ID Cards, why are they bad?

[nigel]

ID Cards, why are they bad?

I don't want this to turn into a campaign for certain parties, I'd just like a reason why people think that ID cards could be a bad thing. Personally I think a universally accepted ID for everyone would be great, names, DOB and Photo on the card with address etc locked away in the strip and it has the potential to hold a hell of a lot of useful information, I don't know the capacity of a magnetic strip but there got be be space for useful stuff like medical conditions, blood type, convictions that would be available if scanned by the right people.

I'm willing to listen to anyone with a valid point, but not to anyone who just want to complain

[rjschwarz]

Most arguements against them fall into the slippery slope deal that they would soon be required for everything (social security number was intended to be more or less a government secret and now that's required for banks and such) and that it would allow government tracking (which can be done already with a great deal of difficulty).

Of course as citizens if the government starts to do such things we would probably vote them out of office. If commercial organizations did such things we'd stop going to them. So I don't really think either is much of an issue.

I'm still waiting for someone to plug the word English onto the magnetic strip of my bank card so I don't have to tell the machine I want English language selections every single time I go to get money. If the banks can't even manage that it's unlikely they'll get more nefarious.

[JetAwesome]

rjschwarz said:

I'm still waiting for someone to plug the word English onto the magnetic strip of my bank card so I don't have to tell the machine I want English language selections every single time I go to get money.

Heh, good one.
Well, I think its that people just don't want to be reduced to numers or data. They want to feel safe. Also, if we had ID cards, detective work wouldnt be near as fun. I know, its not a very good point, but its a start.

[MarkG]

Of course as citizens if the government starts to do such things we would probably vote them out of office.

Who are you going to vote for? The authoritarian socialist Labour Party, the authoritarian conservative Tory party or the completely whacko Liberal Democrat party?

Tony Blair just got a majority in Parliament with the votes of roughly _twenty percent_ of eligible voters. And you think you're going to 'vote them out of office'?

As for ID cards, they provide little to no benefit and have huge risks. It's telling that pretty much every security expert in the world is opposed to them, and even Blair can't come up with any convincing reason to have them, let alone to make them compulsory. It's a police state measure, pure and simple.

[rjschwarz]

Being a US citiizen I probably couldn't vote for any of the above parties. In the US we have a two party system and if one party takes an unpopular position the other party is usually quick to reform their platform to side with the folks that don't like the unpopular opinion. This means the parties have inconsistant stands but they are more about being in power than they are about standing for much these days.

With two parties it's easy to throw the bums out. With a Parliamentary system there is far less incentive for the parties to do what the voters want (look at the polls about how many Europeans favor the death penalty vs how many European nations have the death penalty as law. In Europe the grand effect of the Parliamentary system is the people are told what is good for them. Often this works, othertimes it does not.

[rjschwarz]

Another thing about ID cards is that anything created can be faked. If it can be faked then what is the point? Much better for the powers that be to make things like Passports and Drivers Licences unfakable first. If they can do that then we can talk about consolidating.