Identity Cards (1/2) by B.Brother

(1/2), (2/2).

You may have heard that legislation creating compulsory ID Cards passed a crucial stage in the House of Commons. You may feel that ID cards are not something to worry about, since we already have photo ID for our passport and driving license and an ID card will be no different to that. What you have not been told is the full scope of this proposed ID card, and what it will mean to you personally. The proposed ID card will be different from any card you now hold. It will be connected to a database called the NIR (National Identity Register), where all of your personal details will be stored. This will include the unique number that will be issued to you, your fingerprints, a scan of the back of your eye, and your photograph.

Your name, address and date of birth will also obviously be stored there. There will be spaces on this database for your religion, residence status, and many other private and personal facts about you. There is unlimited space for every other details of your life on the NIR database, which can be expanded by the Government with or without further Acts of Parliament. By itself, you might think that this register is harmless, but you would be wrong to come to this conclusion.

This new card will be used to check your identity against your entry in the register in real time, whenever you present it to 'prove who you are'. Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every pharmacy, and every Bank will have an NIR Card Terminal, (very much like the Chip and Pin Readers that are everywhere now) into which your card can be 'swiped' to check your identity. Each time this happens, a record is made at the NIR of the time and place that the Card was presented.

This means for example, that there will be a government record of every time you withdraw more than £99 at your branch of Nat West, who now demands ID for these transactions. Every time you have to prove that you are over 18, your card will be swiped, and a record made at the NIR. Restaurants and off licenses will demand that your card is swiped so that each receipt shows that they sold alcohol to someone over 18, and that this was proved by the access to the NIR, indemnifying them from prosecution.

Private businesses are going to be given access to the NIR Database. If you want to apply for a job, you will have to present your card for a swipe. If you want to apply for a London Underground Oyster Card, or a supermarket loyalty card, or a driving license you will have to present your ID card for a swipe. The same goes for getting a telephone line or a mobile phone or an internet account. Oyster, DVLA, BT and Nectar (for example) all run very detailed databases of their own.

They will be allowed access to the NIR, just as every other business will be. This means that each of these entities will be able to store your unique number in their database, and place all your travel, phone records, driving activities and detailed shopping habits under your unique NIR number.

These databases, which can easily fit on a storage device the size of your hand, will be sold to third parties either legally or illegally. It will then be possible for a non governmental entity to create a detailed dossier of all your activities. Certainly, the government will have clandestine access to all of them, meaning that they will have a complete record of all your movements, from how much and when you withdraw from your bank account to what medications you are taking, down to the level of what sort of bread you eat - all accessible via a single unique number in a central database.

This is quite a significant leap from a simple ID card that shows your name and face.

Continued.. Next page (2/2)

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