Hurrah! Now I won’t need to struggle to find 3 officially accepted letters showing my name and address just so I can buy a mobile phone package, open a bank account, etc.
[quote]Trials of identity cards are to be launched next week, the BBC has learnt.
The pilot will involve 10,000 volunteers and be run from the Passport Office in London and three other centres around Britain.
The government hopes the pilot scheme will pave the way for compulsory identity cards for everyone within the next decade.
An opinion poll suggests most people back an ID scheme[/quote]
I’ve never understood why anyone would object to the issuance of identity cards, unless they are a criminal who needs to avoid being identified. The same goes for keeping a databank of everyone’s fingerprints (or iris scans, DNA signatures, etc.), which I favour very strongly. Anything that makes a positive contribution to the solution of crimes, apprehension of criminals, and maintenance of law and order must surely be a good thing, mustn’t it?
Put that way it sounds nice but who defines crime? Once the public has adjusted to the panopticon lifestyle, anything could be screened for. Surveillance to protect us from homosexuals and dope smokers will have your sentence on the package.
Let’s regard authority’s ten thousand arms with mixed gratitude and distrust.
p.s. just talking about this sentence, ID cards I don’t really know much about. But technically in the US you are not supposed to be required to give our your social security number ever, ha ha.
[quote=“Spack”]
ID cards yes, but a databank of DNA and fingerprints of an entire population? Woah! That’s a very scary thought.[/quote]
We refer to these as “birth records”. The data is already in the hospitals. Centralizing such information in one data bank doesn’t seem like such a leap.
[quote=“mod lang”][quote=“Spack”]
ID cards yes, but a databank of DNA and fingerprints of an entire population? Woah! That’s a very scary thought.[/quote]
We refer to these as “birth records”. The data is already in the hospitals. Centralizing such information in one data bank doesn’t seem like such a leap.[/quote]
Are you suggesitng that the fingerprints and DNA profiles of every child born in the US are kept on file in hospitals? :saywhat:
I don’t think so.
I agree that to most it is not a major issue, the main concern i have is that the more data stored on an ID card, beyond just ID number, picture etc, then the more data can be got off by the criminal fraternity etc, as well as those wishing to cause problems.
I think in the USA hospitals have the “footprint” of every child delivered there. However, it is not centralized in a national sense, or not that I know of.
However, in the Usa there is a national databank of fingerprints of those that have displayed criminal behavior. Whether or not they were convicted is another issue.
I never understood why the UK gave out green driver’s license without a photo in the past. Wouldn’t that allow for any piss drunk wanker to takes someone’s driver’s license in the UK with impunity.
Big brother is watching you know. Piss drunk and with only one eye. But he is watching.
There have been several lawsuits against the feds in the U.S. over the “no-fly list”, because a few people have been put on the list as “potential terrorists” even though (they claim) they aren’t. (At least one of them is a radical-left loon who got on it through being caught rioting during the WTO protests in Seattle in 2001, hence the “they claim” bit.)
