This has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve heard in a long time. The UK has spent £4.4 billion ($6.6bn US) on a controversial high-tech National Identity Card scheme for the whole country. The card, intended to be issued to government workers first and the general population soon after, would include biometric information such as facial scanning data and fingerprints, encoded onto the card. Sounds great if you’re into the whole Big Brother thing — but they forgot one thing. No police or border station, to say nothing of licensing and job centers, has a machine capable of reading the damn things.
Incredibly, they neglected to include in the budget the absolutely necessary counterpart to the card: the card reader. Like an inexperienced shopper who buys a digital camera but not a computer to view the pictures on, they are now in possession of a far-reaching and complete ID tracking solution that they can in no way use. What a boondoggle!
The official word is that the reader rollout may cost taxpayer money (brilliant, Sherlock) and is not really being pursued that actively. While it would make sense to get a few IDs out there first and then follow up with the readers after six months, perhaps, that was not at all included in the budget and in fact the readers’ manufacturers haven’t been convinced it’s “worth their while” to make the things.
Sure, it’s nowhere near the scale of the national facepalm called the Bailout here in the US, but the foolishness on display here is just staggering.
Amazing what govt can do with 6,000,000,000 dollars!
Yeah – the Australian government is about to throw $42 Billion into our economy – a lot of it in the form of cash handouts to lower income people. They already did one round of ‘free money’ late last year and are about to follow it up with another one.
I shake my head in amazement at how governments seem to be totally out of touch with reality. We don’t need cash handouts! We need job security!
I don’t agree. I got the handout. I mean its easy for me to say that the hand out was a good idea simply because I got a thousand bucks, but i think in many ways this is a good idea.
Certainly seems better than the Bailout plan in the US. I’ve been spending my share of the money and its going back into the market. That bit is for sure, and that will indirectly establish job security. Job security isn’t something the government can just control… I don’t think people are giving this plan enough credit
This exact same type of handout was proposed way back in 1935 in Canada during the Great Depression by a party called the Social Credit. It never got implemented then because it was considered illegal.
To paraphrase Gandhi
Interviewer: What do you think of British Civilisation?
Gandhi: I think that would be a good idea.
Anjali Sen
http://smartbabesaresexy.blogspot.com
India is not much of a civilisation either!
maybe, but the question was… ;-)
lol your name says everything about you..
Actually the quote was “What do you think of WESTERN civilization?”. If you’re going to try to be smart, do it right.
He / she did say “to PARAPHRASE Gandhi”…
To paraphrase Gandhi
Interviewer: What do you think of Indian Civilisation?
Gandhi: I think that would be a good idea.
There’s considerably much less risk in giving out these cards first and then building the infrastructure to handle them.
They’re still, most likely, legitimate ID cards and can be used manually the same as normal. What’s the price tag on buidling out the infrastructure? probably a lot more expensive. Good first step.
Apparently V is for Vegitative State
It’s a tracking device first…remember that.
Wow, that is pretty stupid. And I can’t believe the UK gov’t is so big-brotherish. They are really into the whole “being ethical” aspect of computer science, except for the fact that they are all for these cards and CCTV. What’s the deal with that?
Thank you for that reply. I’m from the UK, and because we live in the increasingly big-brotherish environment we inevitably become used to it, and forget that it’s not natural. It’s actually really refreshing to see someone else shock at what we just sigh and accept as inevitable. :-)
and I feel bad for the youth, who will grow up thinking “the cloud” is normal, giving up liberty for security is normal, carbon tax scams…normal, oh I could go on forever
I was shocked to learn the statistics for CCTV and the UK having the highest number of CCTV per capita.
Yeah, britain is very big brotherish, but keep in mind that the british are also the ones with the most anarchists. Pumping out the most anarchist culture in terms of music, film and literature.
Strong counter culture
Estimates vary, but they’re currently at around 4.5 million cameras, which equates to about one for every 13-14 people.
Plus, the government (in its wisdom) is about to spend 12 billion pounds to set up a database and monitoring system to track every digital communication made in the UK (http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/10/07/government_scheme_will_monitor.html#comments). The UK is approaching 1984 with great rapidity.
I believe every satellite navigation system is tracking its user so you must be careful if you are using one. I seen a site where they were showing a method of seeing where you already traveled with your own sat nav so it simply means that the government has that information also.
I highly doubt that
As a UK type person, I have to point out that the *whole* idea is moronic – forgetting the card readers is just a small footnote of stupidity to an epic tale of foolishness.
I didn’t want to dilute the post with editorializing on that part, but I agree with you there.
This seems rather stupid, right? Well ask people in El Salvador, their ID’s have a barcode that’s supposedly readable by police and such… No one has ever seen even just one reader. Next, their Driver’s licence and car’s ownership card… They both feature a chip and have to be replaced each 5 years and each year respectively. Does any police car or police station have a reader? Nope! They promised that every car would have one but it doesn’t as it turns out.
Oh, and by the way… This documents fade even if they are not being used (even if they are stored in your card holder or your wallet). If this happens to you, you have to buy a new one ($12 to $30, which is kind of a lot when you think that the minimum wage here is less than $180).
We are just waiting to see if they are going to be implementing RFID chips on passports as well… I guess at least the one airport should be able to get a proper reader).
So I guess that the UK is not alone on this dumb decision.
RFID so far is so unsecre, it’s being called the technolgy for THE BB of the future!
The Uk doesn’t have a history of IDcards like other countries, so if they want to start using one they’ll have to put money to it.
A lot of european countries are using these cards at this moment. Belgium for instance has been using these for about 4years, only the official city halls have machines that read these. The police just uses the unique numbers on the card. Kinda using old and new at the same time.
As time evolves it will be more and more used to its full potential.
Yea, same in Estonia.. we have these cards for over 5 years now and every bus ticket controller has a personal small reader (you can buy tickets over your bank on your ID card, nice huh :) ).
The fingerprint part is kind of overboard imo, but still most people (police, town hall officials..) just need to see your personal id number and your picture on the card, so these readers are not THAT important.
I suppose not having these cards is not an option anymore.. so let’s try and make them as safe as possible instead..
Looks suspiciously like an American “green card”.
Yeah, any Federaly issued card in the US looks like that. Called a CAC, look here http://www.cac.mil/
Yup. It’s a generic Smart Card. The DoD’s Common Access Card (CAC) uses pretty much the same technology.
May be a six year old kid can trick them into selling their country..
Sure that is not Germany?
This is funny because the UK is always trying to tout how smart they are.
Even funnier ‘cos there is such a card but it looks nothing like this, it’s totally fake.
How smart the US is to buy into something so obviously fake.
“Like an inexperienced shopper who buys a digital camera but not a computer to view the pictures on”… really? come on… is that that best you could come up with?
Ah – I thought that was a pretty good analogy actually. Do you have a better one, therandomguy?
That really is a pretty bad analogy – there are several things one can do with pictures from a digital camera without a computer. There are numerous printers that can print them without a PC; there are numerous retailers with photo kiosks to print them, or put them on CD/DVD; there are even retailers who will upload the images to a web site; the person might be able to use a work PC, share a roommate’s PC, use a family member’s PC . . . am I getting my point across?
@therandomguy Perhaps a better analogy would be of someone investing effort in commenting on this post, only with the all-important part of saying something worthwhile completely slipping his mind.
:P
Yet another epic fail on this whole ID card issue. Even the idea is controversial, and with the economy in its current state, spending £4.4 Billion looks even more ridiculous.
Labour has done its very best to erode civil liberties over the past decade under the premise of national security (a little like Bush’s extension of executive power) with ID cards a very expensive bit of icing on that cake.
The Tories have promise to scrap the whole lot if they get in. Pretty please.
I think the lack of readers shows what it’s actually for. A massive database stored locally for tracking, management and logging. Its for monitoring the population not to provide any real use surely.
This has to be a blunder that they’re trying to cover up… looking at their official reply
This is LITERALLY the stupidest think our dumb government have done in a long time. And there’s a lot of competition.
Beggars belief, it really does
And our idiot home secretary Jacqui Smith (surely the most useless person ever to have held the post) insists people keep asking her when they’ll be ready! Yeah right! The majority of the country is against these damned cards.
This reminds me of old joke:
Politician(after winning the election): As promised, I have now installed water tap every where around this area!
Person from crowd: But there is no water in those taps..
Politician: That’s for next election !!!
it’s amazing that people still post with terms such as “big brother”. Get educated before write, there are so many advantages to these technologies that out weigh the paranoid few. Every time you pay for something or travel, to name a few, people know where you have been. Imagine how hard it would be to commit and get away with some of the worst crimes, if we were all tagged? But no, we have to slow the inevitable, and in turn, we slow progress.
You will give up your liberty one grande latte at a time so you won’t even notice when it’s completely gone, until you need it, then you’ll be outraged that it’s gone.
papers please…..
Can you please define liberty today? And how can you confuse liberty with this subject? Does the fact that you are tracked with almost everything you do today hurt you? Should we not have sex offenders register in database? Should we ignore all evidence of a crime when that evidence includes camera footage, transactions, IP addresses, travel logs, etc? I guess the the question should be, which side of the slope do you want to slide? Because you are being watched today.
Yes, lets look at its positive uses only. Who cares about the rest? Its all rather plus plus good!
It is likely that the credibility of incriminating evidence drawn from technology proclaimed as ‘infallible’ will not be questioned. It’s secure right? So what happens when someone finds a way to manipulate the system to alter where people have been and what they’ve been doing?
Remember the recent exploitation of the London Oyster system? The older card readers left an opening in the system… And of course, this potential breach was discovered by someone other than the authorities.
Oyster Card = Bit of plastic with some information on. Allows you to use the London tube system.
UK ID Card = Bit of plastic with some information on. Holds sensitive data which could potentially dictate everything in your life…
Considering this and the UK’s appalling track record of handling sensitive data of millions of UK Citizens, I hardly think it’s paranoid to think that ID cards under this Government (or any) is a good thing.
“It is likely that the credibility of incriminating evidence drawn from technology proclaimed as ‘infallible’ will not be questioned. It’s secure right? So what happens when someone finds a way to manipulate the system to alter where people have been and what they’ve been doing?
Remember the recent exploitation of the London Oyster system? The older card readers left an opening in the system… And of course, this potential breach was discovered by someone other than the authorities.
Oyster Card = Bit of plastic with some information on. Allows you to use the London tube system.
UK ID Card = Bit of plastic with some information on. Holds sensitive data which could potentially dictate everything in your life…
Considering this and the UK’s appalling track record of handling sensitive data of millions of UK Citizens, I hardly think it’s paranoid to think that ID cards under this Government (or any) isn’t a good thing.”
{Edit: Corrected:}
“get educated before write” – fail
You mean to tell me that with all the people that I’m sure reviewed this thing NO ONE asked about how the “system” would work and if all the parts were included?
amazing!
Robb
twitter: retrevo_robb
Same thing in Croatia. We have had this personal IDs with chips in it for years, but still NOONE has a reader for it, Police, Border crossings, Banks, no one. :p I tought it was because we’re such a sh*tty country…
Never mind chaps, it could be worse, we could live in North America and not even be able to find the U.K on a map
piss off wanker. I know where is, right where we left it after WW2.
Boys, boys! Can’t we just talk about France?
Ah, now then, can you just imagine the strikes if the cheese-eating-surrender-monkey (ie French) government even just thought about ID cards…
The French have had ID cards forever.
ya, it’s called body odor
If this image is a real example of the ID, the photo of the person is way too small for anybody to see it. It’s a failure as a “normal” ID itself, let alone all the “Electronic ID” concerns about it. I truly cannot identify the person in that tiny photo there.
There’s a bigger photo on the other side :)
Wow ! This is a classic. The whole country is/was against the introduction of ID cards. Now they not only spent £4.4bn of tax payers money but also got it freaking wrong.
Someone needs to be sacked !
Don’t worry … that will happen very soon :)
That’s the only thing govt does perfectly.
Yahoooo welcome aboard dudes!! Italy did it some year ago.. they still give you electronic ID card, supercool with biometric data and a friendly smile and.. guess what? We don’t have readers too!!! Ah ah someone suppose that they don’t even esxist!
The worst thing will be two weeks after the database is set up and then someone leaves everyones data on a disc on the train – how many times did that happen last year? Far from securing our identities these cards just provide one nice big target for data loss rather than 60 million small ones.
You guys are missing the point, this is an intentional security measure. There’s nothing safer than an unreadable card :-)
Same thing in Portugal. Aren’t we clever? Spend less money though.
Doesn’t surprise me a bit. Brits have a long standing tradition to spend astronomic amounts of taxpayers money in useless or highly unprofitable stuff: The Concorde, The Channel Tunnel, The Millennium Dome.
David Myddelton explains it very well in his book: “They Meant Well, Government Project Disasters”
Read more here:
http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?ID=419&type=book
We have similar cards in Hong Kong. They are great. Border control is through automatic gates with built in readers. Makes travel a breeze. Until you get to the airport at the other end.
If you’re not doing anything wrong, what’s the problem?
finally someone who makes sense.
I’m glad the system works out there. Maybe in 5 years they’ll have gotten it together in the UK.
That old argument.
Do you have curtains in your house? Do you close them? Why?
Is it because you’re engaged in criminal activity which you need to conceal?
Or is it because you have a basic human need for privacy?
The ‘nothing to fear if you are doing no wrong’ argument is rubbish.
Thro I’m against the ID cards system.
Do you have curtains in your house?
Yes
Do you close them?
Yes
Why?
To increase the thermol insulation (keep the place warm)
I guess some people draw the line at a cctv camera in their living room.
agreed, that argument is rubbish and someone needs to take out the garbage. Its a borg argument…oops, i meant boring, I think.
why don’t we skip the foreplay and stop using paper money and coins? oh wait, what are those backed on? thin air (”no, its gold and silver, you idiot”)…but why gold and silver? who made that system? who cares, i was born into it, i should comply…
“If you’re not doing anything wrong, what’s the problem?”
The Question is how much do you trust your state, not just now but in the future too?
Are you willing to allow them to decide what “wrong” actually is.
Can you trust a government or political system in which the ruler exercises absolute power, not to turn despotic?
there are more criminals than there are police. The best police look like criminals. Computers do not know the difference
If Jason Mick or Nick Heath had done some more background research on similar roll outs of ID cards they would have learnt why there are no card readers.
In two other EU countries which have introduced cards (one of which I worked on), it was decided early on in the process that for the sake of keeping the public uproar over the introduction of ID’s at bay the cards would first of all be given to civil servants at various security specific locations like airports.
After 12 months a larger scale allotment of ID’s would be given to regular civil servants. Only when errors and hiccups where discovered and fixed would the roll out of the card readers begin.
I’ve checked with one of my previous colleagues about this and she has confirmed that the card readers were not sent out for tender until all of the civil servants had been issued with cards the most glaring problems rectified.
However the system, as she informs me, is still seeing a lot of issues. Primarily that the cards get worn and dirty very easily which prevents the readers reading the information. More worrying is the fact that the number of cards lost is 14 times what the original estimate was, so more cards in the hand of crooks, who are managing nicely to use them for fraud (she claims, I’ve no evidence of that).
So much for all the hype about these ID’s helping to prevent illegal entry and identity theft.
and what does the criminal do when they find a lost card? Nothing because can’t do anything with it. Come on people. I like how you just slip that in at the end as if it were fact, because it is provocative and the idiots, conspiracy theorist, and mountain people will excerpt that and perpetuate this ridiculous nonsense.
*sigh* the encryption on these things is trivial to break; if you have any technical nous look to search on google.
The UK govt has set up an easily forgeable, supposedly reliable method of ID.
Wake up comrade, before it it too late.
If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear. When they lose your data, you may fear forever.
what do you get when you break it? Does that some how change the biometric data of your own body?
sigh*
What kind of criminal are you worried about per say? Because it is a cave dweller, I think the barrier of entry itself is counter productive. What other excuses can you pull out of your box? Besides you are changing the argument to fit your cause, you stay in your cabin in the sticks and we will move forward. “Oh no, my data is lost” *laugh* Think about all the methods of identification in this world, and you are still alive.
Hey, I found a website that says 911 was a conspiracy by the Bush administration. You can GOOGLE it ooooooooo. Do some research on Smart Cards (and these have no need for bio authentication) and the numbers and you will see that some how the world is still livable. But keep slingin’ that fear.
Why don’t we just rfid tag everybody like cattle? That way nothing wears out and would be a bloody mess literally to defraud.
Wow, that is pretty stupid. And I can’t believe the UK gov’t is so big-brotherish. They are really into the whole “being ethical” aspect of computer science, except for the fact that they are all for these cards and CCTV.
what about your credit cards, sim cards, and all the other forms of ID and tracking? What about the fact when cameras are installed, crime falls? Stop cherry picking provocative bull shit and be realistic and look at the big picture.
Crime is no lower in areas with lots of cameras as opposed to areas with fewer.
The big picture is big brother! Too many eejits around who think invading privacy is the way to solve crime, as if criminals will stop because they’re on camera now – with their face covered, or they’ve got an ID card to prove they are actually them? In what world does that solve crime?
The evidence is inconclusive as to whether it reduces petty crime, but more criminals are caught, but I guess that is a bad thing.
I am arguing the that “big brother” in the sense of how it is being used here, is a tired argument. Basically we live in a country of fear and people are so over obsessed with privacy that they think an ID card will somehow make them zombies in a North Korean style state, is ridiculous. Based on your fear we should all head for the hills and build bunkers. All of us are being ID’d in so many ways every day but you totally ignore that fact.
Roger – rather than regurgitating what you think you know, why don’t you do some actual research yourself and you’ll very quickly discover that much of what you say is at best a statistic “spun” and at worst a down-right lie.
If you’re happy to be told what to do and think, however, then carry on as you are. As it is, you sound like someone who takes as fact everything they read in the Daily Mail, so Wake Up sunshine.
Can you count how many methods of ID you use? Let’s start with your PI address, driver’s license, credit card(s), sim cards (cell phones), social security card, passport, airline ticket, cell phone towers.
Now do you feel controlled, are you being told how to think? Or do you medication?
How relevant: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7872425.stm “Warning over surveillance state”.
These ID cards are not like the ones in most other Euro countries who have ID cards, there is a huge database behind this system … it’s much worse.
Too many people are still delluded by Govt into thinking it makes them safer … yeah, because terrorists can’t get fake ID or steal somebody else’s can they?
There is almost no need to read these cards in the UK, so there’s no need for readers.
In my case, the last time I needed to prove my real-world identity was 2 years ago when I did jury service.
Welcome to Stasi land. I wouldn’t trust the UK government to tell me the correct time of day.
roger – “what do you get when you break it? Does that some how change the biometric data of your own body?”
er no, but it means you can assign that biometric data to a different identity. I will still physically be me – but the card will tell them that my biometrics mean I’m Sir Jock Stirrup and therefore let me onto any military base in the UK. And the same for any other biological specimen faking your identity to the bank or the goverment or anything else. Single source ID systems are inherently flawed it’s why your bank wants a utility bill AND your passport before you open an account. HMG are saying they’ll provide the definitive uncrackable one stop only ID and consequently the banks, social security and everyone else will act like it is 100% valid. But we know a couple of things 1) HMG is useless at buying IT and 2) this will be cracked. Possibly at the database end, let alone the card end.
*sigh*
Dude. Everything man made is hackable, I am not saying it isn’t. If you were a terrorist would you spend millions of dollars trying to crack an ID card just to look like Joe to a computer system?
And can you tell me what your understanding is of this technology? Because to crack it, you need to crack the multiple SAMs, the crypto-controller on the card, the database, and you still need to falsify your finger print, eyescan, or face, because you, the magical box-cutter savvy terrorist can somehow reach into the turnstile scanners (readers) and temporarily hack them so that they see Joe and not Harry. That’s a lot of algorithms not to mention magical body morphing. I think you reconsider your chances with box-cutters.
@Roger – with such an obviously defective view of the situation, you can only be a Labour politician.
Back to the matter in hand, we all know how IT projects are notorious for failing to deliver, but the UK government take this to new levels. The amount of tax-payers money squandered by them on half-arsed projects like this is an embarrassment.
The UK and other western countries are only trying to find solutions to real problems. I think we have progressed enough to not be afraid of falling into a police state. We need to get over these fears. It is so easy to complain and have knee-jerk reactions with out really thinking. We are going to be ok. Don’t worry.
Just thought i’d point out that this story is completely fake, so all these americans laughing at the UK have shown themselves, as always, to be fucking stupid brainless yanks.
You heard the man. Move along, citizens.
You are all missing something here, they did not forget to include the readers cost in the budget, they DELIBERATELY left it out. Over £4 billion for the cards alone, and that was difficult enough to push to the public, there would have been much more trouble with the plebs should the true cost be more accessable.
Would I object to a ID card? I also have a passport.
Tsirku.
See, living in Afghanistan’s wild, wild west has its perks. No biometric IDs, smoke all the weed you want, buy as lethal a weapon as you can afford!
I’m also from the UK, and I think you’ll find readers are all ready installed, a swipe system is located in our backsides… tea anyone ? o_O
Next step, chip in your arm and control of YOU. Wake up people!
I would like to hear the disadvantages of having a chip in your arm, besides being itchy ;-)
This is unbelievable! I’m from the UK.
1. What a waste of money, especially in a recession.
2. When did the people ever get asked about it?
3. Which politicians got a fat check into their bank accounts for allowing this contract to go out.
As far as I’m concerned this is the biggest misuse of public funds in the UK for a long time. It seems as though, everyone in the UK will sit back and let Gorden Brown do this. How many new schools and hospitals could we build with this money. How many new businesses could be supported with this money?
I would suspect that the funds were allocated long ago, ID projects are years in the making.
Why am I not surprised? This seems to sum up the current government’s utter incompetence. The sooner Brown and his cronies are gone the better.
It is such a relief to read that even the ‘top’ countries can screw things up.
In South Africa these things happen from time to time. Be it ignorance or corruption and when it happens people shout ‘typical South Africa’.
So it puts a smile on my face to a) read this and see what a disaster this is and b) to know that every country can have their ’special moments’… no matter how clever everyone pretends to be!
Seldom have I read such bullshit. The UK ID cards are still in beta.
funny!! hahaha!
and what a timing for this – with the world economy soo volatile??!!
this made me smile and this definitely is worth the share!
thanks!
Dumbass Anglosaxons, after raping and pillaging the world for 200 years, now their leaders don’t trust their own drunken criminal populations, so they slowly take away their freedom and turn them into prisoners. THEIR LEADERS KNOW VERY WELL THAT THE POPULACE WILL LUST FOR THEIR BLOOD WHEN THEY CAN NO LONGER STEAL OTHER COUNTRIES LIKE IRAQ and their “economies” supported by these pillaging collapse.
Are you completely ignorant or just an idiot?
Being from the UK I am appalled at how the government is so keen on tracking our every move and making us pay for ID cards despite their complete lack of data security. Almost every month there are press stories of some minister or authority losing a laptop or CD that has data of names/addresses/bank accounts etc on it. They could cut a lot of crime by not letting in every immigrant who wants to sponge off the state. The UK is becoming a very unpleasant place to live with our freedoms and national identity being gradually destroyed for fear of offending minorities. In the US you can fly the stars and stripes with pride. In the UK you get told to take it down because it may be seen as racist!
Heh. That last sentence is a kicker!
This entire story is a complete fabrication, regardless of the ethical implications you are all raising, ID cards aren’t going to be allocated to civilians for years, if ever.
They haven’t spent that money on it, the whole system is still in discussions.
I say everyone move to a different country and see how you feel about their government for a few years, then laugh about other countries.
All governments do what they can to please most of the people most of the time, I don’t like the British government, but at least they’re still trying under all the scrutiny they get.