"15,000 lost passports a year"
So how will 15,000 lost ID cards be an improvement?
Young people in London are getting the chance to get their hands on an ID card, the lucky so-and-sos. The next stage of the Home Office's attempts to get the cards accepted is to target those privacy-disregarding, Facebook-obsessed youths in the capital. People aged between 16 and 24 years old who hold a current or recently …
it allows the Home Office to claim that 15,000 people who would have had their identity stolen previously, have not, because they lost their ID card (WTF, I am thinking).
Evidence of non-theft of ID? Since when has the ID Card propaganda worried about the evidence? Rates of ID theft from lost passports vs lost ID cards?
Best reply you can give, if asked, is that of the French knight in the Holy Grail: "no thank you, we've already got one, it's very nice!"
"So how will 15,000 lost ID cards be an improvement?"
Because the card is biometric. It will never, ever be accepted without an accompanying fingerprint scan, right? Wasn't that the whole point of them? Being biometric means that they can't be used by someone else pretending to be you?
...or, because the card likely costs less to produce than a passport, so they make more profit on replacements?
Biometric data is flawed for a few of reasons:
1) Biometric data isn't secret - you leave it everywhere you go.
2) Its not hard to copy - sure its hard to create from scratch i.e. synthesise - but not too hard to duplicate. Fingerprints are relatively easy if you have a nice example of the originals. Hand someone a drink in a de-greased glass.
3) You can never revoke your biometric information even if you realise that it has been copied. You can't decide to change your "biometric password".
Better that 14999 fake ID cards be lost than 15000 passports. Cheaper for young drinkers to replace fake IDs than real ID cards or real passports. Cheaper for the Border Agency. Good for all purveyors of alcohol, no change in consumption. Good for HMG, as their narrative still flies. I make that quadruples all round.
He's lost my already tentative support with the recent nonsense about restricting access to teacher training based on your degree results. There are some great teachers about who never even went to uni and got their certification at a local college - none of this PGCE stuff (and even the ones with a first and a masters would likely tell you that pure exam scores aren't the full story when it comes to someone's talent... as in, the kids they themselves help bring up through the system).
They'll be quite happily, and not a little smugly, ruining what's left of our future education system if that's brought in, plus apart from the ID issue there's enough similar privacy, civil liberties and handing power to europe matters that their line differs little from Labour on. I think it may be time for a massive shock at the polls and let Clegg & co have a crack, if not a 4th party entirely. They've all been failing us over the past 30 years in their own ways.
"So, you've got a replacement for that passport you inexplicably lost while drinking in Leeds?"
"Yeh, cost a fortune as well. But I got a deal on a passport plus an ID card!"
"Really?"
"Yeh, though the return ticket to Manchester was expensive."
"Why did you need to go to Manchester?"
"For the interview."
"Oh. So you are going to take better care of your passport?"
"Oh yes. And I'll keep the ID card in the passport so I'll always know where it is!"
yeah, because the age split in the population, particularly of those who want / are eligible to apply for a seperate passport, is roughly 50/50 the same way that it is for male/female (48/52 wasn't that?).
except it isn't. therefore silly as their exhortation sounds, it actually has some relevance to their argument, i.e. passport takeup is relatively higher in the "young". (how else are you going to get out to agya napa?)
"young people are told the card will help them buy booze, cigarettes, mucky movies, travel to Europe and even open a bank account."
If you're going to lie to them, why not tell them that buying one enters you into a prize draw to win a computer, why not tell them it will help get them laid or a record deal? Why not point out the fact it's awesome for cutting up coke or maybe add a ruler and a spirit level bubble and market it to builders apprentices? Wait.. they do still have apprentice schemes right? What about colour coding them at least to make them fashionable?
if you think that is bad then look away now...
Let me tell you that citizenship card that some EU countries (like mine) are implementing is even worst than UK's ID card...
Citizenship card (or eID) contains 5 cards
Bio-metric ID card (chip-based) plus fingerprint
Voting card,
Healthcare,
social security card,
taxpayer card.
So if someone loses one of these eID cards he/she will be stuffed apart from their claims that is highly secured card... which for me is plain bollocks
I guess the only benefit is its size is same as a debit card in comparison to my current ID card that I've been using for last 42 years.
http://www.it2trust.com/reference/precise/Portugal.pdf
Of course UK's ID card does seem just the percursor for this crappy citizan card...
I supose that is time to think on changing the nationality... :)
Let me get this right... They're saying "Use an ID card to buy booze, and avoid risking losing your passport"
So either
a) An ID card is more difficult to lose than a passport
or
b) An ID card matters less when you lose it
and (a) is clearly rubbish, unless they plan to physically attach them somehow...
If a "young person" wants to travel outside of europe they've still got to purchase a passport, so they'll have 2 possible forms of ID to lose rather than just the one......and how much will it cost if they lose the ID card AND passport - as chances as they'll keep in the same wallet / purse that they've "mislaid" somewhere
So with the one hand, the government is trying to encourage young people to not drink as much and with the other hand their saying "Hey kids! Wanna get rat-arsed but cant get served 'cos you still look like a fetus? Well why not try our new government spying card... urm I mean ID card!"
...is using their PASSPORT to go clubbing or buy drinks? Other than those who have just turned 18, are fairly baby faced, and haven't taken up driving lessons? Here's a few things you could try that are a bit less of a security risk and easier to keep hold of. Driver's photocard. ProveIt card. CitizenCard. Several other variants on the last two. Application forms available in quite a lot of the corner shops where you'd be using the thing to buy your White Lightning and fags. You don't need a national ID.
Only ever got stopped for ID when 18 and 1 month... and trying to get in somewhere that proved to have an over-20s policy. Gutted.
But since just before my 17th birthday, when my provisional license WITH PHOTOCARD arrived in the post, I've been using that as my main proof-of-age-and-face, including that occasion. My passport only leaves the house firesafe if I'm going abroad, or it's been specifically requested as ID. Same as the birth certificate (except without the going abroad bit) or license counterpart. So far it's been accepted as suitable proof of age and ID anywhere I've presented it, including overseas. The reckoning seems to be that if the DVLA feel secure enough that I am who I say I am, then their say-so is good enough for everyone else. No biometrics. No RFID (at least, I don't think so?) - unlike the passport.
And ironically enough the only time I've had trouble with losing it is when the whole wallet went walkies on a night out a couple years ago. I mean, it's credit card size and shape. That's where it lives. As would any national ID. Yes, they're both less losable than a passport. But they're still as vital to your daily, sober, non-wallet-losing life - the ID far more so than the photocard, in fact - and are not, as it happens, UNlosable or UNstealable. Plus thieves are far less likely to be able to use my driver's license to buy loads of things online using my biometric ID.
Someone hasn't really thought this whole thing through.
My title says it. Often two or three "proofs of identity" are required (eg to open a bank account, tell your bank a change of address, buy a house). I do have a driving licence but (gasp) I don't have a passport, and I'm fed up with having to dig out and to carry to the bank with me wads of gas bills, library tickets, electricity bills and the TV licence in the hope that they might be satisfied with some of them as identity.
My sister-in-law does not drive, never will, but had to get a driving licence just so she could open a bank account. That's barmy. My wife could not open a building society savings account (despite already having a cheque account with them) because she had no utility bills in her name. That's barmy too.
I'd be only too pleased to cut through the kwrap with a single card and frankly I don't give a toss what the government know about me. Listen, I wear blue underpants, grey socks, and last week I stole a pencil from my employer, surfed some porn and banged three different women - oops, now everyone knows ....
markp1 wrote "ProveIt card. CitizenCard. ... You don't need a national ID"
Sorry, what's the difference?
I love cards, the fake ones.
I have a fake ID card, drivers licence, etc from three countries. I even have a citizenship card from China - all bought on the backstreets and all, except the CN I.D. card, accepted happily.
In one country I had to get a picture health card so I wore a wig and a mustache and they made a very handsome card. Has no effect as even without a Jagger hairdo and a mustache it is still accepted without question!
Just waiting for the UK to request my fingerprints. Did you know it is extremely difficult to take prints when people get old or if they are coated with Vasoline for a day (under latex gloves). The man with no prints!
Bloody Labour government. A pox on them and Blunkett.
I don't know how to drive, never bothered to learn. I did get a provisional driver's license though so that I could get into clubs and so on. Seems to be accepted everywhere I've ever been. As for opening bank accounts, fair enough just take your passport, and your driver's license, I mean, how often do you open bank accounts anyway? Are you seriously going to lose your passport that one time?
There's absolutely no motivation for accepting this ID card.
As for an 18+ Oyster photocard, that doesn't work as ID anywhere as they don't print your date of birth on there. Yeah I know its an 18+ only card but no one ever takes it as ID.