Reported this week by the No2 ID Campaign ...
This week the Daily Mail reported that the biometric residence visa card that the Home Office brands as the "ID card for foreigners" could be cloned in 12 minutes using a standard mobile phone, a laptop, and some freely available software.
The experts were then able to alter the data on the cloned card (the original being unharmed and unaltered in any way) - and re-sign it to appear genuine to a standard card reader.
The Home Office response to this was a classic of misdirection: they denied something that hadn't happened (altering the original card) was possible; then they tried to imply that if anything had happened, it couldn't do so in the future because the encryption on the next generation of chips - none of which will be issued for a couple of years - can't be broken that way. The ID cards to be issued to volunteers in Manchester within the year (it is said) fall somewhere in the gap between those denials.
The truth is, just as with e-Passports, that there is a fundamental conflict between the official convenience of having databases and smartcards that collate and share our personal information automatically, and the privacy and the security of the individual. The system is designed to give personal information to the authorities. So when it does so to other people, whoever they may be, it is only doing what it was designed for.
The demand that people identify themselves officially at every turn doesn't just create insecurity. It is actually a sign of insecurity. Unless the Home Office can know what we are up to, it fears we may be out of control. Your privacy and your individual security do not count in the pursuit of that sort of "security".
When some cards have been issued we will be eager to repeat the demonstration for anyone who believes in the scheme and who has volunteered for an ID Card. They are the people who need to appreciate what handing control of their identity to the Home Office means for them personally, because for them there will be no way back but scrapping the scheme completely.
Freedom of Movement in light of UK ID Card "Observations"
The back of the ID card "unveiled" by Alan Johnson last month includes the heading "Observations/Observations" (once in English and once in French, presumably) and the line "This space is reserved for observations". In the ID card regulations it states that this relates to the fact that there will be two types of ID card: a "National Identity Card" (issued to British citizens and British subjects and valid as a travel document within the European Economic Area (EEA)) and an "Identification Card" (which will not be valid as a travel document and will be issued to "Irish and other EEA nationals and non-EEA nationals who are a family member of an EEA national who are resident in the United Kingdom", "British citizens and subjects with right of abode who are not entitled to be issued with a travel document" and "those who have a proven need to live part of their lives in a different gender to that on their birth certificate as a potential second card"). As this is a physical space the observations would no doubt be written rather than electronic, and would be visible on the surface of the card. So if the holder of an Identification Card were to take it round to the bank to open an account, any cashier without even running it through the card reader can see if the holder is allowed to travel outside the UK or not. If it's going to be a gatekeeper to external freedom of movement, might it not also be used a gatekeeper to internal freedom of movement (cf. curfews, ASBOs etc.)?
Hillingdon issues Entitlement/ID cards
The London Borough of Hillingdon has begun issuing "HillingdonFirst" smart cards to residents to "offer access to services and privileges not available to non-residents". The council began sending cards out to residents over 18 on 15th June. Hillingdon council states on its website: "We will only store and print your name and card number. No address or financial information will be stored or printed on the card". In other words the card is a key to a backend database that collates the other information that is stored. The card is being touted as a "Privilege Card" with businesses running loyalty discount schemes for card holders. Issuing residents with a unique card number will allow the council and participating businesses to share data, indexed according to the card number.
Finally, here's a link to a magnificent research report published by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust on the database state. It concludes that the majority of databases being run by HM Government at present are in fact completely illegal.
Warning - there's something a bit odd about this .pdf file. It seems to be OK in Internet Explorer or Firefox, but it can cause Opera browser to hang. If you use Opera, give it a miss.
http://www.jrrt.org.uk/uploads/Database State.pdf
What puzzles us is this: in the face of all the evidence that ID cards (a) are opposed by the majority of the population, (b) depend on an illegal database, and (c) won't work anyway, how in the name of sweet creeping Jesus can the government be so profoundly stupid that they keep pressing ahead with them? They've ducked and dived, they've pronounced and prevaricated, but the fact of the matter is that ID cards are still very much ... well, on the cards ... and the whole database thing is definitely going ahead. Why?
The most appealing, because the kindest, answer is that these Nu-Labour politicians are just deeply, deeply stupid and out of touch with reality. Unfortunately we suspect that a more accurate answer is that they are good old-fashioned zealots, steeped in the confidence that comes from knowing you are right and everyone else is wrong. They are not very different from, and little better than, the Catholics who perpetrated the Spanish Inquisition, the guards who manned the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, primitive Christians from a multitude of sects (especially Scottish ones), and the very Muslim extremists they claim the cards will protect us from.
Sadly, the majority of us are not believers. We don't believe in their sordid, mean-minded infallibility, and we don't believe their ID cards will do one tiny bit of good.
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