As for Tory policy on ID cards, I don’t think they can make it much more clear (other than the detail), e.g. “We will scrap the ID cards scheme”.

Dan | thesamovar @ 18 – fair points.

I think that you are right in saying that commercial pressures are part of the driving force for ID cards and a national database, though there are others, and a big part of the problem is the weakness of New Labour to stand up to such pressures (and not some innate control-freakery of the Left). The commercial pressures come from a desire for involvement in the contracts to supply database services (and as it is difficult to specify what is needed these can be gravy-trains with no fixed terminus) and also come from a desire to use the information. In the knowledge economy, information is a commodity that can be bought and sold, and there are plenty of companies that would like to trade in information about us. The growing involvement of private companies in public services means that there are private interests who have access to data about us, and this is likely to increase in future. There are companies who have access to NHS data and sell back to the NHS analyses based on this data. The growing involvement of private companies of providers in the NHS will mean that this is likely to increase. The value of such data will be increased by being able to have a unique identifier (rather than having to eliminate by hand double records or other ambiguities).

Do you trust any of our political parties to stand up to this? I don’t.

Guano

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/focussing

I suspect that ID cards are ultimately a red herring: a national database containing biometric data renders them redundant. If a fingerprint or an iris scan can be used to identify someone the ID card is so much useless plastic. A nrw government might well abolish the cards to demonstrate their liberal credentials – while leaving the invisible database intact.

Don’t you know the Daily Mail is against ID cards? Aaah shit!”

To be fair, I think it is only me you are referring to by “some of you”.

I am however delighted that I have managed to piss you off even by the manner in which I oppose something that you also oppose.

The private sector is much less accountable than the state. What are you going to do if some company uses your data in a way you don’t like? Well, probably nothing because as Unity points out, you can’t use the Freedom of Information act etc on private companies so probably you’ll never find out. But even if you do, there’s diddly squat you can do about it apart from taking your business elsewhere. If you think they’ll notice and change their behaviour accordingly you have a laughably pro-business outlook. The state could do with being a lot more accountable, but it is more accountable than the private sector.

In short – yes, stuff the “totalitarian State” issues. The issues Unity raises are a better reason to be against this project.

The irritating waste of time and resources throughout the economy which occurs when people have National Identity numbers is that they are asked for time after time for no valid reason. (US Social Security numbers are abused in the same way). Only part of that niggling contibutes to the data flow which Unity fears and I quite like. (E.G. , banks asking for an NI number for all transactions over 200 pounds would be over 90% pure waste effort). It is convenient to be able to produce an official piece of identification when I want: my driving licence does nicely. However, the reason that National Identity Cards became so incredibly unpopular by 1951 (I still have my old one) was that government officials – Police and others – kept insisting that we produce it on all sorts of occasions, and threatening to prosecute us if we didn’t. Government have powers to misuse information in really serious as well as really annoying ways; and that is why we need to focus on bringing the database state under control.

At some point, on a long enough time line, even the most diametrically opposed people will fall upon common ground.

Civil liberties will always be the primary reason that the ID Cards are opposed by many here I feel, anything else is bonus arguments.

ukliberty, although obviously I appreciate the distinction between opt-in and opt-out, it’s more important in this case to look at the effects in practice than the effects in principle. For example, I can refuse to get an Oyster card and pay for each ticket in cash but then I pay twice as much. (Actually I compromised and bought an anoymous Oyster card which I only top up with cash, but this isn’t perfect either.) Not using the tube for someone who works in London is not really an option, so although this is opt in in principle, that does them no good. Similarly, I think almost all of the utilities companies punish people who don’t pay by direct debit by charging them more, forcing them to relinquish control of their own money. (Again, I was rather glad that I took the punishment when one such company was persistently double charging me and I could get them to fix it by just not paying them until they did. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken to get it fixed if they could just take my money at will.) As the ‘database economy’ gets more and more pervasive, it will become more and more difficult to avoid it without paying considerably more for everything than if you didn’t. Most people simply won’t be able to afford to avoid it. The ICO report refers to this sort of thing as “social sorting”. It’s a phenomenon that will become more and more significant and problematic.

Don’t you know the Daily Mail is against ID cards? Aaah shit!

A fine point, Nick.

I manage to avoid loyalty cards for supermarkets but have a couple for bookshops. I won’t sign up to any more.

Which leads me to ask – Unity, only tangentially related to this post, but if you’re doing requests at all I’d be very interested in a post about what demands you think the left should be making on copyright, either here or on your own blog.

This is why I don’t have a store card and I try and keep my name off of as much as possible. The more I’ve thought about this the more I’ve ended up not signing up for services. I just don’t want that information available on me.

The lack of accountability for the private companies is truly shocking. As far as I can see unless we force a change in the laws regarding data retention and use there is nothing we can really do. The information we give over to companies and the government are seen as the cost of doing business now. It seems to have become entrenched into our daily lives. So whether it’s the ‘database state’ or the ‘database economy’ at the end of the day the information is out there and it feel like anyone can do what they like with it.

James seemed to suggest that we are compelled to engage with the database economy in response to my claim that we may “largely opt-in” to it. I did write ‘largely’ for a reason!

(Banks are actually dreadful because they have conspired to keep many problems a secret. Professor Ross Anderson’s work is well worth a read if you are interested in this sort of thing.)

Ask me my name. See it at the top of this post. The rest of it is just a surrender to a hive mind.

Unity – thanks for that. I was aware of some of that but not all of it. I hadn’t thought about the benefits of ID cards to the private sector.

Previously I was ambivalent about ID cards – thinking them a huge waste of money but other than that not caring much about them. Now I can see there is a proper left-wing case to be firmly against them. There is a real danger they will help companies exploit the vulnerable through targeted advertising and discriminate against the poor in the provision of services. You’ve persuaded me – well done!

if I’m absolutely honest, I’m beginning to wish that some people, Henry included, would just back off from the whole ‘database state’ thing for a little while simply because they really have only, at best, a partial understanding of the issues.

I think this is rather unfair too. You seem to have assumed Henry lacks knowledge because of what you have read of his work. But it could be that he is writing to persuade people who aren’t as clever/knowledgeable/makes-the-time-to-understand-it as you. Or it could be both. Either way I’m not at this point particularly bothered about the minutiae as to why people should be careful about the information they give and who they give it to. What I want is for people to understand the general principles. That in itself is hard enough as the first response to your article has indicated (no offence intended Iain). The number of times we see “nothing to hide nothing to fear”… if they think that, they aren’t going to be bothered about Boots the chemist sharing details about your allergies with Barclay’s.