Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Independent - Ministers plan to sell your ID card details to raise cash

Kai Andersen c/o Liverpool Defy-ID | 26.06.2005 12:40 | Analysis | Repression | Social Struggles | Liverpool

INTRODUCTION:
Fellow defy-id campaigners in Liverpool have been out and about campaigning since early January and have regularly discussed this issue at open meetings for well over six months (meeting every Thursday 6pm at News From Nowhere, Bold Street, Liverpool). Time and time again our worst fears are shown not to be overblown paranoia, here's a story that proves that we constantly need to consider what are the repercussions of government ID card/database scheme, we've obviously got to continue to campaign against 'cornerstone legislation' that when in place will be the building block on which all other oppressive police state (control and containment of population) leglisation and laws will depend on.

Liverpool Defy-ID supporters have been campaigning since January and have recently targeted three MPs surgeries in June, Frank Field (Birkenhead) - Peter Kilfoyle (Walton) - Jane Kennedy (Wavertree) all three have stated to ourselves that they support the ID card scheme. The only known Liverpool MP known to public oppose ID cards/database scheme in Bob Wareing Liverpool West Derby's MP.

We've been gathering many signatures on defy-ID petition sheets and been linking ups with other campaign groups, Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Liverpool Friends of Palestine, Community Party of Britain (CPB) have been addressed at their monthly meetings, the national meeting of Trade Union Councils in Liverpool and the North West region of the Socialist Labour Party have both also debated the issue of ID cards/database. CND are also gathering petition signatures on their stalls and also giving out our leaflets as well.

With our constant dialogue with the public we're educating both the public and ourselves, getting fedback from people from other countries, for example Australia abandoned their
ID cards system after they had a national referendum on the issue and it was voted against, one of the reasons people got concerned was the so called 'function creep' in which government departments start to add more data and functions to the ID cards/database and it ends up becoming unmanagable, more controlling and the public get more concerned over the emcompassing nature of the identity
card/database system.

The following attached article is taken from today's Independent Newspaper, also on today's (Sunday 26th June) TV news programmes it's been stated that government's ID Card scheme is in disarray, however the government will still be having a vote on Tuesday for their increasingly detested ID Card/Database scheme.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ministers plan to sell your ID card details to raise cash
By Francis Elliott, Andy McSmith and Sophie Goodchild
26 June 2005

Personal details of all 44 million adults living in Britain could be sold to private companies as part of government attempts to arrest spiralling costs for the new national identity card scheme, set to get the go-ahead this week.

The Independent on Sunday can today reveal that ministers have opened talks with private firms to pass on personal details of UK citizens for an initial cost of £750 each.

Amid warnings today that the cost of a card for each adult in Britain is likely to double to £200, union leaders predicted that millions of public-sector workers could refuse to co-operate with the scheme, prompting claims that the ID scheme will become Labour's equivalent of the poll tax.

Unison is the latest and biggest trade union to come out against the controversial government plans. The Transport and General Workers' Union and the GMB have already urged backbenchers to vote against the Identity Cards Bill next week. Unison said that ID cards would be ineffective against terrorism and that its 1.3 million members working in healthcare may have the right to refuse to co-operate in enforcing their use.

Bob Marshall-Andrews, one of the Labour MPs opposing the Bill, has accused the Government of doing a "back of an envelope" calculation to reach its figure.

The opening of commercial talks contradicts a promise made when the Home Office launched a public consultation on ID cards in April last year, when officials pledged that "unlike electoral registers, the National Identity Register will not be open for any general access or inspection."

Public support for the scheme has been falling away in recent months amid gathering fears over costs. A report by the London School of Economics is to show that the card's cost to individuals will be around £200.

In addition, firms could be charged up to £750 for technology that would allow them instantly to verify customers' identity through iris scanning or finger-printing, according to official documents.

Whitehall insiders, who have already been passed a copy of the LSE report, say it also includes a warning by a former Nato security chief that the cards could be a "security disaster", are "too risky" to introduce, and could lead to a national meltdown in the event of a security breach of the
central database.

After 2008, a machine similar to credit card readers will be a common sight on the counters of banks and large retail stores. These new machines will potentially be able to read a customer's biometric details, such as fingerprints and facial measurements, to check that they tally with information on the customer's ID card.

The Identity Cards Bill has a rough passage ahead, with Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and some Labour rebels joining forces against it. Although government whips are confident of winning Tuesday's vote, rebels are predicting that they can kill the measure off later in the process, in a slow war of attrition, on the grounds of the costs involved and the risks of computer failure.

Kai Andersen c/o Liverpool Defy-ID
- e-mail: defyid@newsfromnowhere.org.uk
- Homepage: http://www.liverpool-defy-id.org.uk/

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. Independent Q&A:Why does Mr Blair want me to have a card,and what will it cost? — Kai Andersen c/o Liverpool defy-id
  2. More Independent articles... — Kai Andersen c/o Liverpool Defy-ID
  3. More New Labour Bullshit — Cherie Blairs Counsellor
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech