ID Cards

Discussion in 'The Lounge - Off Topic' started by flex22, Nov 11, 2003.

  1. Jakamoko
    Honorary Member

    Jakamoko On the move again ...

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    You (we all) have our name, address( apart from the homeless, but separate argument), National Insurance number, Credit rating, CHI Number (hands up who knew about that one ?), and whatever other files/data there are stored about us.

    These have all existed since long before any proposition of a unified one-card-fits all solution, and will exist long after the idea passes into obscurity (I hope).

    Darn it, all of us in here can even be nailed by an IP address, so I reckon I've made my point. I'm not saying it's right, it's still just my opinion.

    But it's mine.
     
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  2. tripwire45
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    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    Now that's interesting. I don't have a passport. I haven't been abroad since 1985. My wife and daughter travelled to Israel a few years back so they have theirs. My daughter is having hers updated in the hopes that she can go to Japan as an exchange student (seems not likely since she's Jewish and the Japanese arm of AFS seems to have a thing for not catering to students with out of the ordinary diets).
     
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  3. Grumpyoldman

    Grumpyoldman New Member

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    When the government consulted on this issue in the UK they called it an entitlement card, not an identity card.
    The UK's problem is quite simple; in a mobile world where people can travel vast distances quite cheaply, and there is no standard form of identification, it can be very hard for nations that do not have one set form of ID for each citizen to check who is who.
    If I want to claim benefits I have to quote my NI number; I don't even have to prove who I am as the law currently stands, and there is no standard Id specified to prove I am entitle dot benefits. To register as a patient at my doctors I have to produce a medical card, a piece of carddboard that could be forged by a child with a John Bull printing kit (do they still make those???) To open a new bank accout I have to produce proof of who I am and where I live from a Bank of England approved list of ID's... And so it goes on and on.

    There is no proposal that a police officer can require you to produce the new card, if and when it is introduced. it doesn't really make much sense to enable them to require ID, since whether or not you've got ID is not pertinent to whether or not you are committing a crime.

    Entitlement / ID cards are ideal for a world where it's hard to tell whether someone is a british citizen entitled to hospital treatment, or a health tourist trying to avoid paying the going rate in America for treatment. Add in the issues of benefits and you start to see why some form of universal ID card is long overdue...
     
  4. Rosy
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    Rosy Megabyte Poster

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    Hey Grumpster - welcome to CertForums - make sure your next post is in the New Members forum so that you can introduce yourself and we can all welcome you formally (well, welcome you in our style anyhow!)

    :angel
     
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  5. Jakamoko
    Honorary Member

    Jakamoko On the move again ...

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    Welcome, GrumpyOldMan (GOM?)

    Echo Rosy - if you feel like it, stick a post Here

    I still remain of the opinion that this is not being proposed for the goodness of all Britons travelling the Brave New World, which we have been able to for ,err, centuries.

    I believe it's a cynical pre-election ploy that won't happen, but I've banged on enough about this, that I feel I should shut up now !
     
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  6. Grumpyoldman

    Grumpyoldman New Member

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    Here's the problem; if it were a cynical pre-election ploy then why is the cabinet so bitterly divided over it? Why use something so potentially divisive as a vote winner?
    I've heard all the arguments about how everyone has paper already. It ain't true. For my sins I used to work in a bank in one of England's more deprived areas; I hope our American friends will bear with me.
    So you're a young bloke in North east england. You live with your girlfriend, but you aren't on the voters list because you;re scared that if you do your girlfriend will lose her 25% council tax discount. besides, you';ve moved twice this year and no0-nme has explained to you how rolling voter registration works.
    So you can't use your address tp prove who you are for a bank account, because officially you don't have an address. you can;t afford £400 for driving tests to get a ffull driving licence, and nobody but nobody accepts provisional licenses as ID unless they're in the losing money business.
    you don;t have a passport either; you';re from that group who know what foreign travel is, but the furthest you;re likely to go anytime soon is the ferry to South Shields.
    So you have no ID, and can't get a bank account, or even a savings account. so you can;t even get a Mac job, becaus even Mac job employers are paying people via BACS.
    Want to tell that young man that an ID card with free applications for the poor won't be a boon?

    As for NI numbers, I hope someone can explain to me how it helped combat benefit fraud that under previous governments the DSS had no option, where they couldn't positively identify a new claimant, but to give them a new NI number and a new record? Only one testable ID, backe dup by biometrics and a robust real time computer system (loads of lovely new network PCs for us to support) will help eliminate those kinds of problems...

    Most of us on here are respectable Joes and Joannas I guess, to whom ID cards will be a nuisance, that's why we'll experience them being phased in over time as we renew our passports and driving licenses; at the margins they will be a boon to some people and a deterrent to others. Seems like a good deal to me...
     
  7. flex22

    flex22 Gigabyte Poster

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    Asylum seekers
    :soz but I thought it was pretty obvious myself :!:
     
  8. Jakamoko
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    Jakamoko On the move again ...

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    I'm sorry our first meetings have been in disagreement with each other, Grumpy Old Man - not something that is normal around here, honest !

    But what you're saying above seems to be, if not in sympathy with those who try to "screw the system", then at least stating a case that ignorance is an excuse to be granted hand-outs from the system.

    If you don't understand the Voter's Roll, are illiterate, innumerate, of no fixed abode for reasons beyond your control, or whatever other social disadvantage may have befallen you, you are fully entitled to assistance to help you overcome these set-backs in your circumstances, in order to ensure you may still participate in a free and democratic society.

    To use these circumstances to justify a "one-fix for everyone" ID card is, to me, unacceptable. I fully understand that such a card would indeed simplify many day to day social interactions, but to argue that is should become mandatory ? I'm sorry, I will not agee to that.

    A point was made much earlier by Sandy that some people are obliged by the nature of what they do to carry an ID card 24/7 - OK fine, but thats the employment your in.

    If I cannot sail on a loch, or climb a hill without carrying ID, then sorry - society is dead.
     
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  9. flex22

    flex22 Gigabyte Poster

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    :iagree
    Remarkably well put :!:
     
  10. tripwire45
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    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    This is soooo off topic, but then again, not. I've been reading this thread with interest. Being a U.S. citizen, the whole argument seems sort of odd. While I'm not obligated to carry ID while sailing a "loch" or climbing a mountain, because most folks here drive a car, we pretty much carry our I.D during our waking hours.

    I was recalling a science fiction story I once read called My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny. The hero in this story was originally a programmer for a project that was creating a system of uniform IDs for every man, woman, and child on Earth. He was in a position of entering the last few identities, including his own. At the last minute, he decided to not enter himself and became his world's only "non-person", to quote George Orwell.In this position, he could pretend to be anyone, do anything, and not be tracked.

    We'll come to the day when society's desire to at least have the illusion of safety will demand that at least everyone in the post-industrial world will carry I.D. To be an "identityless" person will equal being potentially dangerous.
     
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