PA Consulting

[Incognito]

How big will the backpack be for the iris scanner? Or does it just clip onto their utility belt batman style.

I didn't mention Iris scanner. I said card reader, your information will be stored on your card. They're hardly going to conduct a DNA test at the roadside.

[DaveB]

I don't know the answer to that

And neither does anyone else, including the government and yet you are adamant that it will work despite lacking this rather important detail.

however it will only enter you on the system once, so who cares if you are or are not Joe Bloggs. The system has labelled you as Joe Bloggs. You will only be able to use the label from then on. When claiming benefits, hospital appointments, Immigration reasons, etc.

Which is exactly the reason I want the "forged" card in the first place, to gain access to all those services. As long as they swipe my card and the detail on the card match the person standing in front of them no-one will ask any questions.

However if you are a wrong 'un and the Police pull you

Big if. Once I have my ID card why would I want to do anything that would bring me to the attention of the authorities? With ID I can get a job, bank account, mortgage and everything else I need to live a perfectly normal law abiding existance.

I'm sure if you've been a wrong 'un for a while

Another big if. See above.

then I think it shouldn't be too long for the police to realise that Joe Bloggs isn't quite who he says he is

Why would they when I have a genuine, goverment approved ID card that says who I am and all the details on the card match the person they are looking at.

and you will have to tell them you're Joe Bloggs as that's the only ID card you have.

Where upon I am arrested, released on police bail pending court appearance and do a runner in the time honoured fashion.

All in all it would take a very long chain of unfortunate, from my point of view, events for me to get caught. Much the same as it already does for any illegal immigrant or other undesirable who wishes to hide their true identity. All that happens is that in the mean time I have a genuine piece of ID that cannot be challenged under normal circumstances that allows me to do whatever any normal citizen can do.

[Incognito]

And neither does anyone else, including the government and yet you are adamant that it will work despite lacking this rather important detail.

You have very valid points, and again I'll express I don't know. However, I do believe it is far superior to any system we have today and if it all comes together it will change this country for the better. However you have to attempt it in the first place for it to succeed. There is no point in rolling over and admitting defeat.

To be honest, if you are an illegal immigrant and you've gained access to the system so perfectly to be granted residency status, passport and a drivers licence then I think you'll be able to get past the ID card application stage. However, it's not a common occurrence for these people to do this. It takes insider assistance to be able to circumvent the system like that. Most illegal’s have someone else’s passport or a fake drivers licence or forged foreign documents. These will be flagged up.

[DimPrawn]

You have very valid points, and again I'll express I don't know. However, I do believe it is far superior to any system we have today and if it all comes together it will change this country for the better. However you have to attempt it in the first place for it to succeed. There is no point in rolling over and admitting defeat.

To be honest, if you are an illegal immigrant and you've gained access to the system so perfectly to be granted residency status, passport and a drivers licence then I think you'll be able to get past the ID card application stage. However, it's not a common occurrence for these people to do this. It takes insider assistance to be able to circumvent the system like that. Most illegal’s have someone else’s passport or a fake drivers licence or forged foreign documents. These will be flagged up.

How much will all this cost and what will be the savings made?

Any other country in the world implemented a high tech biometric system like this?

[DiscoStu]

How much will all this cost and what will be the savings made?

Any other country in the world implemented a high tech biometric system like this?

I think it's one of those government projects that will go way over budget and go on forever because they'll never have a definitive set of requirements. Where do I apply?

[DaveB]

You have very valid points, and again I'll express I don't know. However, I do believe it is far superior to any system we have today and if it all comes together it will change this country for the better. However you have to attempt it in the first place for it to succeed. There is no point in rolling over and admitting defeat.

To be honest, if you are an illegal immigrant and you've gained access to the system so perfectly to be granted residency status, passport and a drivers licence then I think you'll be able to get past the ID card application stage. However, it's not a common occurrence for these people to do this. It takes insider assistance to be able to circumvent the system like that. Most illegal’s have someone else’s passport or a fake drivers licence or forged foreign documents. These will be flagged up.

I dont need to get residency status, I have a genuine, British Citizen only, government approved ID card. I used forged documents to get the card in the first place. It doesnt take inside help to get a fake passport or birth certificate, just a few hundred quid in cash.

There are very few people with the skills and experiance to identify forged documents of anything but the very lowest quality, and most of them work in Immigration. The people handling the applications for ID cards will be civil service paper pushers, or more likely low paid grunts working for whichever private business wins the contract to do it. They wont be taking the time and effort to thoroughly check every document they get, they can't or the application system would grind to a shuddering halt.

Once I have the ID card I can get anything else I want since I no longer need the fake id's I had before. I can just apply for genuine ones using my nice new ID card.

I am not advocating a rolling over and admitting defeat I am saying that there are serious flaws in the ID card scheme that need to be addressed befoer it can be implemented successfully. None of these flaws have been acknowledged or addressed by government so far. Neither has there been a detailed study into how ID cards could be made to work successfully, all they are at the moment are a "Big Idea" for the Government to wave at people to try and convince them they are tough on immigration, terrorism, benefit fraud etc. They are using it as a panacea to diguise the fact that there is sod all they can actually do about any of these things.

[TykeMerc]

Just how good do you think biometric data actually is in practice?

Fingerprints get damaged very easily and in people who work with their hands a lot they're not easy to collect, plus they aren't as unique as some people will have you think. I believe that fingerprint evidence while accepted in courts as supporting evidence it's increasingly being successfully challenged as an infallible means of identification. A swift Google on fingerprints turns up many articles and arguments pointing to how mythical the arguments are supporting fingerprints for ID purposes try http://www.truthinjustice.org/fingerprint-myth.htm as an example.

Have you ever used biometric reader technology? I have and unless it's incredibly expensive, very well calibrated and maintained it's pretty cack with sizable margins of error. The rubbish you see on films where people get fingerprint matches in seconds from a reader is pure fantasy.

For the ID card database to have anything like meaningful data for any one person it would be necessary to very thoroughly clean every fingertip and for the fingers not to be work worn or caloused or injured. The eyes would have to be examined for contact lenses, temporary blemishes on the cornea which aren't at all uncommon can skew the results nicely so any eye conditions would have to be cleared up.
To be realistic it would need every ID card holder to attend a collection centre for at least a few hours, multiply that time by 40 million adults just to be conservative and you have a cost for data collection in the multiple billions let alone the cost of the equipment and an insane time lag between starting to collect the data and finishing just for the current population. Add to that you would have to run uniqueness tests against each piece of data collected which would throw up umpteen millions of similarities which would have to be manually checked by fingerprint experts who're acknowledged by the courts as being far from perfect since fingerprint analysis is far more of an art than a science just like handwriting analysis.

Then of course for the Police/NHS/Prison Service/DWP/Military/DSS/anyone else to check that the carrier of a biometric card is in fact the actual card owner they would have to have access to the database, properly maintained scanning equipment and skilled operators adding a sizable ongoing cost.

Infallible biometric data is complete cloud cuckoo la-la land stuff fit only for Hollywood movies.

[DimPrawn]

Just how good do you think biometric data actually is in practice?

Fingerprints get damaged very easily and in people who work with their hands a lot they're not easy to collect, plus they aren't as unique as some people will have you think. I believe that fingerprint evidence while accepted in courts as supporting evidence it's increasingly being successfully challenged as an infallible means of identification. A swift Google on fingerprints turns up many articles and arguments pointing to how mythical the arguments are supporting fingerprints for ID purposes try http://www.truthinjustice.org/fingerprint-myth.htm as an example.

Have you ever used biometric reader technology? I have and unless it's incredibly expensive, very well calibrated and maintained it's pretty cack with sizable margins of error. The rubbish you see on films where people get fingerprint matches in seconds from a reader is pure fantasy.

For the ID card database to have anything like meaningful data for any one person it would be necessary to very thoroughly clean every fingertip and for the fingers not to be work worn or caloused or injured. The eyes would have to be examined for contact lenses, temporary blemishes on the cornea which aren't at all uncommon can skew the results nicely so any eye conditions would have to be cleared up.
To be realistic it would need every ID card holder to attend a collection centre for at least a few hours, multiply that time by 40 million adults just to be conservative and you have a cost for data collection in the multiple billions let alone the cost of the equipment and an insane time lag between starting to collect the data and finishing just for the current population. Add to that you would have to run uniqueness tests against each piece of data collected which would throw up umpteen millions of similarities which would have to be manually checked by fingerprint experts who're acknowledged by the courts as being far from perfect since fingerprint analysis is far more of an art than a science just like handwriting analysis.

Then of course for the Police/NHS/Prison Service/DWP/Military/DSS/anyone else to check that the carrier of a biometric card is in fact the actual card owner they would have to have access to the database, properly maintained scanning equipment and skilled operators adding a sizable ongoing cost.

Infallible biometric data is complete cloud cuckoo la-la land stuff fit only for Hollywood movies.

And then your dog eats your ID card and you have to start all over again.

[TykeMerc]

And then your dog eats your ID card and you have to start all over again.

Ah but without comprehensive data how would I prove that it was my dog and not someone elses?

[TimberWolf]

ID cards will make honest people easier to manage, give petty criminals something to think about and hardened criminals their biggest meal ticket since organised crime was invented. It might also be noted that biometrics aren't secrets.