Home Office kicks ID cards into touch The Home Office confirmed yesterday it is delaying awarding the key contract for the national ID card project - actually making the cards for UK citizens. Fujitsu, IBM and Thales were all in the running to make the cards. But this contract will not now be awarded until autumn 2010 - after the general election, which at the …
This has put me in a better mood for the day.
I'm still curious as to exactly what remains, and what the Tories will carry on with. There is still the database, and the whole biometric passport stuff. I can't help thinking we will still end up with some of the worst aspects of the ID card scheme, but without the more public elements.
It's hard to tell what the government's position is.
Whether ID plans have been delayed simply to make them less of an election liability or punted to after an election as a face saving exercise so the Tories can kill the plans off without Neu Labour having to make a public climbdown.
It's going to take a miracle from Neu Labour or catastrophic fail by the Tories for them to lose the election. Handing ten pound notes out as election bribes probably isn't going to cut it this time round, even under a new leader.
So it looks like, goodbye ID cards, hello to whatever Big Brother / surveillance society the Tories seek to bring in. We're on a downward spiral which ID cards are just one high profile issue.
This is just window dressing. Cards were never the real issue. The all knowing all seeing eye-o-sauron database remains the real issue here - have the bastards put a hold on that? I bet not. Even if the tories do win and scrap the cards, I'd lay even money on them retaining the database - YOU ARE BEING WATCHED, and so it will remain.
But God bless them for this. If they'd promise to revert pretty much everything the Home Secretaries since about Blunkett have done, I'd be a lot happier. Have you seen the current standard for admitting past convictions to criminal trials? They might as well just say "past convictions may be admitted where it is politically expedient" and be done with it.
Well I suppose that it's time to re-use this headline, from only a few days ago, when Jacqui Smith bought it in Gordon Brown's mass suicide... I mean cabinet re-shuffle.
I suppose this is the way round cancelling ID cards, without the 'embarrassment' of a u-turn.
Could it be (gasp!) that we are now blessed with a decent Home Secretary? It's so long since we had one that I'm struggling to grasp the concept. New Labour's various fuckwits in the post forced me to re-assess Michael Howard, and think maybe he wasn't all that bad after all! Then I felt faint, and had to have a lie down...
Smiley face for the few pounds less tax I'll have to pay because of this.
This is all done behind the scenes, hush hush, as they have yet to deploy the 'problem', that will cause the ID cards to become a solution.... then all the sheeple will run to sign up for one.
My Passport is biometric and has an RFID chip already. It's already rolled out. If it actually helped people and kept the country secure it might have value. But it doesn't, it won't stop illegal immigration, it will just enslave the cash cow debt slaves even more. Wake up!!!
OK, OK - so most of us here are happy about any sort of delay that could kill this thing off (I know I am). Now that the project appears to be stalling, here's a question: what's the difference between ID cards and passports?
From what I understand, passports are being updated to hold more personal data than before. In fact, I thought ID cards were going to use the same data. In which case (and this is a devil's advocate question before I get flamed) what's the big problem?
The Parliament Act allows a government for force through legislation to deliver manifesto promises, but there's no inverse: if a party manifesto promises not to do X it can do an about turn after election with so much as a by-your-leave (university fees?).
It would be nice to introduce such an act... then I would like to have the major parties make it a manifesto commitment not to introduce ID cards.
Fat chance I expect.
Dead/Sickly Parrot Icon?
But it's a common misconception that the cards are the problem, when really it's the database plans that need scuppering. I got pasta and mud on my last No2ID hoodie, so I will soon be buying more merchandise to wear proudly around Bristol and hopefully swell their coffers a little. Think about doing the same! I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that they are a hugely important cause and need all the help they can get to help safeguard the future of democracy in this country.
A passport you need to go abroad, to prove you are who you are and prove to the people in that country you are who you are. Biometrics I always see as those automated border controls, and they only hold what is printed on the card anyway (For now)
If you don't travel, you don't need one.
An Id card is required (assuming they reword their jargin) by you in your own country, just to classify yourself as a member of that country. And to prove to the fascist police (just look at their behaviour recently) that you live here. (Assuming you do)
One is simply added security to get in and out of a foreign country.
The other is simply oppressive in the extreme and brings us even further towards a socialist, big brother country than we are already becoming.
I for one think the DB should be next, however given the costs and the fact the Govt can't do IT, it won't work and will be scrapped in time. Or kept going and never really work.
Either way thank god Jaquie "the brown shirt" Smith has gone.
Anon because my works ISP is watching.
The database is the big issue - ID cards were only going to be a way of querying the database. The Govt & Tory opposition are committed to the database project - once that's done, ID cards of some flavour are the logical outcome, since no point having a database the authorities can't query.
When both Labour & Tories are committed to the database, its obvious that elements within the state have made support for it mandatory - there's a whole another story going on here that we haven't been told about. Why do we need to store biometric data after all? Aren't photos & fingerprints good enough for every day use? Not if you have some other reason for targeting large sections of the population...
paris, cause i fear we're all fecked on this one, esp when Tory boy & his Eton chums are 'running' the show
Biometric passports require the NIR no matter what, if you have a biometric passport, you need a biometric database to store the samples on to compare against the passport data, or against an airport scan. This is a treaty commitment, so the tories can do a thing about, not can any other party.
Funnily enough, any incoming government will be able to very easily resurrect ID Cards, as all the infrastructure you need will already be there to support passports, and claim victory because it didn't cost anything like the previous government said.
Don't be surprised if the DVLA start issuing biometric capable driving licence cards with the photograph digitally stored on the card, or the NHS cards start having the same capability, showing your entitlement to prescriptions etc.
You know it'll happen come what may, so start suggesting how to make if safe, cheap and desirable. There are lots of benefits to having an ID scheme. The biggest downside is if the government starts to use them as a method of control, rather than information, better we have an open discussion around governance, than a stealth implementation through the back door.
"but most of this will be required for updated passports and so is not a target for Tory cost cutting"
So wait - does this mean we're still going to get the ID card in everything but name - the database, the biometrics - for anyone who wants a passport? Given that most of us need a passport, and that the problems with the ID card are with the database, not the physical card itself, this would be rather worrying. So what exactly are the Torys promising to scrap?
"Biometric passports require the NIR no matter what"
Strangely enough they don't, you can quite easily store the biometrics on the passport chip and nowhere else, after all the whole point of a passport is that other countries need to access it, and it's not like they are going to allow other countries* to read the NIR.
*although, i'm assuming the merkins will have an all access pass to it to trawl as and when they want.
Such a monumentally bad idea that was never going to work and yet millions have already been ploughed in, anyone got any idea how much?
Yes, I agree it should be ditched. Really, it should never have been contemplated. When I look at the tax column on my pay cheque I'll be thinking 'what a waste'.
I think not.
Biometric. Identification based on one or more characteristics unique (or very nearly) to 1 individual.
The NIR
Your finger prints and a load of stuff including which seems to include every form of government ID number you could wish for, a trail of every time your numbers or details change (new driving license/passport/marriage license) and the catch-all "And anything else we want to add to it" clause. This is not about a biometric passport. This is cradle-to-grave surveillance of who and where you where, who and where you are and when you die (no doubt) who and where you are buried.
I believe there is only 1 system in the UK whic is so comprehensive.
It tracks our livestock.
So I guess that makes the senior civil servant's view of the UK populace pretty clear.
Cattle.
Blair promised Heseltine that if Labour came to power the Millenium Dome would be built.
No Shadow Cabinet members were consulted. The only plausible reason for this was to keep the contractors on-side for housebuilding contracts.
So what did Gordon promise Tony as his going away?
To be done come what may.
... for you smartarses to happily bid farewell to the ID Card but I have spent weeks and weeks flicking my Visa, Masturcards, Eggy Cards and store cards so I can more easily detect which is which.
Being domiciled in Manchester I was so looking forward to forking out £60 on an ID card despite having voted "Fuck Off" in the Congestion Charge referendum. Does this mean I will have to apply to become an Airline Pilot or member of ground staff at Manchester International Airstrip in order to participate in the ID Card revolution?
I can now reveal, after the expenses exposé, that it was me who approached Home Secretary Smith with the words "Jacqui. I can't wait to have an ID Card." (when I really only wanted to find out how I could participate in her porno movie scam!).
Still, there's always the Überdatabase! I'm now going to spend all my efforts looking on First Class railway seats for that little memory stick.
I'm getting sticky just thinking about it!
...to warn the potential suppliers bidding for the work not to sign their lives away....years into the bid preparation...this was always a poorly thought out programme that is guaranteed to have massive cost and schedule overruns...I wonder how much money has been spent by the suppliers on supporting this so far, and how many will be losing their jobs over this further delay...
"The Home Office said it had a contract in place for testing the cards on new members of staff at City and Manchester airports"
this means that One of the UKs largest and officially lowest UK income area's workers will be employed at the one of only two major employers in the the area were the ID trials are taking place.
in effect they will have no other real choices but to be automaticly tracked and placed inside this ID card/database,if they want any form of even lowest income work.
incase your wondering thats the MASSIVE, once called the largest "garden city" in the whole of EU called "wythenshawe"
ask cameron what he thinks about conscripting the Wythenshawe, benchill area school leaver Kids he visited a while back working the airport ID trials
wythenshawe town centre, south manchester, is 15 minutes walk from the massive Manchester airport, along side the Wythenshawe hospital (were the worlds first heart transplant took place)
the airport being the massive area's main, and vitually ONLY large Employers for the masses of minimum wage local work forces can get limited employment, and were the local schools leavers this year will be lookiing for work to keep their heads above water as encuraged to do so by the local wythenshawe school(s) as their only real option.
to simplify: these initial Manchester Airport ID tests/databases are in the ONE place this years masses of Wythenshawe school leavers will be told to look for work.
that work primarilly being lower income even on the secure airport tarmac side, were the locals get a pass issued under contract and a minimal uplift in their pay packets,
IF they are informed enough on the ID matter and so dont want the to take the new ID cards as they move from train station/terminal side to tarmac side, then they dont have jobs any more, what choice is this, take the ID card or loose your only airport job, and so make room for the new school leaver thats far easyer to fool or just NOT inform them about the core ID /databases trials and how that may effect them later in life, that most readers here understand as a BAD long term thing....
i cant say about the the other area or weather they too are promarilly low income local workers, but it wouldnt suprise me in the least.....
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