[whitewash]

quoting this from a quote on another thread so excuse me for not putting a source...

The UK National ID card

You may have noticed the House of Lords resistance to the ID Card bill collapse earlier this week. You may have shrugged and wondered what it means to you. If you live in the UK, here's what it means:

You Will:

ATTEND an appointment to be photographed, have your fingerprints taken and iris scanned, or be fined up to £2500. Additional fines of up to £2500 may be levied each time you fail to comply until you submit to these procedures.

PROMPTLY INFORM the police or Home Office if you lose your card or it becomes defective, or face a fine of up to £1000. If you find someone else's card and do not immediately hand it in, you may have committed a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to two years or a fine, or both.

PROMPTLY INFORM the National Identity Register of any change of address or face a fine of up to £1000 (you will supply evidence of your previous addresses, not just your current address).

PROMPTLY INFORM the National Identity Register of significant changes to your personal life or any errors they have made or face a fine of up to £1000. You may also be obliged to submit to being re-interviewed, re-photographed, re-fingerprinted and re-scanned, or face a fine.

PAY between £30 and £93 (Home Office estimates — every other body involved says it will be substantially more) to be registered, with further charges possible to change your details and to replace a lost or stolen card.

When ID cards were introduced in this country during World War II, they had three functions. By the time they were abolished in 1952 they had 39 administrative uses. So what won't we be able to do without an ID card, according to Government plans?

If you don't have an ID card ...

You will not (be able to):

Rent or sell a home

Stay in a hotel

Buy or sell a car

Buy a mobile phone

Open or close a bank account

Travel overseas

Obtain medical care

Attend an institute of education

Work or run a business

Be declared dead (or alive)

Be registered to vote

I have four words to sum this up: Tony Blair's Poll Tax.

were officially screwed. FACT!

[Warspite]

Looking at the cost of the cards and the constraints of not having one I can see a huge boom in the blackmarket developing.

[Steve]

This is not quite the whole truth though, although the bill has finally slipped through, ID cards will not become compulsory until 2010 although you will have to comply to all the tests and scans should you require a new passport anytime before then. It is kind of silly though as you will also be charged even if you decline.

Originally Posted by BBC

Between 2008 and summer 2010 people applying for a passport will be able to opt-out of having an identity card, but not from having their details entered on the ID card database.
And although Mr Clarke stressed prices had yet to be worked out there will be no discount for those who opt out. He said the opt-out had been introduced to allay fears expressed in the House of Lords that cards would be "foisted" on people.
But he added: "I don't think there is any benefit in opting out at all. Anyone who opts out in my opinion is foolish."
He declined to give further details of the costs, but ministers have already said the combined cost of a passport and ID card will be £93.

I personally disagree with the whole scheme, especially as the government is making the taxpayer pay for it again, but think that the subsequent fines for things like “PROMPTLY INFORM the police or Home Office if you lose your card or it becomes defective, PROMPTLY INFORM the National Identity Register of any change of address or face a fine of up to £1000” “PROMPTLY INFORM the National Identity Register of significant changes to your personal life” are not an issue because those are either reasonable requests (find a card-hand it in, move house give your new address etc. ) Come on, we have the electoral register, the council tax address etc, all that information and probably more the government already has access to

Standing back from the invasion of privacy and the whole “Big Brother” thing for a second, I don’t see any real advantage to ID cards. It is not going to prevent terrorism, it is not going to help prevent fraud, the people that are involved in those acts already have advanced methods of countering ID cards anyway.

What it will do though, is make it harder for Joe public to go about their daily lives while hitting them in the pocket yet again.

[2blue4u]

PAY between £30 and £93 (Home Office estimates — every other body involved says it will be substantially more) to be registered...

This is typical of the anti-ID card propaganda. Other 'bodies', such as the LSE (London School of Propaganda), have quoted ridiculously high figures. They are happy for the public to believe these figures relate to the cost to the individual whereas the figures actually relate to the total cost of the scheme over a couple decades. The greater part of these costs relate to improvements to government department computer systems to cater for the ID cards. Many of these systems would be due for replacement or major overhaul within this timescale anyway.

There are so so many good reasons to have ID cards that they easily outweigh the few objections.

You will not (be able to):

Rent or sell a home

Many uses here. To counter mortgage fraud. Confirmation of ID for LR. Confirmation of ID to aid credit check for rental contract etc

Stay in a hotel

If you stay at any hotel abroad you have to hand over your passport (or national ID card) so what’s the problem?

Buy or sell a car

Many uses here. Confirmation of ID for DVLA. Confirmation of ID to aid credit check when purchasing/leasing. And I would hope that new measures brought in to make good use of the ID card could reduce the number of unregistered/untaxed/uninsured vehicles that are driven by urban low-life and illegals.

Buy a mobile phone

Two aspects to this. 1) Easier granting of credit if obtaining a contract phone. 2) linking phone/number to an individual helps crime fighting.

Open or close a bank account

If the ID card helps to reduce the wealth of other information and evidence you currently need to gather together before opening a bank account then I cannot imagine how anyone can claim this is a backward step?!?!

Travel overseas

Other Europeans are able to travel freely throughout Europe with just their simple national ID card – and have done for many decades. We have to carry a full Passport.

Obtain medical care

Confirm entitlement to free NHS treatment. What’s wrong with this? Long long everdue.

Attend an institute of education

Confirm entitlement to tax-payer funded resources. What’s wrong with this? Long long everdue.

Work or run a business

Why should Tony’s Illegals work or operate businesses outside of the system?!?! It’s about time someone other than me paid tax in this country!!!!!!!!!!

Be declared dead (or alive)

Just another method to help identify a body. If it prevents a grieving widow from having to identify a badly mutilated body then it will be worth it for that family.

Be registered to vote

We currently have the most lax controls in the world when it comes to checking the status of voters. I cannot imagine any thinking person believes it is wrong to establish a persons right to vote - and preventing those without the right to vote from doing so.

There is so much rot talked about when it comes to ID Cards. For a start - they are 'ID Cards' and not data receptacles as many people think. They are merely an aid to confirming ones ID in those cases where you need (or should need) to prove your ID before obtaining a service or whatever. They will speed confirmation of ID and therefore speed of delivery of the service. They will also deny services to those not entitled. This is long long overdue in this country. Bring it on.

[CarlOgden]

I'd agree with the above.

Only those with something to hide or criminals won't want to be correctly identified or carry blackmarket cards (which, in this crappy country) will happen.

I got the new driving license when it came out and will probably do the same with these.

Shiney new toys...bring it on

Carl.

[Warspite]

Dont get me wrong - I think the ID system is a good idea and also a necessary one, its the cynics I dont trust (as said if you aint got nothing to hide then there should be no cause for concern).

Its the way they manage to make everything so expensive. Something like ID cards should be provided for nothing more than a very minimal admin cost - that way theres less reason for people not to have one and therefore its self perpetuating in its purpose.

[Steve]

I still object to the public being made to pay for it though, especially since, as far as I am aware the price is fixed and doesn't allow for your personal financial circumstances.

[IanC_UK]

I dont object to the cards, i DO however object to paying yet another Tax for something i didnt ask for ! They really dont want people to be succesful or have any money in this country do they !

[dod]

I just wish you could have everything on one card. Having a look through the wallet just now I could lose couple of pounds if I got rid of some of them

[Boo]

Originally Posted by dod

I just wish you could have everything on one card. Having a look through the wallet just now I could lose couple of pounds if I got rid of some of them

I know exactly what you mean!!

[2blue4u]

Originally Posted by Steve

I still object to the public being made to pay for it though, especially since, as far as I am aware the price is fixed and doesn't allow for your personal financial circumstances.

If the public don't pay, who will? Taxpayers are 'the public'.

There's got to be a fee otherwise people will be forever losing the damm things.

[Steve]

But is it going to be on ability to pay basis?

[IanC_UK]

Originally Posted by 2blue4u

If the public don't pay, who will? Taxpayers are 'the public'.

There's got to be a fee otherwise people will be forever losing the damm things.

As a tax payer then arent i already paying for it now ?

I don't agree with them making it compulsory AND making us pay.

Fine, if they want us to pay for it out of our own pockets, then make it voluntary.
If they want it compulsory, then they pay for it. one or the other.

[whitewash]

there not making them compulsory, however they are making it damn near impossible to go abouts your daily lives without one, ergo it is compulsory.

i dont have anything to hide, however they are pushing these cards through as a counter measure for terrorism, just like everything, SHOCK NEWS FOLIC ACID IN YOUR BREAD PREVENTS TERRORISM...(and has been show to have minure effects on preventing spinabiffida in babies) ID cards will not cause any decernable worry for anyone involved in terrorism in this country because well its fairly obvious looking at those involved in the july bombings... they were all british citizens and therefore living here legally, and as such will be able to carry an ID card.

this is becoming closer to 1984 big brother state, soon we will all have tracking devices in our cars charging us by the mile and for breaching speed limits. we wont be able to think without the government second guessing us. sorry state of affairs.


and whoever trusts this government to not sell database info to external sources is putting too much trust in a government that is corrupt (cash for places in the house of lords..) unlawful (going into iraq under false pretences...) moneyled (going into iraq for oil...) and more importantly, completely ignorant of the wants and needs of the people who elected them to power and who they are supposed to be working for.


someone somewhere is going to be making alot of money out of ID cards, and its not going to be any of us, who will have to shell out for it.


oh and 2blue4u... there are systems in place already for the majority of the things on that list. and for things like hotel rooms why the hell should i have to prove who i am to rent a room for the night, as long as i pay the bill, does it matter?

NHS - why dont they spend money on actually sorting the NHS, rather than ninnying about with cards as to who is and isnt intitled to health care, probably 99% of people are intitled to it in this country, its what we pay our taxes for

i could go on, its a massive waste of money, that we are going to have to foot, and knowing tony blair et al, it will be used for other purposes which are not altogether good

[whitewash]

we'll also have to pay for all the system f*** ups, i find it hard enough to get credit at the moment anyway, dispite having a faultless credit history simply because of my name being slightly different on my passport, driving license, bank account and birth certificate (passport says Harold Jamie Barber, Birth certificate says Harold James Barber) im pretty damn sure this would cause all kinds of hissyfits in the computer and cause me serious problems if such an id card system was put inplace