rest of us to do so too. I just hope there's a policeman at hand to slap a no littering fine on him, we know who you are."
Point 1: It's "Cue", As in Autocue. Cueing up.
Point 2: No worries, there's no criminal intent so no investigation. Honest.
ID cards... needed to prevent terrorism according to our Governmental overlords,
i.e. terrorists would want to destroy the ID card system
Therefore saying nasty things about them could be an offence under the 2006 Act
# Acts Preparatory to Terrorism
or
# Encouragement to Terrorism
Think I will have a lie down in case I feel the need to stretch a point that far again. The English justice system can't be that mad? can it? Or is reading this an offence....
Mines the one with "you don't have to be paranoid to live here, but it helps" on the back
Ladies and Gentlemen, I regret to inform you that we are experiencing some network problems. As we are unable to verify ID cards today, we cannot treat anyone on the national health. Please stop being ill for a few days until we have a system working again. Those of you considering private medicine, please remember that many private hospitals deal with complications and accidents by sending patients here. The security staff will not let the doctors into the operating theatre or drug supply cupboards until they can verify our ID cards, so this is not a good time to have an emergency.
Those of you wishing to seek medical attention abroad should remember that all flights have been cancelled for the last two days because the pilot's database was accidently deleted, and pilots are busy logging enough flight hours to re-qualify.
TonyB Liar will be remembered for contributing towards the deaths of thousands in Iraq all because of some fictional bio-weapons. Who is Gordon going to kill for some kickbacks from IT companies?
That is it, I am off to the hills to live as a wildman. I stupidly lost my wallet the other day and it had my driving licence in it, if I had a bloody ID card in there as well how much would I be looking at shelling out now?
Does Hillier realise by effectively saying; "well, they could not stop us now if they tried" she is not sounding like she is entirely for due democratic process.
rrrgh, this bloody country.
Recently i heard a banker suggest that the world's financial systems would never be the same again as the fallout from all this risky behaviour is too great.
Unfortunately i think something equally as bad and caused by their incompetence needs to happen before politicians start to realise they are public servants with responsibilities to each and everyone of the population.
I personally think that aside from the all the ways they are taking my civil liberties away, the main reason i cannot look at any politician is their complicity in american rendition and Guantanamo.
I dont want to use the word torture, as that cannot be proven but all those smug self-serving idiots at the labour conference have blood on their hands.
"the Tories and LibDems would find it impossible to unpick the government’s ID card scheme", then it is time we technically literate people got together to ensure that it is made completely unworkable, whether "unpicked" or not. It *cannot* be allowed to be imposed on us.
And those of us who believe that the Tories would "unpick" it should remember that it was Michael Howard, a Tory, who first mooted this poisonous scheme, shortly before the Tories were booted out in favour of, er, the other, current, Tories - and that the LibDems stand about as much chance of forming the next government as Register commentators.
Many of the posts here blame the NuLab Government, (big G), but I think the driving force has always been the government (little g) of Sir Humphreys who for centuries have been striving for 'better' government with fewer loopholes. The 'Reasonable Man' idea is being removed from all laws in favour of 'everything not forbidden is compulsory' because then everything is a clear black or white so that the taxing and enforcing agencies will know where they stand. And they start with children who will grow up with Identity Documents and not worry about them when they are adults.
We can always vote politicians out, but we cannot get rid of the civil servants. We are on a hiding to nothing if we think we can.
But I have a tiny little piece of hope from this Pandora's box: the system of tatooing a blue number on one's forearm was stopped (even though it took the deaths of scores of millions of people to do it) and the Pass Laws were removed from South Africa. Is nothing won without sacrifice?
"There isn’t an easy way to unpick this scheme"
So that wouldn't be an unconstitutional binding by one parliament of its successors then.
Of course, she's talking rot. It would be easy to unpick. All you need to do is lose the CD-ROM containing the biometrics and it is unpicked. It's so easy that I expect it will be unpicked before it is picked to start with. I am sooo not the first person to point this out that I am simply stunned that it hasn't sunk in at a ministerial level yet. Aren't you disqualified from sitting in parliament below a certain IQ? Do we need spot checks?
What isn't so easy to unpick are the contracts that syphon billions out of the public purse, but here too there is a solution. Nail those responsible for maladministration and surcharge them. I'm sure that the prospect of losing ten billion pounds of her *own* money will make the minister rethink.
OMG Every day labour and there stupid reasoning and thoughts completey shock the whole world! The country and its shame of a political system needs a complete fecking overhaul! Since we are using a politics system from the 1800's its no surprise these over educated MP's with no real life experience hung themselves in the style of the politics they try playing.
The only hope for this country iMo is a completey new party with real people and a system much more reliant on the brains of the country (us the people)!
Time to book a flight export our lives and forget we come from the shambolic UK
"she boasted that the Tories and LibDems would find it impossible to unpick the government’s ID card scheme"
The only way that this would be possible would be to make it impossible to have any dealings with national or local government without the production of an ID card. So, for instance, no ID card and you cannot renew the tax disc on your car, no tax disk you get fined but cannot pay the fine without an ID card, no fine paid you get arrested and cannot get bail without and ID card etc etc. No ID card, cannot go to school, don't go to school and parents get arrested. Parents don't have ID cards they don't get bail, etc etc. Use ID card numbers to replace NHS numbers so that you will need to produce an ID card to get treatment from a doctor. Use the ID card number to pay income tax, get unemployment benefit etc.
Get that lot implemented and it won't matter if it works or not, it will be near impossible to go back. To do this when you are certain that you will not win the next ellection is disgraceful, it is just like crapping in the punch bowl because you are not invited to the next party!
Someone remarked that "they'd rather move to the USA than have an ID card". Well, its not quite that simple. First of all, as an alien you will, of course, be issued with an "Aliens Registration Receipt Card" aka "Green Card" which -- surprise -- has biometric information on it. Then, for the rest of us, there's the so-called "Real ID" act which is the way we in the US force this kind of ID scheme on people. (We have to do stuff in a roundabout way because of this damn Constitution...) This mandates that States have to come up with IDs that meet certain standards in order for them to be usable as IDs for Federal Purposes. These standards will sound very familiar to you ID conscious lot. You'll also notice that if you live in places such as Washington state you can now get an 'enhanced' drivers' license which has the same kind of look and feel as your ID cards. This license substitutes as a passport for Canadian border crossing.
Anyway, you're just the guinea pigs. Get the systems worked out. We're the bigger prize. (Its a black helicopter because they're real, folks.....)
'Nail those responsible for maladministration and surcharge them.'
Sadly Parliament considers itself above such things as the law and ministers are not liable to surcharging. Yep, your local councillor can be surcharged for the most trivial purpose, but a government which mismanages billions can simply laugh at us.
Worse still, don't expect the next lot to be any better; I can't imagine ANY government of ANY colour changing the law to weaken its own powers.
You can't even get individual ministers under the Human Rights Act, only the government as a whole - and you end up footing the bill even if you win.
From his speech today: this is no time for novices.
Exactly. Throw out that lot who dreamed up this scam, sorry, scheme and get some professionals in (or start at least listening to those who told you from day 1 this was a baaaaad way to go about it).
Two things:
- anyone who fingerprints kids without their parents VOLUNTARY permission should have their rear end tagged with a human rights violation
- if the entire set of New Labour ministers, their PM and reverend T Blair publish their fingerprints in the Times in way authenticity can be verified, maybe then I may consider participating. Why publishing? Well, with the current quality of care that's what basically happens when New Labour collects your data. What, you don't want to do that? If I follow their own reasoning correctly that would mean they have something to hide. Aha..
Fools.
Both she and Zanu-Labour are an absolute disgrace.
Few surprises here:
Voting record (from PublicWhip)
How Meg Hillier voted on key issues since 2001:
* Has never voted on a transparent Parliament. votes, speeches
* Voted very strongly for introducing a smoking ban. votes, speeches
* Voted very strongly for introducing ID cards. votes, speeches
* Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws. votes, speeches
* Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war. votes, speeches
* Voted very strongly for replacing Trident. votes, speeches
I was at my local DMV getting my driving permit renewed (in Georgia, US), and I noticed a child who couldn't have been older than 4 getting his photo taken. I commented that he seemed a bit short to drive, and a fellow citizen remarked that he was getting an id card - "just in case". In case of what, I can't imagine, but it tells me that the public does seem to think that having the state tag their children is a valid protective measure against some sort of threat.
Hmmm. Someone might well do us the favour of revisiting the historically effective cap-in-the-fucking-head approach which usually works wonders with mad dogs and despots.
Unfortunately, they are rarely the ones on the receiving end.
Unlike innocent Brazilian sparkies.
"Assuming that your system is properly implemented (allowing access to medical care and other basic perks of citizenship, acting as a student ID, acting as a drivers license, etc)"
Not a chance - seriously, This is in addition to all of those. The UK tends to gold-plate its implementations, but these sensible uses are just not on the horizon, There is no intention of making the citizen's life easier, unless you believe the claims it will help fight terrorism and identity theft. Anyway, it's less of an ID card and much more of a massive national database.
It strikes me that the Scots will probably escape this though; perhaps the other three nations should declare independence from the UK too, now there's an incentive.
Two things. They will say you need it to enter gov buildings. Now you will say but I wont go to gov buildings . Well byou cant pick up your kids or go to the DMV.
Second they will just make a law saying that the cops can lock you up if you dont have one on you. Of course they will be just merely detaining you until the can verify your ID , and they will still print you and take your DNA
What better way could the be of reminding future generations just how much labour instinctively distrusts them, and of its centralising controlling dogmaa, and what finer way of giving the tories a stick to beat labour opposition for half a century? "We didn't want them, but the last lot of Labour b'stards so screwed up our laws that it's impossible to undo the scheme now"
(And of course, the real reason is that the EU wants them, admittedly nothing LIKE as intrusive as labour wants, but NO ONE admits that)
You think they don't KNOW 14 year olds will lose them? Of course they do; which gives, a. a nice replacement cost market, and b. makes the next marketing campaign even easier; "Do your kids keep losing their Identity cards? Get the new iD, embedded ID chip instead! Never lose a card again, and with our unique KidLocate(TM) technology, you can find them on Google Earth at any time! Or get iDPlus, with added barcode tattoo! Your kids will be the coolest, and safest, in their neighbourhood." (iD, iDPlus and KidLocate are NuLab Products. Known side affects include chafing, unexpected rebellious behaviour and possible revolution).
Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament and the King.
Which ever way you look at it that is not proper engagement in the democratic process. So yes, Guy Fawkes was a terrorist.
And generally so are Revolutionaries. Your absurd statement is akin to saying:
One man's terrorist whose cause we disagree with is another man's terrorist whose cause we agree with.
That everytime I see the name Hillier I read Hitler.
I mean its not like they both had a national ID idea to solve their problems - oh wait a second..
@ Lee - Terror is a emotional state of Fear, Fear can be generated by anything. Anything or Anyone generating Fear can be classed as a Terrorist.
A Revolutionarie Cell, a National Army
Organised Crime, Any single person who may look a bit shifty.
Men in uniforms armed to the teeth, Protesters.
The term Terrorist is used as propaganda (as is Freedon Fighter) that governments and the powers that be use to turn you to their agenda because such a group is for or against their policies.
And the only diffrence of them being for or against your govenment, is how badly they piss off or baddly treat them in the first place.
And at this rate they are going to have plenty of home grown 'terrorist'.
Mind you I suppose they can always get in EU troops to help quash the masses from the party faithful.
*\. Mines the one with "Time to Start the Revolution!" writtern on the back.
They've been watching too many films like Minority Report and The Imposter.. everyone on a databse tagged with chips or all pervasive retina scanners and the world is happy cos there's no crime ,unemployment or want.. well not for the people with eyes at least..
maybe they want to watch 1984 or THX1138 see what the other side of the coin can look like..
maybe they have and they like what they see..
Ah , the funny thing some one once told me about underage teenage alcoholism was that the equally dumb thick and stupid parents were the largest supply source of alcohol to the drunken children within the family unit by about 99% give or take .
As for the wowser/wanker minister they should be the first guinea pigs to sport their idiocracy ideas , arrrrrr..............
There is every reason to regard the Government's plans as understandable.
Labour needs to ensure it has accurately identified its core audience of politically aware voters and so the validation of individuals aged between six and 14 is crucial to targetting strategies for the next General Election.
Next week, Mr Brown will announce the lowering of the voting age to six, with an upper limit of 15.
Existing Labour supporters who intend to vote that way at the next Election will be exempt on account of their mental age already achieving -- just about -- that of a six year old rivet, if not an actual human being.
> The only hope for this country iMo is a completey new party with real people and a system much more reliant on the brains of the country (us the people)!
...seriously, you overestimate the intelligence of Joe Public. A democratic government responds to what "the people" say they want - that's how they get into power and stay there.
They daren't do something seriously unpopular irrespective of how right or wrong it might be for the country if it will loose them too many votes. The government panders to (and in many ways instigates) popular beliefs such as that there are terrorists and paedophiles on every street corner and that the only way we can save our children is by implementing biometric identification systems that ensure everyone is who they claim to be and that the police know where we all are at all times... it is, after all, for our own good and that of our children.
The only way to get a better government is to improve the general level of education of the populace as a whole which is why our various governments have been fucking over the education system for more than twenty years... we're now seeing the results of that social retardation.
I'll be the one chlorinating the gene pool in the hope of a better, brighter human being next time around.
"Your absurd statement is akin to saying:
One man's terrorist whose cause we disagree with is another man's terrorist whose cause we agree with."
Not absurd - that is exactly what happens. During the 60's - 90's, the IRA etc were blowing things up. We called them terrorists, their supporters in the USA called them freedom fighters.
Similarly in Israel, the PLO etc. were either cowardly terrorists or heroic martyrs for the cause depending upon your ethno-political alliance.
Oh and BTW, the Romans called the Carthaginians "barabarians" even though the evidence suggests that they were actually more civilised. Sometimes history can teach us things if we are prepared to open our minds.
Gordon Brown is upstairs in the main conference hall striving to appear like a caring, sharing human being as he makes a last ditch appeal to the delegates (and the TV cameras) in order to save his job and the credibility of his party.
Meanwhile, in a fringe meeting, a junior member of the government is schmoozing with the business lobby, promising that Labour will date and name-stamp all those troublesome kids who impede the progress of commerce.
How very NuLabour, how very sad.
"Your absurd statement is akin to saying:
One man's terrorist whose cause we disagree with is another man's terrorist whose cause we agree with."
Along those lines, I'm sure all of the American readers will recognise the war of independence for what it was, an insurrection against their rightful government. As has always been the case with history, the winners write it.
It's all dependent on your point of view, Guy Fawkes was a hero to a lot of people, a terrorist to a lot of others.
**Guido** Fawkes (he wasn't even English!) wanted to blow up Parliament because he felt that the so-called "elected" government was not listening to the people it claimed to represent.
Our current dictatorship does not even have the "luxury" of a leader elected properly by his own party, let alone the general public.
At least Mugabe gave the illusion of someone else to vote for.
Oh, and the easiest way to "unpick" the ID card system? Just ignore the piece of shit. Wasn't the biggest excuse for foisting the photocard driving licences on us that it would be a "guarantee" that you were who you claimed to be, what with governmental data security procedures being so secure? So I'm guessing that not only will we be liable to pay for any lost, stolen or damaged ID cards but the thing will need replacing every ten years anyway... (And I hope that it doesn't get scanned the same way as a chip-and-pin debit card - my new one's already starting to crack where ham-fisted supermarket drones can't seem to handle them carefully)
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