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NO2ID is launching its activities publicly:
Saturday, 18 September
11:00an – 2:00pm
The Corner Store
Covent Garden
33 Wellington Street, London, WC2E 7BN, Map
There will be a couple of speakers before lunch, including a Labour ‘rebel’, Neil Gerrard MP followed by campaigning around central London, i.e. handing out leaflets, setting up stalls on the street in a number of locations until mid-afternoon.
Please join them to Stop ID Cards and the Database State!
The NO2ID Coalition, who are trying to make sure Blunkett fails in his attempts to introduce mandatory ID cards, argue that:
I missed this one earlier in August about shoppers in Swansea joining a trial of a high-tech ID card that could become compulsory under Home Office plans. But better late than never.
Volunteers are being asked to have fingerprints, irises, and facial details recorded as part of the UK Passport Service (UKPS) trial. The experiment aims to weed out problems and get public feedback before the planned introduction date of 2007.
It is the only Welsh trial as the UK Passport Service looks for 10,000 volunteers across the UK over six months. Volunteers will get a demonstrator “smart card” containing their details on an electronic chip. It is planned to include biometrics (facial features) in passports and to build a base for the national compulsory identity cards scheme.
Biometric testing of face, eye and fingerprints could soon be used on every resident of the UK to create compulsory identity cards. BBC News Online’s Tom Geoghegan volunteered for a pilot scheme and looked, unblinking, into the future.
What was interesting about article that it is obvious that Home Office is trying to make the process as ‘palatable’ to people, so it is not too Big Brotherish…
This isn’t a test of the technology – that’s likely to change in the future as things move on – it’s the process. We’re looking for customer reactions and perceptions, and any particular difficulties.
Just don’t make it feel like Big Brother although that’s what you’ll be getting.
Washington Post reports that the State Department is moving ahead with a plan to implant electronic identification chips in U.S. passports that will allow computer matching of facial characteristics, despite warnings that the technology is prone to a high rate of error.
Under State Department specifications finalized this month for companies to bid on the new system, a chip woven into the cover of the passport would contain a digital photograph of the traveler’s face. That photo could then be compared with an image of the traveler taken at the passport control station, and also matched against photos of people on government watch lists.
But federal researchers who have tested face-recognition technology say its error rate is unacceptably high – up to 50 percent if photographs are taken without proper lighting.
They then proceed to make a case for fingerprinting that has a lower error rate. Yeah, that will make things much better.
While face recognition is set as a standard, countries could add one or two other approved biometrics: fingerprints and scans of the eye’s iris. Several European countries are considering adding fingerprints to their passports. And branding with fire. Oops the last one wasn’t in the news.
Rebecca Dornbusch, deputy director of the International Biometric Industry Association is quotes as saying:
The important thing to recognize is that it [face-recognition requirement] is an improvement. [The State Department should] continue to implement as many biometrics as they can, so they can ensure . . . the most secure protection.
Oh really, and how about the most secure revenue stream to the International Biometric Industry Association.
Phil Booth of Infinite Ideas Machine and No2ID campaign draws our attention to the imminent deadline for the Home Office consultation period on ID cards bill, 20th July 2004.
He urges us, correctly, to send individual objections to the Draft ID cards Bill and I would like to pass that on to White Rose readers. There are still a few hours left!
Just in case you need any inspiration he has published the full text of his e-mail submission to the Home Office consultation on ID cards.
He also points his readers to Spy Blog’s excellent annotated blog of the Draft Bill, Mark Simpkins’ equally excellent blog of the entire consultation document. For those with some time on their hands he recommends reading Stand.org.uk’s submission [219KB MS Word document].
Please do send something (even if it’s just a simple ‘I am against the proposed scheme and legislation’ type mail) to identitycards@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk, making sure the words ‘consultation response’ appear in the Subject line.
Thanks.
Plans for a national ID card scheme risk changing the relationship between the British state and its citizens, the information watchdog has warned.
Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner, said he had initially greeted the plans with “healthy scepticism” but the details had changed his view to “increasing alarm”. The government hopes a pilot scheme will pave the way for compulsory identity cards within the next decade. Mr Thomas told MPs the scheme was “unprecedented” in international terms.
Mr Thomas told the MPs that it was now clear the scheme was not just about identity cards but about a national identity register.
This is beginning to represent a really significant sea change in the relationship between state and every individual in this country.
It is not just about citizens having a piece of plastic to identify themselves. It’s about the amount, the nature of the information held about every citizen and how that’s going to be used in a wide range of activities.
Mr Thomas said that if the ID cards did work out as the government planned they would be “a very, very attractive proposition for criminals”.
Yes, let’s see whether Mr Thomas’s words make any difference to Big Blunkett… I guess not.
A belated account of Mistaken Identity, a public meeting on ID cards that took place in London last week. Unfortunately, we missed it as we were in Geneva protesting against something else. Fortunately, Stand have recorded the event and Privacy International has the full address by the President of The Law Society.
Thanks to infinite ideas machine (link now added to the blogroll)
The UK government’s biometric ID card trial is gathering momentum with Glasgow the latest city to go live with iris, fingerprint and facial recognition testing. The nationwide trial aims to enrol 10,000 volunteers around the UK who will have their biometric details recorded and put on a chip in a mock smart card. Testing started in April in London and will run through until August.
Glasgow now joins London, Leicester and Newcastle in the project and a mobile unit will travel around other parts of the country including Wales and the Home Counties.
The project has been hit by some teething problems in pre-trial tests, which highlighted defects in collecting and reading some of the biometric data. Civil liberties and privacy groups this week also formed an alliance in opposition to the introduction of ID cards to the UK.
Those are the words of Simon Moores of Zentelligence (Research) writing in Computer Weekly.
In a review of last week’s London public meeting, Moores begins by saying:
Never had I seen a pillar of government policy look so demonstrably fragile and flawed.
He concludes:
Blunkett’s ID card argument is specious and really not worth the plastic it may be printed on.
Cross-posted from the UK ID Cards blog
Register notes that UK public support for ID cards is declining, while opposition is hardening, and a surprising number – perhaps five million – would be prepared to take to the streets in opposition, according to a new opinion poll released today. The results, although they still show 61 per cent in support of the scheme, show committed opposition in sufficient numbers for poll tax-style disruption to be a very real possibility.
Since last month’s Detica survey, numbers strongly opposed to any kind of ID card have doubled from 6 per cent to 12 per cent. Within the opposition 28 per cent, which would translate as 4.9 million in the population as a whole, say they would participate in demonstrations, 16 per cent (2.8 million) would get involved in “civil disobedience” and 6 per cent (around a million) would be prepared to go to prison rather than register for a card. Talk is of course cheap at this stage, but this is still an indication of seriously vehement opposition just a few weeks after the scheme was unveiled, and even the more favourable (for the Government) Detica poll showed quite clearly that the vast majority of people knew practically nothing of what the scheme entailed. And the more they learn, the less they may like it.
The latest survey was commissioned by Privacy International and conducted by YouGov, and obviously its intentions differ from the Detica survey, so the results are not always directly comparable. But some of the most interesting numbers stem from the differences. YouGov found that in addition to losing numbers, support is weakening, with people less sure, and rather lower numbers prepared to go for a compulsory scheme (which, ultimately, it will be). And some of the key components are decisively rejected by the public as a whole, which is what you might call a bit of a problem. Most (47 per cent versus 41 per cent) don’t want to have to tell the government when they change their address, and 24 per cent strongly oppose revealing it in the first place.
It is of course utterly illogical for people to be in favour of the scheme while opposing aspects of it whose removal would render it (as currently envisaged) unworkable. But The Detica poll also showed that support of the scheme was based on some pretty staggering misconceptions, so perhaps what we have here is a picture of a nation on its way to an education – as they join the dots up, it’s surely rather more likely that they’ll begin to reject the scheme as a whole, rather than, say, concluding it’s OK for the government to keep tabs on your address after all.
Link via Curiouser and curiouser!
Belgium is to begin issuing biometric passports before the end of the year, while in the US (which could be said to have started all this), the State Department is to begin a trial run this autumn, with full production hoped for next year. Register speculates:
The apparent ease with which these countries appear to be switching passport standards does raise just the odd question about the UK’s very own ID card scheme, which proposes to ship its first biometric passports not soon, but in three years. Regular readers will recall that Home Secretary David Blunkett justifies the ID card scheme on the basis that most of the cost is money we’d have to spend anyway, because we need to upgrade our passports to meet US and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) standards, and that by making this investment the UK will be putting itself ahead of the game, technology-wise, and that we shall all therefore be technology leaders and rich.
The biometric passport system the US intends to use simply seems to be an addition of the necessary machine readable capabilities to the existing system. Passport applications, including photograph, will still be accepted via mail, and the picture will then be encoded, added to the database and put onto the chip that goes in the passport. As you may note, a picture is in these terms a biometric, while a camera is a biometric reader, which they are. But don’t noise it around, or you’ll screw the revenues of an awful lot of snake-oil salesmen.
Back in the UK, we are of course rather more rigorous in our interpretation of the matter, and the system and its schedule will be priced accordingly. But should we worry about losing our lead? No, not exactly. We should worry about spending a great deal of money on a system which will largely police ourselves, and which – in the event of it actually working – will probably turn out to be a huge white elephant.
If something sounds too good to be true then it is most likely untrue but if something sounds too bad to be true you can probably take it to the bank.
If there is anything axiomatic about that proposition then perhaps I should claim proprietory rights on it and call it ‘Carr’s Law’ or something. I am not sure how much use this law will prove to be on a practical day-to-day basis but it may oblige as a useful yardstick against which to measure my natural cynicism about opinion polls, surveys and related statistical exercises.
For example, take this one, published last month:
David Blunkett has pledged to push ahead with ID card legislation after an opinion poll said most people would be happy to carry one.
The MORI survey was commissioned by an IT consultancy which has worked on projects with the government.
It revealed 80% of those questioned backed a national ID card scheme, echoing findings from previous polls.
And published yesterday:
Most people would support closing a legal loophole that allows parents to smack their children, says a survey.
A total of 71% of people would favour such a ban, according to a survey commissioned by the Children are Unbeatable! Alliance.
And published today:
A majority of British adults favour a total ban on smoking in public places, a survey suggests.
A poll of more than 1,500 people by market analysts Mintel found 52% support for a ban, including two-thirds of non-smokers.
Despite my ingrained reluctance to pay these wretched surveys even a jot of heed, I do accept that a sufficient number of such polling exercises (if conducted scientifically and honestly) can, correctly identify a trend if not quite reveal great truths. → Continue reading: All those in favour say “aye”
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