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ID Cards / Identification Cards

Why not? I already have half a tonne of plastic telling everyone who I am, condensing it all would be handy, and it would make illegal immigrants easier to spot.
 
So that I don't have to explain to the lady behind the post counter at the Post Office that I don't have household bills to show her because I share a house and the bills aren't in my name, and would my national ID card do the trick, only to hear her say that she can't accept it beacuse it's not on her list of approved documents!
 
From a professional point of view, it's amazing how many people claim to have no ID at all. A few - a very VERY small proportion - I'm prepared to believe in their given circumstances. But I'm way too tired of spotty little tossers telling me they have no ID when what they actually mean is they can't be bothered to get any, and what am I gonna do about it?

Well, the answers is - nothing. Exactly that. Not pay them. Bugger off and get some, and while you're at it, you'd better be able to back it up with some inside knowledge of your whereabouts for the last seven or so years, and every job you've ever had. And whilst we're on the subject, exactly what is your inside leg measurement?:)
 
Besides, They already know all They need to know, anyway.
 
I can't say it bothers me as long as it won't cost me anything. I've never understood how my drivers license is accepted proof of my identify, when for all they know, I might have found it lying on the street somewhere. I have no proof I am that person without a pic on the license!
 
Yes, the only thing that bothers me about our ID cards is that they're compulsory but you still have to pay when they need to get replaced. Although now they're valid for 10 years, so it's not too bad. And you don't pay much, really - something like a fiver.
 
£5 may not seem like much money individually, but what a huge accumulative amount that would be for the whole country! I'm sure it can't cost £5 to make, can it?
Talking of ID, bit OT, but I think this is funny. When I was at college, for the first year, we had to have a ten meal license card when living on campus, which meant we had paid in advance for 10 meals a week. You had to have your pic on it, but because the cards started to wear out after a while (cheap laminating), you could actually remove your pic. My friend took hers out and substituted in a pic of Dave Lee Travis. It was days before someone on the kitchen staff noticed!! :D
 
What's the problem, really? I already have a driving licence with my photo on it, a passport with my photo on it, both of which I had to pay for, a work ID card, and about eighteen other bits of plastic which can positively identify me, and didn't march on Whitehall to complain about infringement of liberties when I applied for any of them. If I could have a few of them combined into one I'd have no problem with it - besides, it seems to me it's pretty much inevitable we're all going to end up with them before long, however much we moan about it.
 
No problem with ID cards at all. Many's the time that you're asked for some form of ID (though sadly it is a *long* time since I've needed proof of age. :( )

The only caveat that I would place on my overwhelming approval is that we/the government needs to have a well defined set of criteria for when officials can demand to see it.
 
Stu Neville said:
What's the problem, really? I already have a driving licence with my photo on it, a passport with my photo on it, both of which I had to pay for, a work ID card, and about eighteen other bits of plastic which can positively identify me, and didn't march on Whitehall to complain about infringement of liberties when I applied for any of them. If I could have a few of them combined into one I'd have no problem with it - besides, it seems to me it's pretty much inevitable we're all going to end up with them before long, however much we moan about it.
Click to expand...

I have no problem with ID cards, but I have heard the argument that all the other plastic is stuff we have requested but this will be compulsory.
 
p.younger said:
I have no problem with ID cards, but I have heard the argument that all the other plastic is stuff we have requested but this will be compulsory.
Click to expand...

True to a point, but if you wish to drive (legally) you need a Driving Licence, or visit virtually any other country you need a Passport, making these in effect compulsory, and these same two are the ones for which I've had to pay an exorbitant amount of money (what is it for a passport now? £25.00?) You could argue again that you don't have to drive, and don't have to go abroad, but that in itself is almost curtailing civil liberties by default.

The others are, I suppose, optional in a way, but if spot checked at work and I didn't have my ID to hand they could theoretically suspend me.
 
From the tone of the comments here I would guess that many people have never had the experience of being in a group that's been subject to police harrassment. Who do you think is going to be asked to produce their ID cards, eh? Same people who are already considered suspicious by the police for having the wrong pigmentation? People who get stopped under the 'having a scruffy truck with a chimney and dogs on string' regulations? People on their way to demonstrations?

This is back to the 'suss' laws with a vengeance.

And what and how much data will they encode? When will there be a little card reader on every street corner you have to swipe just so 'we know where you are to look after you better'?

You already have to produce masses of stuff to get benefits (not that I really care if people are doing dole fraud, as it beats mugging and burglary), so the whole 'entitlement' stuff is a crock.

As for the idea that it'll help in the so-called 'war on terror' (wedding parties a speciality), don't make me laugh! Like OSB and his pals won't have fakes on the streets in an instant.

This is the policy of a bunch of right wing control freaks, and if you're daft enough to think its in anyone's interests but theirs (and their pals in the megacorps), you'll likely have a rude awakening...
 
One version (I think the most favoured version) is that it will *not* be a compulsory ID card. The term being bandied around is an "entitlement card." This would be a thing that replaced all of the current government bits of card that we carry, e.g. driving license, etc. It would also be a nationally accepted form of ID.

Of course while we don't *have* to have things like driving licenses (you don't *have* to have a car) etc, we will tend to driven towards accepting this "voluntary" bit of card. As I currently carry a driving license, and various other cards, I would see a single card as a boon.:)
 
I think you may have missed my point, Wintermute: my argument was that we already have them, to a very big degree, if you actually want to do anything much.

I agree that the "War on Terror" thing is a red herring, and the benefit angle debatable, but from a purely practical view, as with Fortis I like the idea of Passport, Driving Licence etc combined.

As for the Police state argument, I think if "they"(whoever "they" are) want to keep tabs on you it doesn't matter whether you have an ID card or not.
 
Oh can of worms.... here my ha'pny worth

the government is run for my convenience NOT thiers....

ive been a meneber of a discriminated agaist group (bikers b4 they were all acountants and "power rangers") and its not nice..

I have the right to walk about with nothing in the way of ID on me at all without being arested...

its interesting its being touted as "benifits card" so that rich people dont have to worry about it....

illegel imigrants seems to be a ploy to get cards for eveyone...

surely criminals will be the only ones with forged cards,,,so whats the point?

how many people want that student bust following them around for ever...

in the philipines it was the IMF pushing for ID cards (makes u think ah... u all an economic asset now)
 
I doubt there is such a thing as complete privacy any more anyway.
 
Although ID cards are being touted in the UK as a British gov. idea, it looks like they're going to be the norm throughout the EU.

Some folks in Holland, where they're talking about bringing them in too, still call them, `ausweiss,' after the card that everyone had to carry during the occupation.
 
Currently I have from the government side of the fence:
Passport
Driving License
NI Number (I was too old to get one of those funny plastic cards)
I think that I also have an NHS number (but its been a loooong time since I've thought about it much.)

In addition I have:
Assorted credit cards and bank cards
Airline loyalty cards
Breakdown (automobile) rescue card
RHS membership card
Union membership card
etc.

Not sure what additional loss of privacy I am likely to see if these things were combined. The information for the passport, driving license, and credit cards are all keyed to your home address. If any officially sanctioned body wished to gather this information together then it would be extremely straightforward (unless you gave false information when applying for any of these bits of card, etc., but the that would be illegal.) How would almalgamation make the situation significantly worse.

Sidecar, you make the fair point that if it is connected to receiving state benefits then the wealthy may be better able to resist its wiles than the poor. Then again those signing on, for example, already possess some of the above forms of ID as well as (dredging up memories from when I used to sign on) their signing on card/book (or whatever it is these days.)

If it was compulsory to carry the ID, and the police had the power to randomly demand to see it, then I could see some civil liberties concerns arising. As I said in an earlier post, the key thing is "who could demand to see it, and when could they demand to see it?" So far, I have't seen anything worrying.
 
I can remember when the very suggestion of an ID card was enough to send people searching for their placards and marching boots. Now I know I'm getting old.

"Raus! Raus! Ausweiss, bitte!"
 
I doubt they said please very often though, btw, we had ID cards in those days, not that I was around to see them.
 
Most of Europe already has ID cards.

The beeb interviewed some people in France, who couldn't see why it was considered 'controversial' over here.

And I agree. The naysayers are always so vague about exactly what freedoms we'd lose. Lots of people and organizations already have information on us - mostly for our benefit.

My only quibble would be the cost of the scheme. In theory consolidating a lot of different cards, passports, benefit entitlements, etc, should save money. But new schemes often turn into nightmares, like the passport office computerisation, the online Tax Return system, the National Census website fiasco, etc.

And some pols like grandiose schemes - dare I mention the the Dome? Yes I dare - THE DOME!
 
What are the benefits?

After watching a late night BBC2 political discussion programme on which they had this debate, they estimated the cost in the first year would be around £1,000,000,000 (that's is a billion isn't it?). Can we afford to spend that much on something which essentially exists already (passport, driving licence, bank cards). I'm pretty sure that schools or hospitals could do with a little bit extra.

It seems to me that whilst I personally have no real objection to having an ID card, what alludes me is why? The terrorist threat would still be there in fact it may even increase due to authorities placing too much trust in the card and not questiong it as a form of ID. A decrease in benefit fraud would be welcome but if you are desperate enough to defraud 'the social' what would stop you defrauding individuals or something worse.

The cost vs benefit leads me to believe that the money would be better spent elsewhere.
 
I'm with wintermute. These cards just give licenece to the forces of law and order to hassle certain sections of the population.
I can't imagine many white people dressed in suits walking through Bond Street getting hassled for ID cards, but I'm sure that many black and Asian youths would get stopped all the time.
Once civil liberties are given up, they are often impossible to claw back.
 
what do we give up for 'convenience'?

The cost of the cards outways any benifits other than the ease with wich individuals movements can be tracked. We have already had people on this thread talking about the increse in harasment to ethnic groups that would arise. What about political groups? The degree to wich the powers that be are eger to track the whareabouts of individuals is shown by the taping of strikers phones during the miners strike where it was so pervelent that noone used the phone to organise pickets as the police always turned up first ready to bash some heads.

One of the key uses of this card 9as far as I can see) is to track subversivs in a much more cost efective way. Goodbye freedom of assembaly.
 
plus the combination of ID Cards with the government proposed widening of the RIPA act (snoopers charter), would mean that it would be possible for every government department, and also you local council, to not only monitor all of your communications, but also track your movements.
I wouldn't trust my local council to empty the bins on time, let alone monitor my email.
 
there is no conspiracy. It's much to simple for that.

Why do we pick on imagrents and dole cheats anyway? I've known alot of dole cheats. You try living on what they give you.
 
more doom-mongering

I too agree with Wintermute. Thin end of wedge, slippery slope and other such cliches. Perhaps initially the card will be voluntary but will it necessarily stay that way? And yes, we have many kinds of identification already, but none that have such potential to grow into a vast and comprehensive database of all citizens, with all the attendant opportunities for abuse by corrupt politicians or unscrupulous companies. My basic principle in issues of privacy is that no strangers should have any information on me except as needed. Our privacy has already been compromised enough without surrendering meekly to this new affront. I certainly don't believe we can rely on politicians and the apparatus of social control (secret services etc) always being upright and principled people who would never abuse their positions. Likewise I'm sure many law-enforcement types are fine individuals. Sad to say, though, pretty much every single encounter I've had with the police has deepened my distrust of them. :(
 
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