F.A.O PeoplesoftBloke ID cards: Oh dear

[HairyArsedBloke]

As are all the criminals, tax dodgers and illegal immigrants

[Peoplesoft bloke]

As are all the criminals, tax dodgers and illegal immigrants

Bollocks - that lot won't care, they'll either ignore 'em forge 'em or steal'em. We will all pay for a pointless experiment.

[Incognito]

Bollocks - that lot won't care, they'll either ignore 'em forge 'em or steal'em. We will all pay for a pointless experiment.

What's the point of forging or stealing them when they're all linked up to a backend database?


Just so they can open a bank account?

[Moscow Mule]

What's the point of forging or stealing them when they're all linked up to a backend database?


Just so they can open a bank account?

Because the actual places where these will be used (supermarkets, banks etc) won't have access to the database (unless you're planning on wiring the whole country).

Simply having the card will be come the defacto ID proof and not having it on you will turn you into a criminal.

So genuine criminals will just forge them to go about their daily business, committing whatever crimes they commit now.

[TimberWolf]

What's the point of forging or stealing them when they're all linked up to a backend database?

Not much point with small populations, but once this goes big-time the birthday theorem bites and large back-end databases make the problem of authentication much more difficult. Apply what you might guess about the false accept and false reject rates that will be used in practise (as opposed to what's achieved by the police when they painstakingly take fingerprints and search small populations) and apply what you have learned about probability theory and voila you have the means to answer your own question.

If as is suggested they are to become an everyday means of authentication, people will be providing their own 'unique' (and fixed) means of identification all over the place, including to those harvesting them. It would be relatively easy to find a close enough match on a large database to function as another's ID, since everyone will have 100s of thousands of biometric dopple-gangers. A chip presents a problem, but these are usually cracked fairly swiftly, and there are other ways of getting around these. It all becomes worth it for criminals if the cards are a honey-pot and the database large.

[SantaClaus]

Maybe this is too simplistic, but why dont we just use our passports as ID?

Oh I get it, the govt. have found a back door to fingerprint and take DNA from every member of the public.

[The Lone Gunman]

Bollocks - that lot won't care, they'll either ignore 'em forge 'em or steal'em. We will all pay for a pointless experiment.

The illegals might have a problem, but all the other criminals will have legitimate ID, they are real people.
As Santa just said. It is a back door to get the national fingerprint and DNA database they have wanted for so long.
Illegals will have forged ID. Businesses will still employ them because the forgeries are so good. They will only get caught when their work place gets raided.

[Ruprect]

Maybe this is too simplistic, but why dont we just use our passports as ID?

Oh I get it, the govt. have found a back door to fingerprint and take DNA from every member of the public.

Don't forget about the £100 tax on every member of the public to actually get one of the wretched things.

[TimberWolf]

Don't forget about the £100 tax on every member of the public to actually get one of the wretched things.

And presumably that's just where costs start, since every time your details change they'd need to be updated (presumably paid for by the owner) and the technology will presumably be renewed regularly too. It's a goldmine for those working on the project.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

The illegals might have a problem,......
Illegals will have forged ID. Businesses will still employ them because the forgeries are so good. They will only get caught when their work place gets raided.

Some businesses, as highlighted recently by Incognito on here (and by that BBC investigation), are actively working to employ illegals. The money would be better spent enforcing existing laws, but of course ID cards aren't really about preventing illegal immigration, that's just this week's daft excuse, after preventing terrorism was shown up as bollocks.

If only they spent as much on investigating and prosecuting employers of this type as they are on snake oil "biometric solutions" to "problems" that don't exist, we'd all be better off (except the price of a curry might rise).

In spite of government propaganda, the chances of being raided are tiny.