Writing in CapX, Chris Deerin argues that opposition to ID cards is out of date. He seems to agree that they may solve problems including terrorism and mis-treatment of immigrants. He suggests that government would be better if we did not need to leave the house to talk to it; that democracy would be better if we could vote online. He suggests that because some people are horrified by Facebook’s sharing of data while others happily tell Facebook everything, that we should all be happy to tell the government everything.
He suggests that because people under the age of 25 enjoy the convenience and fun of online services from private companies, that they should also enjoy being forced to sign up to a single unified government database too.
Not many in that generation would choose to return to an era of privacy if it meant giving up the treasures of their online existence. It seems faintly ridiculous that in such a climate we are reluctant to allow the state to jump on board.
He suggests that because people voluntarily hand over information of their choosing to companies even though those companies sometimes make mistakes and leak information, that they are silly to be nervous of being forced to hand over whatever information the government wants to be stored on a centralised government database. As if it is just the same thing.
The entire article is nonsense that ignores the fundamental difference between the state and private individuals: that we do not interact with the state voluntarily.
Indeed Rob, that is quite possibly the most absurd article to ever appear on CapX
Brown dropped ID cards cos there were several million–like me–who would not submit to them. And the cost of trying to coerce us would have been colossal.
It still is.
All ID card fans can go fuck themselves. With Deerin at the front of the queue.
Is Guy Herbert going to have to dust off his No2ID campaign posters?
I thought we’d already won this battle decisively back in 2010?
Facebook uses my data to try to persuade me to go on a date with “attractive singles in my area”.
The government uses my data to decide if I should be subjected to a tax audit, during which my failure to provide sufficient additional data to them could result in heavy fines and ultimately imprisonment.
And I’ve still chosen to deactivate my Facebook account. If only I could do the same to my “account” with the tax authorities.
You forget the crucial difference- corporations act out of greed and seek only to make money, but our Government acts out of love and always does what is best for us.
ID Cards – well in states run by the Progs/Socialist crew in George Soros’ America, you don’t need them to vote, and if you need one and are an illegal alien in California or Illinois you get one anyway just for asking. Of course if you want to buy a gun, check into a hospital or medical clinic, get life insurance, car insurance or a 1000 other things you need ID. Funny how that works.
Makes me wonder of Chris Deerin is in the sort of business that’d make serious coin providing ID card infrastructure. This isn’t the first crony capitalist article mixed in among the good stuff on CapX
There already is an ID card for those who want/need one, the passport.
This being the same government that can’t run a mailing list for cancer screening. The same that fails to realize legal immigrants who have here for decades as citizens. The same government who trying to con Afghan interpreters who had been offered leave to stay after working for British Army.
Of course ID cards are out of date, we should all be micro-chipped, like the dogs that we are.
Then at the supermarket, we could wave our chipped appendage at the scanner, be collected by the police if we are wanted for anything from the in-shop police station (actually that one seems to have faded for now), and, having integrated our bank account with a tax account, pay all our fines as we collect our groceries.
After all, we only exist for the convenience of the State.
The campaign against I.D. cards after World War II was a noble one – it was led by a Liberal “of the old school” and was successful.
I carry photo I.D. at all times – but I am local councillor, I CHOOSE to put myself in a position where I have to carry photo I.D. It would be a sad day indeed where people HAVE to carry it.
This all seems to have come about as a result of the Windrush debacle. However, the people affected are a small percentage of those who came to Britain from the West Indies after World War II. In 1973 the government had an advertising campaign to tell these people they needed to regularise their position, and obtain a British passport. The people affected now are the ones who did not do this. Why does anyone think they would have bothered to get an ID card, if they could not be bothered to get a passport?
I suppose the idea must be that everyone will get an ID card because life will become impossible unless you do have one. Which is also the reason I absolutely hate the idea.
These unfortunate souls were simply those who stood still as the tide of regulation around them rose. Funnily enough, the usual response of statists is that they should pay attention and make sure that they put their situation in order, ignorance of the ‘law’ is no excuse and so on. I am sure that most people think that they might have had a bit of curiosity enough to have actually done something in the intervening 45 years, but if they thought as free people (in some way) then why shouldn’t they sit tight?
Does Mr. Derrin wear a wristwatch when he wears red pajamas, drink cocoa, try desperately to signal “I’m allegedly smart” with black plastic framed nerd glasses, and have a sister named “Julia”?
Wait…where have I heard…”Papers please” before.
OTOH, “Are you voting here today? Because I don’t personally know you.”
I’m thrilled by the idea of handling our voting functions through government-controlled database verification and on-line casting of ballots.
I imagine Hillary and Remain would have won by landslides if we had such systems.
– – –
I stopped at a chain sandwich shop a few days ago, and ordered a sub. They rang me up, and I pulled cash from my pocket to pay.
They didn’t accept cash. Only credit card payment would suffice.
This is merely one more front in the battle to get us all into their system. Minimizing the opportunities for all of us to function anonymously drives us into a more controlled society. Government ID laws are merely the capstone of this effort.
I understand that it is easier to administer a cashless business, but I’m not willing to give up what I must give up in order to grant them that efficiency. I ate elsewhere.
Both Farcebok and Kwoora seem to be under the impression that I really am Simon Jester, while more civilised sites don’t give a fuck.
In either case, my privacy is not endangered by the treasures of my online existence. Comrade Deerin can go fuck himself.
Do you do anything under your own name? Banking? Credit card purchases? Drivers license renewals?
Each time you do, you transmit your IP address. Each time you do anything as Simon Jester, you likely transmit that exact same IP address. It’s a simple process to cross-index all of your net interactions by sorting by IP address. (Yes, there are exceptions to this, and ways around it, but most people don’t even try.)
That’s currently Facebook’s forte – the cross-indexing of lots and lots of data that are meaningless by themselves, but meaningful in the aggregate. I’ll bet there’s some clerk at Facebook who could easily look up who Simon Jester really is.
Quite possibly, Bobby B – but most of the benefits I gain from being online are not gained from divulging my offline identity, even if I do so anyway.
We need ID cards and a government index so we can introduce a social credit network ala China.
“Each time you do anything as Simon Jester, you likely transmit that exact same IP address.”
Whether or not this is a problem depends on your threat model. Gathering access records from multiple sources takes serious effort. There’s a difference between someone determined to specifically find out about *you*, and someone just gathering up information that is accidentally leaked to find out about people in general. I think pseudonyms are a reasonable defence against the latter. Against a determined state interested specifically in you, you’re toast no matter what.
Case in point, the state was interested in this guy, so they had cops sit next to him on the train and nab his laptop once he had logged in (no need to even guess his password): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/02/computer-hacker-stole-customers-data-hundreds-top-companies/
See also https://xkcd.com/538/
We all know you’re not actually Simon Jester, you’re Mycroft. Of course.
“This being the same government that can’t run a mailing list for cancer screening.”
Party, rather than government, but I received an email from Theresa May (hah, sure) this morning about my vote today. There are no elections today in Scotland. Maybe when they can run a bloody mailing list we’ll talk about national ID databases. And the possibility of Comrade Corbyn’s mob getting their mitts on it makes my blood run cold.
A generation of kids suffering a sort of data diarrhoea still doesn’t make it a good idea.
My threat model is based on the new Chinese “social credit” system, which takes in every form of input available and builds a picture of you as a citizen. (It has very little to do with credit.)
Imagine a USA after two terms of Obama, two terms of Hillary, and then the next socialist – Bernie? – and you can imagine how commenting on Samizdata might interfere with that next job opening, or your mortgage refinance, or whether your kid gets in at his chosen school. Imagine all of your votes going through Voting Czar Zuckerberg; if you’ve been dinged for “hate think” at some point – an anti-progressive Samizdata reader, eh? – who keeps his bright young progressive filters from deciding your vote must be fraudulent?
We have the technology to run such a system now. Some would say that Facebook and Google are already running such a system. Gathering records from multiple sources and correlating them no longer takes serious effort – that’s exactly what Facebook’s entire system does so well.
It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Indeed. That is why I use a VPN
“That is why I use a VPN”
Tor‘s surprisingly good these days if you can’t be bothered to set one up. Last time I tried it, loading pages felt like wading through mud, but I gave it another shot recently and honestly couldn’t tell the difference from normal browsing.
I wouldn’t use it for everything (a lot of sites go absolutely mental if you tell them you’re in a different location to where they think you are) but it’s no longer a last resort.
Anyone who thinks that the absence of national ID cards prevents state agents from finding out all they want about any person of interest is living in a fool’s paradise.
It is, I suppose, theoretically possible, with enormous inconvenience, to “live off the grid”, and to keep such a low profile that no state agents ever want to find out about you. But then you give up any right to participate in public affairs or effectively resist impositions.
Glory to Arsztotska!
“…even though those companies sometimes make mistakes and leak information…”
Mistakes? really?
Then you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the issue. Even before the internet, an investigative task force could unpick the life of any ‘person of interest’ if they wanted to badly enough. No, it is about avoiding a situation where surveillance becomes trivially cheap and easy and is accessible to pretty much any state functionary at will, with only the push of a few buttons. You do not need to be off-the-grid to supply relatively little data about yourself to the state unless they really want to spend time and resources to track you. It is all about avoiding ‘joined up government’.
And joined up government would, irrespective of its inherent menace, I presume, have the level of competence and moral rectitude of the weakest link, presumably the Home Office.
ID cards (or chips) are a qualitatively different proposition from either driving licences or passports.
If I object to applying for government permission to drive a vehicle, I can choose not to drive a vehicle, thereby avoiding the requirement to obtain a driving licence. I am not criminalized by the mere fact of not possessing one.
If I object to applying for government permission to travel abroad, I can choose not to travel abroad, thereby avoiding the requirement to apply for a passport. I am not criminalized by the mere fact of not possessing one.
But if I object to applying for government permission just to exist – which effectively is what ID cards imply – it appears that my only options are to go ‘underground’ or commit suicide, because I otherwise would be breaking the law – and incurring fines or penalties – merely by being alive and existing without a government issued permit. Have we arrived at the point where so many people have lost all concern for their personal liberties that they would actually apply to the State -and no doubt pay a fee for the privilege! – merely for permission just to be alive?
Statists seldom seem able to understand the difference between doing something voluntarily and that of being forced or compelled to do it, and why the latter is often evil.
Statists seldom seem able to understand the difference between doing something voluntarily and that of being forced or compelled to do it, and why the latter is often evil. Just as Zuckerberg seems unable to understand the desire for privacy.