The Terrible Truth About ID Cards
Frances Stonor Saunders | 14.04.2006 10:31 | Globalisation | Social Struggles | Technology | World
The UK ID card is not what you think it is. It is not a simple identity document like your passport or driving licese. It is in fact, a database backed control grid and the fulfilment of Orwells nightmare.
You may have heard that legislation creating compulsory ID Cards passed a crucial stage in the House of Commons. You may feel that ID cards are not something to worry about, since we already have Photo ID for our Passport and Driving License and an ID Card will be no different to that. What you have not been told is the full scope of this proposed ID Card, and what it will mean to you personally.
The proposed ID Card will be different from any card you now hold. It will be connected to a database called the NIR, (National Identity Register)., where all of your personal details will be stored. This will include the unique number that will be issued to you, your fingerprints, a scan of the back of your eye, and your photograph. Your name, address and date of birth will also obviously be stored there.
There will be spaces on this database for your religion, residence status, and many other private and personal facts about you. There is unlimited space for every other details of your life on the NIR database, which can be expanded by the Government with or without further Acts of Parliament.
By itself, you might think that this register is harmless, but you would be wrong to come to this conclusion. This new card will be used to check your identity against your entry in the register in real time, whenever you present it to 'prove who you are'.
Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every pharmacy, and every Bank will have an NIR Card Terminal, (very much like the Chip and Pin Readers that are everywhere now) into which your card can be 'swiped' to check your identity. Each time this happens, a record is made at the NIR of the time and place that the Card was presented. This means for example, that there will be a government record of every time you withdraw more than £99 at your branch of Nat West, who now demand ID for these transactions. Every time you have to prove that you are over 18, your card will be swiped, and a record made at the NIR. Restaurants and off licenses will demand that your card is swiped so that each receipt shows that they sold alcohol to someone over 18, and that this was proved by the access to the NIR, indemnifying them from prosecution.
Private businesses are going to be given access to the NIR Database. If you want to apply for a job, you will have to present your card for a swipe. If you want to apply for a London Underground Oyster Card,or a supermarket loyalty card, or a driving license you will have to present your ID Card for a swipe. The same goes for getting a telephone line or a mobile phone or an internet account.
Oyster, DVLA, BT and Nectar (for example) all run very detailed databases of their own. They will be allowed access to the NIR,just as every other business will be. This means that each of these entities will be able to store your unique number in their database, and place all your travel, phone records, driving activities and detailed shopping habits under your unique NIR number. These databases, which can easily fit on a storage device the size of your hand, will be sold to third parties either legally or illegally. It will then be possible for a non governmental entity to create a detailed dossier of all your activities. Certainly, the government will have clandestine access to all of them, meaning that they will have a complete record of all your movements, from how much and when you withdraw from your bank account to what medications you are taking, down to the level of what sort of bread you eat - all accessible via a single unique number in a central database.
This is quite a significant leap from a simple ID Card that shows your name and face.
Most people do not know that this is the true character and scope of the proposed ID Card. Whenever the details of how it will work are explained to them, they quickly change from being ambivalent towards it.
The Government is going to COMPEL you to enter your details into the NIR and to carry this card. If you and your children want to obtain or renew your passports, you will be forced to have your fingerprints taken and your eyes scanned for the NIR, and an ID Card will be issued to you whether you want one or not. If you refuse to be fingerprinted and eye scanned, you will not be able to get a passport. Your ID Card will, just like your passport, not be your property. The Home Secretary will have the right to revoke or suspend your ID at any time, meaning that you will not be able to withdraw money from your Bank Account, for example, or do anything that requires you to present your government issued ID Card.
The arguments that have been put forwarded in favour of ID Cards can be easily disproved. ID Cards WILL NOT stop terrorists; every Spaniard has a compulsory ID Card as did the Madrid Bombers. ID Cards will not 'eliminate benefit fraud', which in comparison, is small compared to the astronomical cost of this proposal, which will be measured in billions according to the LSE (London School of Economics). This scheme exists solely to exert total surveillance and control over the ordinary free British Citizen,and it will line the pockets of the companies that will create the computer systems at the expense of your freedom, privacy and money.
If you did not know the full scope of the proposed ID Card Scheme before and you are as unsettled as I am at what it really means to you, to this country and its way of life, I urge you to email or photocopy this and give it to your friends and colleagues and everyone else you think should know and who cares. The Bill has proceeded to this stage due to the lack of accurate and complete information on this proposal being made public. Together & Hand to hand, we can inform the entire nation if everyone who receives this passes it on.
The proposed ID Card will be different from any card you now hold. It will be connected to a database called the NIR, (National Identity Register)., where all of your personal details will be stored. This will include the unique number that will be issued to you, your fingerprints, a scan of the back of your eye, and your photograph. Your name, address and date of birth will also obviously be stored there.
There will be spaces on this database for your religion, residence status, and many other private and personal facts about you. There is unlimited space for every other details of your life on the NIR database, which can be expanded by the Government with or without further Acts of Parliament.
By itself, you might think that this register is harmless, but you would be wrong to come to this conclusion. This new card will be used to check your identity against your entry in the register in real time, whenever you present it to 'prove who you are'.
Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every pharmacy, and every Bank will have an NIR Card Terminal, (very much like the Chip and Pin Readers that are everywhere now) into which your card can be 'swiped' to check your identity. Each time this happens, a record is made at the NIR of the time and place that the Card was presented. This means for example, that there will be a government record of every time you withdraw more than £99 at your branch of Nat West, who now demand ID for these transactions. Every time you have to prove that you are over 18, your card will be swiped, and a record made at the NIR. Restaurants and off licenses will demand that your card is swiped so that each receipt shows that they sold alcohol to someone over 18, and that this was proved by the access to the NIR, indemnifying them from prosecution.
Private businesses are going to be given access to the NIR Database. If you want to apply for a job, you will have to present your card for a swipe. If you want to apply for a London Underground Oyster Card,or a supermarket loyalty card, or a driving license you will have to present your ID Card for a swipe. The same goes for getting a telephone line or a mobile phone or an internet account.
Oyster, DVLA, BT and Nectar (for example) all run very detailed databases of their own. They will be allowed access to the NIR,just as every other business will be. This means that each of these entities will be able to store your unique number in their database, and place all your travel, phone records, driving activities and detailed shopping habits under your unique NIR number. These databases, which can easily fit on a storage device the size of your hand, will be sold to third parties either legally or illegally. It will then be possible for a non governmental entity to create a detailed dossier of all your activities. Certainly, the government will have clandestine access to all of them, meaning that they will have a complete record of all your movements, from how much and when you withdraw from your bank account to what medications you are taking, down to the level of what sort of bread you eat - all accessible via a single unique number in a central database.
This is quite a significant leap from a simple ID Card that shows your name and face.
Most people do not know that this is the true character and scope of the proposed ID Card. Whenever the details of how it will work are explained to them, they quickly change from being ambivalent towards it.
The Government is going to COMPEL you to enter your details into the NIR and to carry this card. If you and your children want to obtain or renew your passports, you will be forced to have your fingerprints taken and your eyes scanned for the NIR, and an ID Card will be issued to you whether you want one or not. If you refuse to be fingerprinted and eye scanned, you will not be able to get a passport. Your ID Card will, just like your passport, not be your property. The Home Secretary will have the right to revoke or suspend your ID at any time, meaning that you will not be able to withdraw money from your Bank Account, for example, or do anything that requires you to present your government issued ID Card.
The arguments that have been put forwarded in favour of ID Cards can be easily disproved. ID Cards WILL NOT stop terrorists; every Spaniard has a compulsory ID Card as did the Madrid Bombers. ID Cards will not 'eliminate benefit fraud', which in comparison, is small compared to the astronomical cost of this proposal, which will be measured in billions according to the LSE (London School of Economics). This scheme exists solely to exert total surveillance and control over the ordinary free British Citizen,and it will line the pockets of the companies that will create the computer systems at the expense of your freedom, privacy and money.
If you did not know the full scope of the proposed ID Card Scheme before and you are as unsettled as I am at what it really means to you, to this country and its way of life, I urge you to email or photocopy this and give it to your friends and colleagues and everyone else you think should know and who cares. The Bill has proceeded to this stage due to the lack of accurate and complete information on this proposal being made public. Together & Hand to hand, we can inform the entire nation if everyone who receives this passes it on.
Frances Stonor Saunders
Additions
For more info
14.04.2006 15:40
and how to resist plus an excellent booklet - Defending Anonimity see www.defy-id.org.uk (or just type defy id into search engine.
PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY - RESIST ID!!
PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY - RESIST ID!!
Eric Blair
Primary Keys of key Govt databases
14.04.2006 17:05
This comment on slashdot is insightful:
Re:What will ID card store?
* National Identity Registration Number
* the number of any ID card issued
* allocated national insurance number
* the number of any relevant immigration document
* the number of their United Kingdom passport
* the number of any passport issued to the individual by or on behalf of the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom or by or on behalf of an international organisation
* the number of any document that can be used by them (in some or all circumstances) instead of a passport;
* the number of any identity card issued to him/her by the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom
* any reference number allocated to him/her by the secretary of state in connection with an application made by him for permission to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom
* the number of any work permit relating to him/her;
* any driver number given to him/her by a driving licence;
* the number of any designated document which is held by him/her and is a document the number of which does not fall within any of the preceding sub-paragraphs
In other words, primary keys to all the major Government databases. The only one that isn't on there is our medical records, but that's why we're all being given a special number, the National Identity Registration Number (NIRN). When this is added to databases, it will be a piece of cake for Government to index our medical records as well.
I'm sure most people here understands databases, but for those who don't, this means the Government are creating a big database on innocent citizens. In fact, it's by far the most intrusive database ever. China doesn't have anything this intrusive. The Stasi didn't. Even North Korea doesn't.
ANPR means we're already being tracked around the clock and will be linked via your driving license number. If your ISP asks for your NIRN, find a new one.
The Tories betrayed the country on this one. Well done Mr Blair, you created Orwell's 1984.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=181648&cid=15021837
Re:What will ID card store?
* National Identity Registration Number
* the number of any ID card issued
* allocated national insurance number
* the number of any relevant immigration document
* the number of their United Kingdom passport
* the number of any passport issued to the individual by or on behalf of the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom or by or on behalf of an international organisation
* the number of any document that can be used by them (in some or all circumstances) instead of a passport;
* the number of any identity card issued to him/her by the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom
* any reference number allocated to him/her by the secretary of state in connection with an application made by him for permission to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom
* the number of any work permit relating to him/her;
* any driver number given to him/her by a driving licence;
* the number of any designated document which is held by him/her and is a document the number of which does not fall within any of the preceding sub-paragraphs
In other words, primary keys to all the major Government databases. The only one that isn't on there is our medical records, but that's why we're all being given a special number, the National Identity Registration Number (NIRN). When this is added to databases, it will be a piece of cake for Government to index our medical records as well.
I'm sure most people here understands databases, but for those who don't, this means the Government are creating a big database on innocent citizens. In fact, it's by far the most intrusive database ever. China doesn't have anything this intrusive. The Stasi didn't. Even North Korea doesn't.
ANPR means we're already being tracked around the clock and will be linked via your driving license number. If your ISP asks for your NIRN, find a new one.
The Tories betrayed the country on this one. Well done Mr Blair, you created Orwell's 1984.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=181648&cid=15021837
slashdot
Those who'll be profiting...
14.04.2006 18:07
... see the CorporateWatch report into the companies lobbying and working on ID card at
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2298
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2298
FTP
e-mail:
freedomtoprotest@doond.com
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
Well done
14.04.2006 13:10
Tumble Weed
What does the D stand for in ID?
14.04.2006 21:24
I am not a number
ID cards are intended to force a conflict, like Thatcher with the miners
15.04.2006 02:24
Cryptic... not really, ID cards have NOTHING to do with any of the issues Blair has ever refered to. There is what a politician says to the sheep, and there is the true reason a politician such as Blair does a thing.
ID cards are about population control via fear. The real barriers that ID cards will force you to negotiate are nothing compared to the barriers of the mind.
If you carry the ID card, you mark yourself as a slave of the State (a level of sophisticated thinking that obviously not everyone will experience). If you care, you are humiliated, insulted, and made to feel the plaything of any uniform thug you may encounter. (ASIDE: as with all police states, the definition of 'uniformed thug' is being broadened by Blair to include far more State enforcers than just official police people).
The humiliation is probably the greatest part of it. Destroy your card, and Blair's goons will fine you. Refuse to pay, and Blair's goons will rip into your home, and LOOT whatever they wish from you or your family. Can you imagine what life was like in some of the Soviet satellites? You won't have to imagine for much longer.
The ability to make a person a NON-PERSON by deactivating their card is an issue, and will be devastating to those that Blair targets this way, but is more of a useful side-effect. True, Blair dreams of forcing people like me to lose our ability to comment under a pseudonym (I did not mention anonymity, for Blair's people track Internet traffic at a very low level, and are well aware of the identity of all they care about). If one's internet comment is signed, Blair knows that his extremist 'uncontrolled' followers will harass each and every one of his enemies to the point of total communication extinction.
ANYWAY, can any of you say that today Blair hides his intent? Can any of you say that today Blair tricks you? Yes, he lies, but in a way he knows that any person with an IQ higher than a mouldy carrot would see through, if they spent more than 10 seconds in thought.
Blair lays out his genocidal version of our future with far greater clarity than even Hitler, but then the more harm you intend to do to the population of the planet, the more carefully you are required to lay out the terms of the contract to the victims.
ID cards represent an approaching brick wall for persons like myself, and that is their real purpose. At some point, Blair knows that he has to take on his 'civilian' enemies, and destroy them one way or another. It's the self-same thing as when you force all the members of one religious sect to swear an oath to the leader of another (ring any bells?). In this situation you BURN (literally), become a physical rebel (and get butchered by state soldiers), or crawl on your knees betraying your very humanity.
BLAIR WILL ***NOT*** ALLOW PASSIVE REBELLION TO BE AN OPTION. His rape and torture factories are coming home, and not just for the muslims.
Of course, some of you are thinking 'poll tax', and certain London 'events' (notice how careful I have to be here now) that helped remove Thatcher's foul act. HOWEVER, if so, you are naive beyond belief. Remeber the miner's strike, and how Thatcher actually invited the strike so that she could show how she had learnt the lessons of the past, and crush the union. Blair has learnt the lesson of the poll tax 'event' and would welcome an opportunity to MASS-MURDER those that thought a small use of force could defeat him.
BLAIR CANNOT BE DEFIED, BUT HE CAN BE DESTROYED. You see, once again it comes down to the same thing. An abusive father rules the house. People are raped, people are pulverised. When does it end? ONLY when the father is removed. NO DEBATE DOES IT. NO DEFIANCE DOES IT. NO PLEADING FOR MERCY DOES IT. NO REASONING DOES IT.
Blair holds absolute power in the UK on a yes from 20% of us. HOW CAN THIS BE? This represents no meaningful concept of democracy in the history of democracy. It does represent an abusive father raping and beating no matter how many others live in the house too.
Blair's ID card is intended to trigger a beating for the 'child' arrogant enough to never give the father enough of an excuse to give him/her beating. Blair knows that child despises him with a pure moral understanding. Blair knows that child would do anything to protect the others using insight into his Blair's perverted nature and modes of behaviour. Blair knows that child is too good at hiding, and too good at talking and wants more than anything in the world to beat and smash and break that child so that all the other will learn once and for all that there is NO HOPE and NO ESCAPE.
How evil is Blair? Evil enough to do whatever it takes to burn away all life on the Earth, and that is an evil impossible to understand without being the same as Blair. Thankfully, we DO NOT have to understand evil to fight it, we only have to recognise it, and remember the consequences of doing too little.
The abusive father has given that beating, and his last untouched child now lies broken. A grin comes to Blair's face. as he understands that the end time is here at last. Shotgun in hand, he moves from room to room, using horrifying force not to hurt this time, but to prove his absolute power in the only way it matters, by ending innocent life. As Blair places the gun beneath his own chin for one final use, he does not fear death, for the hearbreaking evidence splashed across so many walls of the house PROVES that he is a GOD, and that as his mortal flesh is ripped away, a greater being will be revealed, to take its place with those immortals worthy enough to rid the universe of that pathetic perversion called 'love'.
twilight
Twilight..
19.04.2006 13:04
sarcoptic