4 ms·

If it waddles like a national ID system and quacks like a national ID system, then it's probably a national ID system. Here in the UK we are fortunate to have

by motters 16y ago

If it waddles like a national ID system and quacks like a national ID system, then it's probably a national ID system. Here in the UK we are fortunate to have recently dumped plans for a national ID system. Americans should do the same.

j_baker 16y ago
Just out of curiosity, if the national government in the UK doesn't issue IDs, who does? Counties? Cities?
- motters 16y ago
  There are identifying documents, such as passports, drivers licenses and credit cards. These are sufficient for any situation where you might need to verify an identity.
- adamt 16y ago
  Passports are issued by the UK Passport Office, and driving licenses by the DVLA (Driving & Vehicles Licensing Association). These are both effectively government agencies. However, as having a passport or a driving license is not compulsory, there were plans to have a national identity card, as is the case in many European countries that would be compulsory for all adults. This has fairly recently been scrapped before it was ever adopted. Partly because the cost ended up being estimated at £18B (US$30B). Quite how a database and some photo cards of 60M people(less if you only include adults) would cost that much is a mystery that only governments can solve!
  - nkassis 16y ago
    500$ a person is quite ridiculous for sure. I don't get either how this could happen.
  - Untitled 16y ago
    How do you identify yourself if there are no IDs? How do you identify illegal immigrants? I have a national identity document, and I fail to see the problem with it.
  - Quarrelsome 16y ago
    Really? Lets think about it. * First up we gotta biometrically scan every citizen of the United Kingdom for starters. That's 64 million people. - Scanners - Appointment Management - Advertising Campaigns (to remind people to register/go) - Chasing people who aren't registered * Then for that to make sense you need to be able to validate people in places. - Invest in technology to biometrically match people (readers etc) - Train users/operators - Handle the kinks in that tech (complaints, false positives). - Handle any legal issues. - Create the back end system to auth (somewhat non trivial) - Load balance - Security Checks, Penetration testing, etc, etc. No point in the whole system if its easily spoofed, right? Then of course we need to produce the cards and send all the cards to those 64 million people. Also this system is supposed to integrate with existing government systems. You can imagine what I nightmare that probably was going to be. My point being that its only a database and some photocards in the sense that I can write Stackoverflow in a weekend ;). Tbh your belief that it was only photocards means that you probably didn't appreciate the full scope of the legislation. It actually sickened me how the entire focus of the debate on the ID system was on the cards when they were the least important aspect of it. If I wore a tin-foil hat i'd even go so far as to suggest that politicians intentionally focused on the card part of it to divert our attention from the rest of it.
brown9-2 16y ago
What is the argument against a national ID system? Can someone enlighten me?
- dennisgorelik 16y ago
  It's a move toward totalitarian system. But that's not the main argument against government to be involved in Internet identity business.
  - brown9-2 16y ago
    How does the national government issuing identification cards lead to totalitarianism?
    - sorbus 16y ago
      Well, if you have a national ID, it's a lot easier to require ID when taking public transit (especially if they have RFID tags: "wave your ID to activate the ticket kiosk!"). That is certainly a step towards, while not necessarily totalitarianism, the sort of police state which I doubt that anyone would want to live in. The problem isn't that national IDs will cause totalitarianism; they won't. The problem is that they're a step in a direction which a lot of people dislike, towards a government which is monitoring everything we do.
      - dennisgorelik 16y ago
        People dislike government monitoring them exactly because it's a step toward totalitarianism. Nothing prevents public transit to allow people pay with their credit cards or even with driver's licenses. I'm pretty sure that if government works on such payment system -- it would be much more expensive and buggy than best private alternatives. Besides, government has other things to focus on, such as pulling military out from Iraq and paying out huge government debt. It's not government business to mess with payment system and/or National ID.
      - joubert 16y ago
Quarrelsome 16y ago
The issue in the UK was never about having an id card or an identity system. They have systems like that in France and they're fine. The major issues were: * taking biometric information from the entire population including fingerprints. * linking that information to an online identity * joining up all government databases on said identities (health, law enforcement etc) enabling departments to cross reference information * plans to use this identity as your only gateway to be able to receive a job, receive benefits etc * plans to allow certain individuals at any moment to "quarantine" identities (preventing work, benefits etc) The entire system looked so open to abuse it was scary. I'm v.glad we're rid of it.

by motters 16y ago

j_baker 16y ago

Just out of curiosity, if the national government in the UK doesn't issue IDs, who does? Counties? Cities?

motters 16y ago
There are identifying documents, such as passports, drivers licenses and credit cards. These are sufficient for any situation where you might need to verify an identity.
adamt 16y ago
Passports are issued by the UK Passport Office, and driving licenses by the DVLA (Driving & Vehicles Licensing Association). These are both effectively government agencies. However, as having a passport or a driving license is not compulsory, there were plans to have a national identity card, as is the case in many European countries that would be compulsory for all adults. This has fairly recently been scrapped before it was ever adopted. Partly because the cost ended up being estimated at £18B (US$30B). Quite how a database and some photo cards of 60M people(less if you only include adults) would cost that much is a mystery that only governments can solve!
- nkassis 16y ago
  500$ a person is quite ridiculous for sure. I don't get either how this could happen.
- Untitled 16y ago
  How do you identify yourself if there are no IDs? How do you identify illegal immigrants? I have a national identity document, and I fail to see the problem with it.
- Quarrelsome 16y ago
  Really? Lets think about it. * First up we gotta biometrically scan every citizen of the United Kingdom for starters. That's 64 million people. - Scanners - Appointment Management - Advertising Campaigns (to remind people to register/go) - Chasing people who aren't registered * Then for that to make sense you need to be able to validate people in places. - Invest in technology to biometrically match people (readers etc) - Train users/operators - Handle the kinks in that tech (complaints, false positives). - Handle any legal issues. - Create the back end system to auth (somewhat non trivial) - Load balance - Security Checks, Penetration testing, etc, etc. No point in the whole system if its easily spoofed, right? Then of course we need to produce the cards and send all the cards to those 64 million people. Also this system is supposed to integrate with existing government systems. You can imagine what I nightmare that probably was going to be. My point being that its only a database and some photocards in the sense that I can write Stackoverflow in a weekend ;). Tbh your belief that it was only photocards means that you probably didn't appreciate the full scope of the legislation. It actually sickened me how the entire focus of the debate on the ID system was on the cards when they were the least important aspect of it. If I wore a tin-foil hat i'd even go so far as to suggest that politicians intentionally focused on the card part of it to divert our attention from the rest of it.

brown9-2 16y ago

What is the argument against a national ID system? Can someone enlighten me?

dennisgorelik 16y ago
It's a move toward totalitarian system. But that's not the main argument against government to be involved in Internet identity business.
- brown9-2 16y ago
  How does the national government issuing identification cards lead to totalitarianism?
  - sorbus 16y ago
    Well, if you have a national ID, it's a lot easier to require ID when taking public transit (especially if they have RFID tags: "wave your ID to activate the ticket kiosk!"). That is certainly a step towards, while not necessarily totalitarianism, the sort of police state which I doubt that anyone would want to live in. The problem isn't that national IDs will cause totalitarianism; they won't. The problem is that they're a step in a direction which a lot of people dislike, towards a government which is monitoring everything we do.
    - dennisgorelik 16y ago
      People dislike government monitoring them exactly because it's a step toward totalitarianism. Nothing prevents public transit to allow people pay with their credit cards or even with driver's licenses. I'm pretty sure that if government works on such payment system -- it would be much more expensive and buggy than best private alternatives. Besides, government has other things to focus on, such as pulling military out from Iraq and paying out huge government debt. It's not government business to mess with payment system and/or National ID.
    - joubert 16y ago

Quarrelsome 16y ago

The issue in the UK was never about having an id card or an identity system. They have systems like that in France and they're fine. The major issues were: * taking biometric information from the entire population including fingerprints. * linking that information to an online identity * joining up all government databases on said identities (health, law enforcement etc) enabling departments to cross reference information * plans to use this identity as your only gateway to be able to receive a job, receive benefits etc * plans to allow certain individuals at any moment to "quarantine" identities (preventing work, benefits etc) The entire system looked so open to abuse it was scary. I'm v.glad we're rid of it.