The media has minutely examined the financial affairs of the Labour Party, offsetting the silence of potential Tory hypocrisy. Yet, this is less than not very important. The man who will not contest the next election has low approval ratings and the party that his successor will battle has lost their lead in the polls. Such are the dangers of binding yourself too closely to your enemy.
The real dangers lie in the rapid erosion of our civil liberties. A message that is always worth repeating and Henry Porter in the Observer does it better than I ever could:
You may have noticed the vaguely menacing tone of recent government advertising campaigns. Here is a current example: ‘If you know a business that isn’t registered for tax, call the Revenue or HM Customs – no names needed.’ Another says: ‘Technology has made it easier to identify benefit cheats.’
Whether the campaign is about rape, TV licences or filling in your tax form, there is always a we-know-where-you-live edge to the message, a sense that this government is dividing the nation into suspects and informers.
The article is a succinct reminder of all the arguments that need to be brought to bear to offset ID cards and the database, open to all and sundry. We must remember that only totalitarian states abolish privacy: whether they are of the soft or hard variant. In Britain, this will partially be achieved by linking ID cards to the ‘chip and pin’ systems that provide universal verification for card transactions.
You will need the card when you receive prescription drugs, when you withdraw a relatively small amount of money from a bank, check into hospital, get your car unclamped, apply for a fishing licence, buy a round of drinks (if you need to prove you’re over 18), set up an internet account, fix a residents’ parking permit or take out insurance.
Every time that card is swiped, the central database logs the transaction so that an accurate plot of your life is drawn. The state will know everything that it needs to know; so will big corporations, the police, the Inland Revenue, HM Customs, MI5 and any damned official or commercial busybody that wants access to your life. The government and Home Office have presented this as an incidental benefit, but it is at the heart of their purpose.
Last week, Andrew Burnham, a junior minister at the Home Office, confirmed the anonymous email by admitting that the ID card scheme would now include chip-and-pin technology because it would be a cheaper way of checking each person’s identity. The sophisticated technology on which this bill was sold will cost too much to operate, with millions of checks being made every week.
The British state has one objective: Without the ID Card, you will have no life.
I’m afraid a small to immoderate amount of Russia’s finest export has passed my lips tonight, so my understanding is a little impaired, but is this saying that we will be forced to have a hugely expensive ID card with all sorts of biometric data and god knows what else contained on it’s magnetic strip.
Whose numerous purposes are Anti-Fraud/Identity Theft, terrorism, illegal immigration, paedophilia, voting incorrectly and rabies.
However, when asked to produce them to prove our true identity, we will be asked for a 4 digit PIN number and if we know it then we are us and if we have forgotten then we are obviously an al-queada agent trying to get someone else’s prescription.
Please tell me I’m pissed and this isn’t what it means.
Scary. Another draconian use one might foresee (perhaps put forward as needed for on-line banking security) would be to mandate an ID card reader on every PC. This would not only guarantee the user’s ID but would enable BB to log every internet site visited by each individual (by individual – not just by PC).
Not sure I should have mentioned this, but someone else will no doubt think of it. So it’s best we should put all the negative points out now and hope that enough people will be put off the idea.
Freeman. No. You shouldn’t have mentioned it.
But that article, in The Observer of all places, was very strongly written. Maybe it’ll make a few leftie dimwit supporters of this government pause.
But the “if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear” morons will be hard if not impossible to dislodge.
And what would stop somebody from becoming a “straw buyer” who lets other people, like friends or family, surf on their ID? No amount of legislation is going to stop that.
But per my previous post, my hope is there are actually enough people with something to hide – however inconsequential, but important to them – that they will outnumber the “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about” paint by numbers surrenderers. That is our only hope.
People with unpaid parking tickets; people who cheated on exams in college; people doing undeclared odd jobs while on “disability” benefits; people who lied ever so slightly on their job applications; men who took women not their wives out to dinner on their credit cards; or their company’s credit card; and booked into a hotel; people who lied on their mortgage applications (Hi, Pete!); people who lied about not being married and imported a new mate from their ancestral homelands; people driving unregistered cars; without a real licence.
Etc.
I think there will be plenty of people around, engaged in being human and trying to get ahead, or trying to cheat or double deal or whatever, who won’t want this Big Brother monitoring of their lives. Del Boy would vote no. And so would most City bankers. And lawyers. I’ll wager.
We can’t be choosey about our allies. The dangers of revelation have to be pointed out to them, to be fair.
The world’s one half gentlefolk, in the broadest sense, and one half skivers, crooks, cheats, opportunists and sell-their-own-grandmother-down-the river, bless them.
I recall reading about life in Causcescu’s Romania. If you were in trouble with the State, who of course had every one’s best interests at heart, they would take away your card. No pension, no food rations, no housing, no nothing. Oh, and for added efficiency, once you were ID’ed as an anti-social element, you friends and family would have theirs yanked, if they tried to help you with food, clothing, what not from their cards.
Uain – sounds like Tone ‘n’ Cherie. Coming to a government near you.
On the point of “if you ain’t done nuthin’ you got nuthin’ to hide”. Who hasn’t done something at some point in their life that couldn’t be construed as illegal under one of NULAB’s laws. I have some pictures of my daughters in the bath stored on my computer for instance. Even a private telephone conversation like Red Ken had when he called a jewish reporter a Nazi has landed him a hefty legal bill at least.
Rich,
ut is this saying that we will be forced to have a hugely expensive ID card with all sorts of biometric data and god knows what else contained on it’s magnetic strip.
Worse than that. Much worse.
First, the card will have a contactless chip, not a magnetic strip – so both more information and readable (with current technology) at about 30 feet.
Second, the card is not the point. The numbering of us to index all our transactions, and a ‘National Identity Register’ to ensure the integrity of the index, are the point. Oh, and the National Identity Register will ‘for your security and protection against ID theft’ contain an audit trail of every occasion on which your ID is verified using the card (which is conceived as an oh-so-secure online operation).
The Cabinet Office is quite happily chuntering about making “identity management” the central pillar of ‘Transformational Government’. That’s the government managing your identity for you, in case you are in any doubt. It dwarfs the totalitarian ambition of any earlier tyranny.
Agreed those posters are very scary – I particularly like nanny Blair’s new consensual sex campaign poster accompanied by, “Have sex with someone who hasn’t said yes to it and the next place you enter could be prison”. However ‘government information’ campaigns have always been about civil servants throwing out dictat to the population from their ivory towers. Whatever campaigns Blair and his cowed bureaucracy are running now does not at all compare to those incredibly sinister 1940’s and 1950′ adverts and broadcasts, anything from how to brush your teeth properly to patronising women drivers – as brilliantly satirised by Harry Enfield some time ago.
Regarding the point that Guy makes, will it become a criminal offence to possess something akin to this device, since any wannabe terrorist in Oxford Street would just be able to remotely scan several thousand card holders’ details and no doubt send that information off to the Al Queda database processing centre in Lahore? I note that they also provide a handy software SDK to assist in analysing and disseminating received data.
PC: “You may have noticed the vaguely menacing tone of recent government advertising campaigns.. [..] ..there is always a we-know-where-you-live edge to the message, a sense that this government is dividing the nation into suspects and informers.”
It has been the case for ages, the social security anti ‘fraud’ broadcasts, are horrible. There is that sort of circle of light tracking supposed befefit cheats along the street.
As an off topic remark. I have long come to the conclusion that so called benefit cheats are a damn sight more industrious than the (un)civil servants employed to track them down.
Spot on. Of course, what you really meant with you final line is that the British state has one objective: without *it*, you will have no life.
At least we know where the Nu Lab project is taking us . . . it’s beginning to look remarkably like East Germany.
Philip, I wouldn’t describe it as a “velvet” tyranny. It is heavy-handed and brutal.
I’m waiting for the born again christians to start ranting about the mark of satan and quoting the book of revelations. Might not be far wrong…..
Of the ‘if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear’ crowd, I find the following rebuttal useful:
It is the mentality of a school bully demanding other pupils’ lunch money; the brave one demur, saying, “I have no money”. The bully demands they jump up and down – to see if anything jangles in their pockets.
The owner of such money has nothing to hide. It is his money. But the bully’s means of coercion and exposition give him everything to fear.
Zowie! Melanie nails it, and how! (Link)
gravid – I don’t believe we have “born again Christians” in Britain. In fact, I don’t believe we have Christians of any ilk.
Does anyone know iif there are any plans to introduce GPS on ID cards?
It would appear to be technically feasible and it would enable the Gov to know precisely where you are. I just wonder because it seems inevitable that systems like that will turn up on cars fairly soon allowing the Gov to charge per mile on all roads. And to figure out if you’re speeding of course. The system would be activated by putting your ID card in a dashboard slot and would be linked to an engine immobiliser.
It would appear to be technically feasible and it would enable the Gov to know precisely where you are.
Not really, on either count. A GPS system requires a power source. And it is passive, so it wouldn’t broadcast your location without more (requiring more power).
If ever that approach is taken (as the Govt fantasises it might be with cars), then you can bet it will be on the Gallileo system, not the US GPS satelites, so much more delay and cost.
It has been the case for ages, the social security anti ‘fraud’ broadcasts, are horrible. There is that sort of circle of light tracking supposed befefit cheats along the street.
They just copied that from Captain Scarlet. Truly, the DWP are the real Mysterons.
A classic bait – the State creates a vast, stodgy smorgasboard of benefits, lax control and iffy regulation, then uses this excuse to nail us all down even when we want nothing of it.
Let see them introduce ID cards ONLY for those wanting benefits. A fast track to the unwashed rioting in the streets!
Not needed. It is very, very easy to track someone from their mobile phone and all you would need is a ‘no ID card, no mobile phone’ policy. I was shown Vodafone’s tracking system back in 2002 which could instantly tell them who owned any phone, it’s network lock and their current location on something that looked like a large Google Earth map, and that was using software designed in the late 90’s. GPS uses anything up to 14 triangulations for standard GPS but by using GSM you can pinpoint someone down to a far more accurate degree now, and whereever they are in a building too.
Julian. GPS only needs 4 or 5 to get down to about 5 metres. GSM, even with the latest software and processing tends to get you to about 200 metres, or maybe 100 metres, and that only in cities.
To my absolute lack of amazement, Dave is saving Blair’s skin by joining the party funding debate. Here is what Oliver (not just wet, but soaking) Letwin has said: “David Cameron doesn’t want to have this kind of politics going on. He wants to see a shift so that political parties depend on small donations and a measure of taxpayer support. If you are going to have a functioning democracy and prevent large donations you have to be willing to accept some form of taxpayer support.”
What an asshole.
Is this supposed to be some sort of an aid in fighting terrorism? If so, I don’t see how. Any card-carrying Anglo-Pak in a Bradford slum could turn jihadist without being prevented one jot by this measure.
It’s telling how, when under attack, some governments turn not against the enemy, but their own people. Britain and America, and all civilized nations as far as that goes, should expel all muslims, but that is not likely to happen, because such Big Brother schemes are purely the work of Socialists, and we all know how much Socialists love muslims, who are the most compatible with such schemes due to their programming in islam.
I’m afraid the nose of the camel is already under the privacy tent in California. While we heartily rejected Sen. Feinstein’s national ID card and child ID implant; very little fuss is being made over “Fast Trak” commute toll passes and special license plates for hybrids to use the HOV (commuter lanes) or the GPS/GSM coordinates on your cell phone being available to 911 ( the police) without a warrant.
They can’t chip our ass but they will soon be able to track (tax) the car it’s riding in or the cell in our pocket. Same diff as far as I am concerned.
I think we’re all pretty much screwed on this side of the pond privacy-wise as it is with a cashless society of credit /debit card usage and direct deposit becoming the norm.
I don’t see how we stop the slow death of privacy by a thousand cuts. All the govt need do is pitch vehicle chips as a green measure out here on the Left coast and the greenies will line up like lemmings.
RE: They can’t chip our ass but they will soon be able to track (tax) the car it’s riding in.
Not ME, I Ride a Bicycle. ;-D
Re GPS on ID cards – the point is the ability to know – perhaps not necessarily continuously- where someone is; the actual technology (GPS etc) is I assume not the point. And there are passive RFID responders which could be built into the cards and which are powered by the readers. Readers could be placed at entrances to government (and other) buildings for example, which would provide intermittent identification (pretty much like the network of CCTV cameras at the moment. They could also identify (I’m guessing) that someone had two such cards in their possession.
MarkH – go one better and have the transponders on the CCTV masts, so when the camera is on, even in the gloom, they “know” who is there.
Finding your card stolen when the police kick down your door will not be a defence, becase you WERE there…weren’t you?
The information is one thing, but the actual danger is in the complacency, false trust and false authority that “information” gives. It may as well be divine for all the chance we will have of fighting it.
How long can it be before the same RFID scanner that detects stolen property when someone leaves a store also checks their id and ‘positively’ identifies them?
Once that happens, how much longer before the stores use tracking data for marketing purposes?