“introducing new ID cards”

Except without the cards.

A new identity verification system, yes, but that’s not quite the same thing.

@1

Hum, but the focus of anger against ID cards was never wholly the cards themselves but the database behind it all…which is what this looks a lot like.

Hum, but the focus of anger against ID cards was never wholly the cards themselves but the database behind it all…which is what this looks a lot like.

It was both.

ISTM “the devil is in the details”, as NO2ID puts it, but on the face of what little we have been told this just seems like a single user identity for all government websites and systems, not an ID system per se.

I’ve long said it would be helpful to have ID cards because it would save a lot of hassle when I’m asked for proof of personal identity – eg when I go to the local Royal Mail sorting office to collect undelivered parcels or to apply for benefits.

With multiple households at some London addresses and benefit fraud, identity checks are a sensible precaution to cut admin costs and as a prudent crime prevention measure. It was one of the better policy ideas of the last government IMO.

I’m glad to see the Coalition has come round to having second thoughts about its previous opposition.

@4

You think ID cards and an ID database (as laid out by New Labour) would prevent ID fraud? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Mr S Pill

You think ID cards and an ID database (as laid out by New Labour) would prevent ID fraud?

Oh god, please don’t set Bob B off again.

I remember him saying the same rubbish over and over and over and over every time an ID thread came up.

@5

The facts are that I’m asked for proof of identity when applying for benefits (or collecting undelivered parcels) and that some benefit fraud is through multiple applications for benefits from the same address and/or by the same person. ID cards could cut the admin costs of checking identities.

Many west European countries have national ID cards so I really don’t understand the objections – apart from reasonable concerns that the last government would screw up yet again with another large computer project as it did with the NHS patient records system it tried to implement. After all, passports are a form of ID cards and who objects to passports?

Bob,

The facts are that I’m asked for proof of identity when applying for benefits (or collecting undelivered parcels) and that some benefit fraud is through multiple applications for benefits from the same address and/or by the same person. ID cards could cut the admin costs of checking identities.

We have been through all this before. Many times.

The onus ought to be on the person proposing the system to show the benefits exceed the costs (and risks) of the system. So far, no-one has in terms of government ID schemes in the UK.

The upperbound of Labour’s estimate of benefit fraud resulting from identity fraud was, IIRC, some £50m. This is 1% of the estimated cost of Labour’s ID scheme (some £5bn). Great, you’ve saved £50m. Now where are you going to save £4.95bn?

Many west European countries have national ID cards so I really don’t understand the objections

Millions of flies have a diet I certainly wouldn’t enjoy.

After all, passports are a form of ID cards and who objects to passports?

As I’ve said before to you, (1) quite a few people object to them but unfortunately the matter seems settled and you cannot enter other countries without one, and (2) the existence of passports isn’t a good reason for ID cards. Why don’t you just use your ID card to collect your parcels? Or your driving licence?

EDIT:

Why don’t you just use your ID card passport to collect your parcels? Or your driving licence?

or Recent utility bill, Council tax bill, or Bank statement.

http://www.parcelforce.com/portal/pw/jump2?catId=2600005&mediaId=26100671

Mr S Pill/2: Sure, but the headline “Coalition government introducing ID Cards” [except for the ID Cards] is just silly.

And it does appear to be somewhat different to the “giant database of everything” national identity database in both scope and function, too, if the Telegraph report is accurate.

(The idea of logging on to a government website with your credit card details is a bit dystopian, but I’m sure they didn’t mean it that way)

@9: “Why don’t you just use your ID card passport to collect your parcels? Or your driving licence?”

Because I don’t have a current passport or driving licence.

Whenever I get an appointment to attend a new out-patients clinic at my local NHS hospital, the hospital sends me several sheets of paper, including a questionnaire, relating to my ID with instructions to bring proofs of identity and entitlement, including my birth certificate, when I attend. And this is despite the hospital having medical records on me going back to 2004 and my having hospital, clinic and NHS unique identity numbers.

Whenever I’ve mentioned how bureaucratic this is, the response is that they don’t have the time to check on my medical records. It would save all involved a lot of hassle and paperwork if they could simply ask me to produce my ID card.

cim,

(The idea of logging on to a government website with your credit card details is a bit dystopian, but I’m sure they didn’t mean it that way)

To be fair, who knows? Then again, to be fair, the headline of the OP is a falsehood.

Because I don’t have a current passport or driving licence.

Do you have a recent utility bill or council tax bill or bank statement?

It would save all involved a lot of hassle and paperwork if they could simply ask me to produce my ID card.

Yes, I’m sure it would. But do the benefits outweigh the costs (and risks)? This is a question you have yet to answer, despite repeating the same points over and over again.

@11 BobB Are you assuming the the ID card would be free from bureaucracy? What planet are you on?

“Yes, I’m sure it would. But do the benefits outweigh the costs (and risks)?”

Why do all those other west European countries have ID cards?

“Are you assuming the the ID card would be free from bureaucracy? What planet are you on?”

I have to repeatedly go through the process of gathering evidence of my identity when I go to the Royal Mail sorting office to collect undelivered parcels, when applying for benefits and when attending new out-patients clinics at my local hospital which has medical records on me going back 7 years and when I already have unique National Insurance, NHS, hospital and clinic numbers. I would have to produce more proof of ID were I to apply for a passport or a driving licence. It would greatly simplify matters if I could just produce my ID card as proof of personal ID.

Do try to avoid being entirely daft.

Why do all those other west European countries have ID cards?

Because they have insufficient numbers of sensible people.

Next…

“Because they have insufficient numbers of sensible people. ”

C’mon. Do check out just how many countries evidently have “insufficient numbers of sensible people”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_document#European_Union

Why is it that ID cards = bad but not passports or driving licences or my having to gather proof of personal ID to collect parcels, apply for benefits and when I attend a new out-patients clinics at my local hospital?

Bob,

“Because they have insufficient numbers of sensible people. ”

C’mon. Do check out just how many countries evidently have “insufficient numbers of sensible people”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_document#European_Union

I know, it’s dreadful isn’t it? And we’re in bed with them.

More seriously, you’re employing the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad numerum. Millions of flies can’t be wrong?

My guess is that you know next-to-nothing about the decisions that led to the deployment of those particular ID systems, what the benefits, costs and risks are.

Why is it that ID cards = bad but not passports or driving licences or my having to gather proof of personal ID to collect parcels, apply for benefits and when I attend a new out-patients clinics at my local hospital?

[previous post:]

It would greatly simplify matters if I could just produce my ID card as proof of personal ID.

In itself, an ID card is not “proof of identity”, it is merely evidence sufficient (or not, as the case may be) to the person at the gate.

If the bureaucrat’s demands are too onerous perhaps the answer is not to introduce an ID card but change his demands. Why do you ask for an ID card system and not, say, the people at the hospital to give you something that will satisfy them, the next time you present it, that you are the person entitled to access their services?

(Given that the previous government eventually settled for introducing a system where the vast bulk of everyday checks would be against the card and not the database behind it [1], ISTM their system would have been security theatre – essentially there would have been no difference whether you presented an ID card or a passport or a driving licence or anything else that can be readily forged sufficient to please the beady-eyed bureaucrat.)

“Why is it that ID cards = bad but not passports or driving licences…” – I already said that people object to the latter two but accept that we have them. But that this isn’t an excuse for introducing yet another system. This is the kind of thing you do that I referred to earlier when I said you make the same points over and over and ignore people’s counterpoints.

[1] “only in specific circumstances, for example if an ID card has been lost, would verification of identity take place against the biometrics held on the National Identity Register” – Meg Hillier, the-then Home Office Minster for ID cards.

All I have to take to my local sorting office is the card the postie rams through the door and the only thing I need to take to medical appointments is the letter I get in the post.

The most valuable thing you own is your identity (unless you’ve got a couple of Van Goghs in the attic). Why entrust it to an incompetent government, an idle beaurocrat or a greedy company who’ll wrongly store, sell or lose it. And that’s if any of them get it right in the first place.

Britain hated identity cards when it last had them and that’s when they were just a bit of card that said something along the lines of “this is Mr Smith, he is not a German spy”

Bob,

European countries have ID cards because they have governments based on the concept that they give out freedoms and rights, whilst our government is based on the concept of consent of the body politic (i.e. us).

So we do no need to be given a bloody proof of our identity in the eyes of government, however convenient it would be…

As for the particularly silly headline – last time I checked, I had an online identity already for the government websites, so this is an existing scheme being revamped.

“More seriously, you’re employing the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad numerum. Millions of flies can’t be wrong?”

Try to avoid being totally intellectually dishonest. I have staked out at length why I believe that ID cards make good practical sense and have pointed out that other governments in many other countries have come to similar conclusions while you haven’t responded on the fundamentals I’ve raised.

“In itself, an ID card is not “proof of identity”, it is merely evidence sufficient (or not, as the case may be) to the person at the gate.”

C’mon. The “proofs of personal ID” that I have to repeatedly gather to meet the requests that I’m obliged to meet are far more flimsy than a properly produced ID card with a hologram – as bank credit cards now have – and embedded personal biometrics. The case against ID cards is totally phony given that I have to repeatedly gather and produce proof of personal ID and that there is no objection in principle to passports or driving licences.

Bob,

I have staked out at length why I believe that ID cards make good practical sense and have pointed out that other governments in many other countries have come to similar conclusions while you haven’t responded on the fundamentals I’ve raised.

Your “good practical sense” that you “staked out at length” is that you are asked for evidence of identity when you go to the post office and the hospital and that other countries have ID card systems (including France, where I’m tempted to risk a Godwin). You’ll forgive me if I don’t find that a compelling cost-benefit analysis in support of spending billions on an ID card system (not to mention risks of abuse of such a system).

“In itself, an ID card is not “proof of identity”, it is merely evidence sufficient (or not, as the case may be) to the person at the gate.”

The “proofs of personal ID” that I have to repeatedly gather to meet the requests that I’m obliged to meet are far more flimsy than a properly produced ID card with a hologram – as bank credit cards now have – and embedded personal biometrics.

Do you think / hope the post office or the hospital would check for the existence of “embedded personal biometrics”? Or rather are they more likely to confine their checks to merely looking at the card – and when I say looking, I mean glancing. I ask because the previous government, with its £5bn “gold standard” system, plumped for “visual checks”.

The case against ID cards is totally phony given that I have to repeatedly gather and produce proof of personal ID and that there is no objection in principle to passports or driving licences.

Well, get a passport then.

As I said, the onus is on you to support your new system with a cost-benefit analysis.

Now repeat that your complaint that you have to take a dossier with you when you visit the hospital, you have only said it three times in this thread and a million times in others.

I actually have sympathy with you about the hospital, but for me this is about changing their system, not introducing a new national system. Why can’t / won’t they give you a temporary document that shows to their satisfaction your entitlement to access their services?

Bob B
You only need some post as a form of identity you pillock – an electric bill or water bill will do it.
You do not need photo id to collect your parcels – this is a silly ‘benefit’ to the ID card scheme.

In this day and age, for my own convenience, I carry a photocopy of the relevant page from my passport. I choose to do this, I am not required to carry it by the state, no policeman or other officious busybody can demand to see it at will, and it is not back up by a huge biometric database available to every nosey official in the land. It is inevitable in the course of everyday life, and with the nature of modern commerce and bureaucracy, that we will be required to demonstrate who we are on occasion. I do not object to that provide that different options for such identity remain available to those who want them.

@23: “You only need some post as a form of identity you pillock – an electric bill or water bill will do it.”

I am well aware of that and that is precisely what I do to satisfy the repeated demands at Royal Mail sorting offices to collect undelivered parcels.

With many addresses in multiple occupation in the postal area where I live – reportedly one of the largest postal areas in Britain – the request for ID is reasonable and reassuring. But everytime I produce one of those utility bills, I reflect on how filmsy a proof of identity that amounts to for addresses in multiple occupation.

Besides, my local hospital wants much more than a utility bill as proof of personal identity and so do benefits offices.

With so many other EU countries having ID card systems from decades back, those ranting here against the very idea are looking increasingly hysterical and silly. IMO the last government was entirely sensible in proposing ID cards with embedded biometrics. Sadly, their competence in implementing such a large computer project lacked any credibility after the fiasco over the NHS project to computerise all personal medical records. However, I’ve noticed that whenever I go to see a GP or a hospital consultant, they can easily turn up my medical records to check medication, as well as x-ray plates from last year, There is nothing especially untoward about medical records but that is not true for all folk who could have very reasonable concerns about the blackmail potential from records which include references to mental health issues, STDs, abortions, inherited conditions and so on.

Bob,

With so many other EU countries having ID card systems from decades back, those ranting here against the very idea are looking increasingly hysterical and silly.

argumentum ad numerum and you are repeating yourself (repeatedly) without countering this. other countries have them is not a compelling argument in itself.

IMO the last government was entirely sensible in proposing ID cards with embedded biometrics.

O RLY? Even though it had no plans for people to check said embedded biometrics in the vast bulk of everyday cases? i.e. there was no point in embedded biometrics?

And even though people accessing benefits (you brought this up), say, wouldn’t even be asked for the card?

Yes, entirely shenshible. Hic.

@26: “Yes, entirely shenshible. Hic.”

Predictably, lots of personal abuse but no effective responses on the substantive issues. And as it happens, for medical reasons, I hardly ever drink alcohol.

It is thoroughly bumptious on your part to claim that all those other other EU countries with long established systems of ID cards are run by clueless twits – see link @17.

Bob B, I offer you a sincere apology if you are offended by my suggestion that you might be drunk but seriously, what do you expect? You want an ID card, fine. Then set out your case. Your case is that the hospital is arsing you around, which I have every sympathy with, and that other countries have ID cards. I’m sorry but I don’t find this a compelling argument.

I’m not surprised you can’t offer a cost-benefit analysis – the previous government couldn’t, and it had all Whitehall’s resources, lots of expert evidence (for and against) and years of research available to it.

So all the usual tory trolls that attacked ID card when we had a Labour govt, and screamed “Stalin state” now support it.

Why am I not surprised by the tribal hypocrisy of brown shirts.

Well an on-line verification system is not an ID card system, so the title of this article is a little misleading. People are right to point out that the objections to the National Identity Scheme were not just the card. That is why NO2ID continues to campaign against the ‘database state’ not just ID cards.

There is a threat that this on-line verification scheme could develop into some form of National Identity Scheme without the card. However it could also be a form of federated on-line verification for government services that was not a threat to privacy or liberty.

The devil is in the detail, and that that is why NO2ID will be watching this like a hawk. Currently there are simply not enough details about it to say what it really is or isn’t.

@28: “Your case is that the hospital is arsing you around, which I have every sympathy with, and that other countries have ID cards. I’m sorry but I don’t find this a compelling argument.”

My local hospital isn’t just arsing me around – the policy requiring proof of personal ID and entitlement to NHS treatment applies to every fresh patient attending a hospital outpatient clinic.

An awful lot of governments in western Europe – including the last government in Britain – believe that there is a robust case for ID cards.

I agree with thiose governments – and on the international evidence, my view is hardly an eccentric one.

@ ukliberty

“I’m not surprised you can’t offer a cost-benefit analysis – the previous government couldn’t, and it had all Whitehall’s resources, lots of expert evidence (for and against) and years of research available to it.”

Wouldn’t a cost-benefit analysis of a hypothetical scenario require a lot of assumptions to be made? (Or, if you used another country as your model, have the flaw that the starting conditions in that country and this may differ?)

@20. Watchman: “European countries have ID cards because they have governments based on the concept that they give out freedoms and rights, whilst our government is based on the concept of consent of the body politic (i.e. us).

So we do no need to be given a bloody proof of our identity in the eyes of government, however convenient it would be…”

Many years ago, the UK offered two forms of passport: one for “the world” and one for your trip to “the continent”. Even if you had other proof of UK nationality, your trip to the continent passport would not suffice for admission to Hong Kong or Saint Helena; it was good enough for admission to our closest physical neighbours and that was it.

Within the Schengen area, national ID cards perform a similar function to a trip to the continent passport. ID is not required at borders, but it will be required when flying, possibly on long distance trains. And there are dozens of other circumstances where national ID is demanded in order to conduct non-government affairs.

The thing about those national ID cards is how they are used within the countries that issue them. Some countries treat them as ID for non-government border agencies (eg flight check-in); others require them as street ID (eg police checks).

The UK is outside the Schengen area, for which I am grateful. I simply don’t trust any UK government to use membership as an opportunity to impose national ID.

Bob B,

My local hospital isn’t just arsing me around – the policy requiring proof of personal ID and entitlement to NHS treatment applies to every fresh patient attending a hospital outpatient clinic.

Again, why does the hospital not give you something that they will accept as sufficient to show your entitlement to their services?

An awful lot of governments in western Europe – including the last government in Britain – believe that there is a robust case for ID cards.

Our previous governments under Blair and Brown claimed they had a robust case. Ministers may even have believed it. If you can show our governments really had a robust case, please provide a link to it. Note that Tony McNulty, when in charge of the scheme, said,

“perhaps in the past the government, in its enthusiasm, oversold the advantages of identity cards… [it] did suggest, or at least implied, that they might well be a panacea for identity fraud, for benefit fraud, terrorism, entitlement and access to public services.”

In 2009, OGC reviews from 2003 and 2004 were finally released after years of campaigning and legal work: in 2003, “The review team did not consider that the studies of costs and risks that have been completed are sufficiently robust to support any firm conclusions as to the outturn costs or delivery timetable” and, “There is an urgent requirement for considered analysis of the costs and benefits of the programme, and the various options within it, and of value for money. Although some work on costs and levels of charges has been undertaken, only limited attempts have been made so far to assess the time profile of costs or to quantify benefits from the programme”; in 2004, “Although a robust management framework, resources and plans are now in place with potential for success, many complex issues remain to be addressed and a great deal of further work is required to establish a solution that is feasible, affordable and achievable with a high degree of certainty”, and “there is much work to be done before a robust business case can be established for a solution that meets the business need”.

I recall the-then Home Office Minister McNulty saying in 2007, “If you are asking for the quintessential, comprehensive, all-singing, all-dancing, quantitatively, mathematically robust, cost-benefit analysis, no, it has not been done.”

So yes, I’m very interested to see your robust case for identity cards.

Oh, another comment from McNulty in 2007:

“[the ID scheme] has always been seen in terms of what this can do for the State rather than in developing the gold standard in proving identity and saying how precious your identity is to you.”

Chaise,

Wouldn’t a cost-benefit analysis of a hypothetical scenario require a lot of assumptions to be made?

Undoubtedly – look, I have no problem with people making reasonable assumptions and estimates and so on. My basic point is that you can’t – or shouldn’t be able to – spend billions of pounds without making a business case (which as you say will necessarily involve such assumptions) – the Home Office did not. Not a public one, anyway. And what they little they put out was full of holes (e.g. merely visually checking, in most circumstances, a card that is backed by a biometric system and ID register… it’s absurd).

And even if there was a business case, can they successfully pull it off? Precedent suggests not.

The LSE’s paper may provide some good examples of assumptions, given the lack of such from the Home Office:
http://identityproject.lse.ac.uk/identityreport.pdf#page=239

while we’re visiting the LSE, perhaps also see this page for how Ministers traduced LSE academics and criticised their report without, um, having read it:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2010/06/07/how-academic-research-has-impact-but-not-always-what-the-minister-wanted-the-story-of-the-lse-identity-project/

These are Ministers Bob agrees/d with.

The ID verification and government data sharing systems underpinning the last administration’s ID Card plans have the potential to lead to many billions of pounds worth of efficiency savings and service improvements.

It is no surprise that the new Government are keen on a “non ID card” ID card scheme to gain the fruits of those efficiencies.

I’m sure a face-saving solution is possible – what about “Gordon spent all the money therefore it is essential to make a different trade off around efficiency vs liberty to save front-line service”. Alternatively just pretend its not happening and just wait a few years to roll the cards out or just use passports

I thought I’d look up how difficult it is to establish a UK bank account. What evidence of identity do you need?

I don’t have a clue. The top hit on Google is a government web page at http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingMoney/BankAccountsAndBankingProducts/DG_10035252 is offline.

Thanks, government. But only offline temporarily, and eventually I found it available. So I followed the link(Proving your identity) http://www.moneymadeclear.org.uk/pdfs/proving_your_identity.pdf. “We’re sorry We couldn’t find the page you’re looking for. It may have been changed or removed.”

So government can’t deliver a static web page that provides identity information, but expects me to trust them with managing my ID dynamically…

@36. Sevillista: “The ID verification and government data sharing systems underpinning the last administration’s ID Card plans have the potential to lead to many billions of pounds worth of efficiency savings and service improvements.”

Efficiency savings: How? If you have to ask whether every customer is a UK citizen or EU citizen deserving of equal treatment, that is a cost.

Service improvements: Incomprehensible.

The only economic argument for national ID is that government would not assist residents without appropriate ID.

For moral reasons, we do not do that in the UK. If people are sick, they can go to an NHS hospital; but we make it difficult for them to register with a GP, which might be cheaper in the long run. Illegal immigrants living on the street are given an embarrassing allowance. Many are too scared to use the public services that are available to them.

What is the cost of helping all UK residents equally? Or tweak that to mean the difference in cost between helping UK/EU citizens plus those with residence rights, versus “illegals”?

It’s a shame Bob and Ukliberty (and others) seem to be unable to keep the debate purely intellectual and instead resort mild ad hominem attacks. I was interested in hearing what Bob had to say as I’ve had identical problems with identity myself. I’m also suspicious of the hysteria behind the idea of ID cards, my issue with them is purely that they seem to be a waste of money for what they are. The government already has a myriad of information on me stored on various computers and records. Is centralisation of these things terrible in a way I’ve not understood?

What confuses me is that I don’t have the normal proof of ID (passport, drivers license) simply because of the cost. A government ID card will cost just as much, if not more for each individual, surely? If you can afford one, why not the other? I can afford neither so the point is moot for myself.

Also, for the many people that claim a utility bill will suffice, either we have very different standards in different regions or this is something people have heard once and assume is the case. It’s not. Quite often it’s only managerial intervention that will allow a myriad of ID such as birth certificate, utility bills and the like to be accepted, other times the manager refuses to put his neck on the line and will accept nothing more than a passport or drivers license. I’ve had this many times myself making purchases.

However, I really don’t see these as the case for ID cards, more the case against militant jobsworthyness and bureaucratic insistancy.

@charlieman

Efficiency:

The Government spends a hell of a lot of money gathering the same data from the same people and verifying that data. Other Government agencies spend a hell of a lot of money for want of information that another part of Government has.

An ID card database – if it is designed and implemented well (and I accept that is an if) – will allow massive efficiency savings, both through side-stepping bureaucratic and expensive data protection rules and practical data-linking issues that prevent different government agencies sharing data. Hence the attractions of such a database, particularly in a time of massive fiscal constraint.

Service improvements:

People who want to use Government services get sick and tired of sending the same data to many different agencies and can’t comprehend why the Government puts them through this hassle (e.g. if their name, address etc change).

Many Government services are hampered or cost a lot more due to difficulties in sharing and maintaining accurate personal data records. To give one example, the Child Support Agency had no chance of being effective due to the – necessarily – cumbersome procedures to share data with HMRC, the police and other agencies.

BUT
I am not saying that this is the right thing to do. There are strong arguments that people’s liberty should trump such narrow efficiency/service quality arguments. Just pointing out the attractions of such a database (to the extent that the Tories will be well up for an embarrassing U-turn on this) and the trade-offs that politicians will have to make

Dross,

The government already has a myriad of information on me stored on various computers and records. Is centralisation of these things terrible in a way I’ve not understood?

There are a couple of ‘eggs in one basket’ issues: (1), storing in one place makes it more of a target; (2) compromising that place is the end of the story, the bad guy doesn’t need to compromise anywhere else; (3) what happens if that one basket suffers system failure. Of course there are trade-offs.

Professor Martyn Thomas, UK Computing Research Committee, said to them:

“If you create either a single card that has multi functions or a single database then you are adding to the nation’s critical infrastructure unnecessarily and by doing that you are making a very large range of services, probably a growing range of services, vulnerable to a single attack, either a deliberate attack or a fault that arises as a consequence of misimplementation or accident. This seems (and undoubtedly is) an extremely foolish thing to do if you do not need to do it.”

I’m sure there is an argument for ‘rationalising’ the myriad databases the government already has.

… However, I really don’t see these as the case for ID cards, more the case against militant jobsworthyness and bureaucratic insistancy.

Well, quite. One of the issues with Labour’s ID card ‘debate’ was the insistence that “ID cards are the only solution” (to an undefined problem) – indeed as we have seen in this thread. But there may well be other solutions: the bureaucrat could be less fussy about what he accepts; the hospital could hand out temporary codes or cards. And some of the problems aren’t identity issues, they are entitlement issues: they are not about who you are but what you are authorised to access.

Ultimately, how can we make an informed decision about the best course of action without defining a need, making a proper business case and supplying cost-benefit analyses?

(And that is completely aside from the civil liberties argument. We haven’t even touched on that at all.)

@ ukliberty

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I think the arguments you mentioned at the most convincing for me so far. I suppose that centralizing data only adds to the burgeoning lists of information the government has to keep on you on top of existing systems. My main thought is of the inefficiency of different govt departments all requesting similar data for different reasons, however I suspect this is again down to a bureaucratic department which cannot communicate effectively with another, something I’ve had lots of experience with.

It certainly sounds like it’s an expensive cop out for trying to deal with various problems which would otherwise require difficult decisions to deal with. I also think there’s something to be said for living in a society where you’re not worried about not having the right piece of paper in order to go about your business.. especially with the recent developments with the police handling of various demonstrations.

Dross, you’re right. Absent the civil liberties question this is about trade-offs, really (as most things are, I expect). For example, it would make for easier access to put all the data in one place but that is a trade-off against a risk of total system malfunction or bad guys being able to compromise just a single system.

Apparently we got fed up with ID cards in the 50s (they were introduced in the Second World War for security reasons): the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Goddard, spoke out against the continued use of compulsory Identity Cards and commented that they “tend to make people resentful of the acts of the police” – so there’s a trade-off, in that they traded ‘evidence of identity’ for ‘being resentful of the police’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Henry_Willcock

So we have to carefully weigh things up.

And should we decide ID cards are the answer, there are different ID card systems. For example, that LSE proposal I referred to earlier was more secure, less expensive … what it didn’t do was have a database the state could trawl through.

@ 35 UKliberty

Are your misgivings about ID cards purely pragmatic, then, in terms of the financial/logistical costs outweighing the benefits?

@40. Sevillista: “People who want to use Government services get sick and tired of sending the same data to many different agencies and can’t comprehend why the Government puts them through this hassle (e.g. if their name, address etc change).”

Thanks for your response. But you have identified why any agency, not just government, put customers through the loop when they want to buy something or use a service. Customers change; they change their name and address, they get speeding points on their driving licence, they get burgled.

Insurance companies have access to databases about customers, so they have an idea whether you were robbed or scored a few licence points. But they have to make customers jump through the hoops, just in case their data is wrong. If you use any commercial online service, you’ll be familiar with the annoying screen that asks you to confirm some account details.

National ID, a card or a web sign in, won’t remove the need to resubmit data. And if decisions about citizens/residents are made on the basis of inaccurate data from a government database, the consequences may be trivial or gravely serious.

Take, for example, the translation of an Arabic or Urdu name into English. There are multiple spellings of common names. A mate’s Greek wife has her maiden name spelled differently in her Greek passport and UK marriage certificate.

Chaise,

ukliberty,

Are your misgivings about ID cards purely pragmatic, then, in terms of the financial/logistical costs outweighing the benefits?

Not at all, I think they change the state-citizen relationship – people either agree with that or they don’t. While I am against ID cards in principle, a substantial proportion of the population is not (according to surveys). That’s where the pragmatic argument, the cost-benefits argument, helps to incline such people against a particular ID cards scheme if not ID cards in principle.

The Home Office polls seemed to show that the more people heard about the scheme – and the more the government’s plans changed, and the longer NO2ID and others campaigned – the more support declined and opposition grew. (Also, I doubt the data loss and data abuse stories in the news helped the government’s case.)

ISTM as people realised what they were to trade away in return for a little more convenience they began to think, “hmm, maybe this particular idea isn’t such a good idea after all”. Particularly when the benefits claimed about the scheme decreased as time goes by (unlike earlier claims, it won’t really be “a panacea for identity fraud, for benefit fraud, terrorism, entitlement and access to public services”…).