Thought on the UK national ID card.

[ffutures]

Assuming they ever get the scheme off the ground there will be lots of information on that card, and it can be accessed by all sorts of organization - but not the person carrying it if he's a private citizen. And when someone shows the man in the street his card and says "Trust me, I'm xxxxx...." how the hell are we supposed to know if it's real or not?

The whole point of introducing this card is allegedly that it's too easy to forge other forms of ID. But shorn of the electronic side of things this is just another piece of plastic. I will have no way of verifying if someone showing me his card is showing me the real thing or a fake. More important, I will have no way of verifying that the person asking me to produce my card for scanning is real or fake.

I suspect that the government answer to all this is that police etc. will wear uniforms - easily faked - or carry warrant cards and other forms of ID - but by the terms which they are using to justify this scheme, they are potentially false documents. Only the one true UK identity card is unforgeable. Yeah, right...

Anyway, this thing is going to cost about 60-90 quid per person - I think that for that money it should come with a card reader that as a minimum displays the name and picture displayed on the card, and that citizens should have the right to see the cards of all visiting officials, anyone stopping them in the street, etc.

Anyone wants to run with this as an article, petition, etc. please feel free!

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I don't - but up to now that has worked both ways. Assuming the new cards work as claimed it will all be one way - officialdom will be able to read them, but we won't have anything like the same certainty about officials.