End of the line for ID cards

Today is the last day that ID cards can be used for buying porn or booze, or indeed for travel to Europe. At a cost of just £400,000, contractors are busy deleting the data collected. Which sounds like a lot until you consider the £330m Labour spent developing the project without purpose. The cards are valid until midnight …

[Anonymous Coward]

"The cards are valid until midnight tonight (Friday 21 January)."

So I expect at midnight there will be a whole bunch of bombings as all those citizens suddenly become terrorists again.

[Elmer Phud]

Ahem . . .

We are 'domestic terrorists' nowaday, if you don't mind.

We no longer wish to blow up planes but disrupt LawanOrdah with things like demonstratoins and grumbling letters to local papers.

[TeeCee]

Somewhere....

.....the world's saddest tune is being played on the world's smallest violin.

[Anonymous Coward]

...travel to Europe

did anyone ever manage to do this ? All I read about were people who turned up at Eurostar or BA or Air France, and were told to go away and come back with a passport ....

[mhoulden]

Cancelling the ID card scheme...

...£400,000. Annoying David Blunkett: priceless.

[John Lilburne]

What we are all thinking ...

... good riddance to the last proponent of the scheme.

[BristolBachelor]

Sorry you are wrong...

They are only shredding the DATABASE, not the PROPONENTS of the scheme...

...nice idea though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Flights

Airlines insist on photo ID even for internal flights, so presumably these cards will no longer be valid for that either (despite it still being the same person!)

[Code Monkey]

Passport?

Is it just me that uses my passport for internal flights (despite the 10 year old photo that looks nothing like me)

[MrJP]

Flew to Scotland...

...using my Driving Licence. Most people, myself fully included before then, naturally assume you need a passport whenever it ocmes to boarding something with wings. I was pretty sure I'd read somethintg to the contrary about internal flights and didn't fancy risking my passport on that particualr trip either. So turned up at the airport, met the rather large group of friends I was going with, sweated a little under the numerous "So, you *haven't* got your passport?" and the "Are you sure you don't need it?" and the "I probably would've bought it anyway, just in case!" comments just to feel especially superior and knowledable when I wandered on the damn thing just the same as everyone else in the end anyway.

Right, not sure where *this* is going but I'm heading to pub. Happy Friday people :)

[Reue]

I travelled

From Manchester to Belfast on just my company ID card. The id requirement for travel withint great britain is up to the individual airlines. No passport required

[Jim Morrow]

ID for flying

Shit airlines insist on photo iD for internal flights. Proper ones don't.

The cheap airlines demand ID to prevent you from giving your ticket to someone else unless they have the same name as you. It also stops travel agents from block-booking the cheapest fares and then selling them on.

The photo ID scam pulled here by Ryanair and Sleazyjet is revenue protection but they pretend it's for "security". Bastards.

[martin burns]

Not just Ryanair/EZ

FlyBe also demand photoID

But don't insist that it be govt issued - I flew this week on just my work pass.

[kempsy]

£400,000 for...

.... CTRL+A then DELETE? Nice work if you can get it! :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

SHIFT + DELETE

Don't give these assholes any recourse.

[Dodgy Geezer]

Incompetent secure deletion...?

No. It's £400,000 for knowing that Ctrl+A then Delete WON'T do the job properly, and for knowing what will.....

[Anomalous Cowturd]

Passport? I don't need no stinkin' passport...

I was told by an Immigration Officer that any Government issued photo ID is all that is "legally" required to travel within the EU. Not tried it yet.

On a side note, I once travelled to Amsterdam and back on my girlfriend's passport. They didn't even look at it...

[Colin Brett]

Must have been a big passport

"On a side note, I once travelled to Amsterdam and back on my girlfriend's passport. They didn't even look at it..."

How did you do it? Rig up an A-frame and convert it into a hang-glider?

Inquiring minds need to know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere...

ex Identity Card Minister Meg Hillier is crouched in her bunker, ID card in one hand, pearl-handled revolver in the other 'They'll never take my card. Never I tell you!'

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it ...

wasn't she the one who turned up to an ID card press brief, having forgotten hers ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I picture Jacqui Smith

Sitting in her damp basement, rocking slowly back and forth, ID card clutched in both hands.

(loud porno music blaring upstairs)

Slowly muttering... "This is my ID card. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My ID card is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My ID card, without me, is useless. Without my ID card, I am useless...."

Life is a lot more fun(ny) when you have an active imagination.

[Captain Mainwaring]

Now Off The Agenda

With the ID card legislation now repealed and the cards themselves no longer legal tender, perhaps we can now consider this whole controversial matter as being over and consigned to the last chapter in our history books.

Unless of course, our Lords and Masters in Brussels have any different ideas.

[Richard Gadsden 1]

How much is a copy of DBAN?

I assume they're paying to make sure that all the storage media are wiped, but DBAN is free, so they're overpaying. By a lot.

[Peter 66]

Forward to the Past

Might as well keep the equipment as when Labour get back in, chances are they will bring back ID cards but it will cost more then £330 million and then Ryanair will charge you an extra tenner for using an ID card rather then passport.........then charge a tenner for using a passport.

[Shell]

Passports

ot:

In recent months I've flown at least 10 times within the UK (twice this week), and have never once taken any photo ID with me. We always fly with BA, but maybe other airlines are more strict.

[Richard Barnes]

Re:Passports

If I remember rightly, Easyjet ask to see your photo ID when you check in.

[Big_Boomer]

The beginning of the end?

So lets recap.

-The ID Card scheme is dead.

-Most Speed Camera Partnerships are on the rocks.

Those both call for a beer in celebration (but not driving after the beer obviously)

So, all we need now is for the Govt to deep-six any plans for any one of the manifold other impositions on our privacy, all in the name of SECURITY!

Mines a Rochefort 8 please. ;-)

[Paul Williams]

Why destroy the drives?

Given that the process is likely to be:

1. Wipe data x times (x dependent on how paranoid you want to be)

2. Verify that the drives are now blank, byte by byte

3. Physically destroy drive

Then why not stop after 2 and repurpose the drive?

If you've verified at a suitably low level that the data is unreadable then surely thats the end of the story and you can resuse the hardware?

Seems very wasteful. Can someone enlighten me?

[PaulK]

For 400K

I would go directly to 3. Expenses = 1 sledgehammer. I love the sound of platters shattering in the morning.

[Annihilator]

Why?

Because someone designated that part of the destruction process for this level of data included shredding the drives.

Because if they didn't, some dingus would get up in arms about not shredding the disks and "my security isn't worth a £60 disk?"

Because strictly speaking, after x many re-writes it's not impossible to recover the data using an electron microscope IIRC. Ruddy difficult, but not impossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a Yank...

... I naturally thought a Rochefort 8 was a firearm.

Now that I see it's not, I'll have to try one.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we need a new emoticon for things like this...

I propose this:

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/2/6/128784172841284261.jpg

Don't worry, i promise there are no cats/dogs.

[Anonymous Coward]

attack of the zombies

The scots are bringing them in via the back door, see http://www.scottishreview.net/KRoy70.shtml

No doubt the 'information sharing' thing will achieve the same ends as the ID card database. The civil service and the plods aren't going to give up that easily. The price of liberty and all that...

[sheila]

Scotland first...

This is only one of several investigations into by Kenneth Roy.

I have posted these and other recent coverage of the issues on this forum thread:

http://www.home-education.biz/forum/general-discussion/12948-big-brother-scotland.html

Please read and pass on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it really dead?

Aren't they keeping it running for foreign nationals? It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the tech required for the ID scheme is not only maintained, but enhanced so they are ready to roll it out the moment the next 'terrorist' outrage occurs.

[Lutter]

I like my id card

I don't know why some Brits don't like id cards. I was happy when official id cards were introduced in Sweden in 2005, especially now when I have emigrated.

[Nigel 11]

Troll?

Or clueless?

If it had been just a credit-card-sized passport, I'd not have been concerned. It was the Stasi-style database of everything that a secret policeman might want to know about everyone, complete with huge fines for failing to inform them every time you changed anything, that finally turned the UK against them, after the man on the Clapham Omnibus finally saw through the veneer of misleading statements and out-and-out lies that ministers were spouting.

lt wasn't just the security services that were going to have access. It was over 100,000 government employees. Of course, not a single one of them could conceivably be bribed to make unauthorized searches, to make unauthorized changes, or to copy the whole database onto a Terabyte of pocket USB disk.

I expect that for any idiot who did buy himself into this crock of shite, all their data is already in the hands of organised crime, identity thieves, bunny-boiling exes, etc. and the data-destruction operation now taking place has purely symbolic value to them. Serve them right. (Except for the air-side staff who were given the unenviable choice - give up your privacy or give up your job. Now. )

I recognise that I've had a narrow escape, and will vote for whoever offers the greatest chance of keeping Labour out at the next election, based on this single issue. Compared to the total destruction of my privacy, mere destruction of the NHS and UK higher education pales into insignificance. Yes, I will remember the ID database, four years hence. Thank you for killing it. Here's my vote.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Nigel11

I was with you right until your last paragraph.

I'm not making any judgements on who I'll vote for in 4 years until 4 years from now, when we see if the current lot have delivered on any of their promises. I'm not holding my breath.

[martin burns]

FFS, do we still need to do this?

It's not the card, it's the database, which was defined as being able to store any foreign key to any other datasource.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

@Why destroy the drives?

Option 1: erase drive with software.

Takes skilled operator (able to read = skilled these days) 15-30mins to do each machine

But drive was: faulty OR weirdly partioned OR in some complex raid array that the wipe software didn't understand OR had data stored on bad partitions that were mapped out by the drive controller.

Only discover this when classified data shows up in the bad guys lab.

Option 2:

Destroy the drives, desktop 320Gb drives are about $50

For Id card it doesn't matter - anybody daft enough to sign up for an Id card probably writes their PIN on their facebook page - but the procedure is the same for data that does matter.

[rototype]

DESKTOP drives

Yes, DESKTOP drives are only £50 for 320 GB, SERVER drives however retail at about 10 x that price, always have done, always will - it's somethng to do with the way they are built (much more reliable), or possibly the way tey're marketted - comes down to the same thing in the end = £££££££££££££££....

Yes, the one with the gold plated server disks in the pocket....

[Anonymous Coward]

@I like my id card

You obviously trust the Swedish government !

You don't have a government that admits putting undercover police in peace groups as agent provocateurs, that uses MI5 against strikers, that puts the army on the streets to shoot unarmed demonstrators.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also

The Nazis didn't try to occupy Sweden.

[Chris Parsons]

Why do I need a title to reply to a post?

And the saddest thing is...they've won. Unless there is a proper revolution, we're totally, eternally f*cked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jake deVal

Trusting the motives of governments, I am sure that there is a truly altruistic motive (such as civil liberties) [[cough]] behind it all and shouldn't be questioned ----BUT---- I find myself waiting for "the other shoe to drop"!

[Richard Porter]

Why bother?

I'm sure Wikileaks must have all the data by now.

[Anonymous Coward]

does anyone know

what this £400k works out at per individual's records in the database?

seems a lot but without some idea of how many drives they have to wipe and smash it's hard to quantify.

[lawman]

Looked in your local Post Office lately?

The Heath Robinson type photo booth that is blocking access to two of the counters in my town's main Post Office has two uses.

The first is so you can get your photo driving licence renewed/replaced.

A friend of my was involved in developing the software.

This was only Phase 1

Phase 2 is/was for ID cards.

As long as the kit is still in place, any government can reintroduce ID cards at any time

[David Hicks]

See you in ten years

Maybe 20.

But it'll come up again, oh yes, because the people behind the scenes still want it, and politicians always seem to cave to them in the end.

In some ways the credit crunch is a very good thing as there seemed to be no other way there was ever going to be a check on government profligacy or invasion of privacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are joking right?

People need to realise they only back off on one scheme ( the ID cards ) if they can do exactly the same thing, but by some other back door way.....its like feeling smug youve killed one cockroach, only to have 100 more appear later.