BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 02 Apr 06 - 07:54 PM

And before somebody else says it, the it in question above is the passport, not anything else, and absolutly not anybody else*!

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 02 Apr 06 - 02:32 PM

No, you've got to bite it hard enough to leave your teeth marks on it. They're unique as well....

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: nickp
Date: 02 Apr 06 - 12:01 PM

I think I might just lick my passport ... wonder if that would be enough?

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 02 Apr 06 - 09:51 AM

It's a great idea, just needs two additional elements:-

1) It's got to be compulsory - if it's 'voluntary' does anyone, apart from those cloud-cuckoo-land-dwellers and dimmocks in Westminster, truly believe that criminals, scrotes and general ne'er-do-wells will register? Duh!

2) We have to reinstate and radically strengthen our border controls, and refuse entry to anyone and everyone who arrives here without proper justification. And IMHO 'proper justification' absolutely does not include jobhunting/looking for free treatment on our NHS, or any other sort of freeloading.

And as The Brains Trust members won't answer my earlier question, I'll do it for them. DNA sampling won't enable access to my bank balance or my last payslip. It doesn't now, and it won't in future - it's just a scare-mongering red-herring type of hand-grenade that these people like to throw into the discussion-room as they close the door and leave.

I'll close the door..................

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Apr 06 - 06:55 AM

If there could be one free card for everything, that would be a miracle. It's not going to happen.

As far as the civil service is concerned, there are several checks we make to ensure that the people applying for various things are who they say they are, but it's still very easy to slip past an overworked system/telephone operator and find out all manner of things. The internal system we brought in to verify internal callers ~(i.e., one HMG office calling another HMG office) is so time consuming and user unfriendly, that only once in the 3 months it's been running, have I been asked for my code.

I don't have a criminal record, I've never appeared in court and apart from one parking ticket and a bus lane infringement, have never done anything I've needed to hide from officials..... But neither do I have £90 to spare to prove who I am.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 02 Apr 06 - 06:10 AM

The police hold my finger prints, D.N.A. and all my personal details. My driving licence has my photograph on it. So in truth that means the government hold it. I have no problem at all with this. Then again we in the North of Ireland have a few different laws than anywhere else within the U.K. And would like to add I do not have a criminal record nor ever appeared in court.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 02 Apr 06 - 03:35 AM

I have two passports, seven ID cards (military and civilian) not to mention my banking stuff. If they would come up with one F'ing card I would appreciate it very much.

Yours, Aye. Dave (who is well ID'd)

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 02 Apr 06 - 03:05 AM

As you clever-dicks have carefully avoided giving a direct answer to my question, I'll ask it again - how will having a sample of my DNA provide the government with access to my current bank balance and my latest pay-slip?
S:0)

BTW - I'm with Divis.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Apr 06 - 05:08 AM

As Montesquieu wrote, (to paraphrase) government can only be trusted when there is a system of checks and balances that prevent absolute power.

In England and the USA sight is being lost of this constitutional truth. We are becoming vassals controlled and monitored every hour of the day.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 31 Mar 06 - 11:02 AM

This man would not have held a UK ID card if one existed, but would still have been allowed in!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 31 Mar 06 - 05:50 AM

to the people that say "if you've nothing to hide why are you bothered?" I reply:

On that basis curtains should be made illegal, after all if you've got nothing to hide why can't the police, MI5, the local neighbourhood watch etc etc be able to look in to your house to see that you aren't aiding terrorism, dealing drugs, running a brother, molesting your children, raping your wife, plotting to rob a bank, making pirate copies of your DVDs and CDs or any other illegal activity?


Also:

Who's to say that I don't have the same fingerprints/retina patterns as Osama Bin Laden? After all, until they've got everyone's fingerprints how do they definitively know they are unique?

What happens when the link to the data base goes down - as it will - what happens then? does everything stop still it comes back up?

Who's going to be able to demand to see your ID card and who will have the authority to access the database?

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: DMcG
Date: 31 Mar 06 - 02:43 AM

For me, the problem lies in the central database, rather than the card. Hence the recent compromise between the Lords and Commons to include the biometrics in the database but not insist on a card is missing the point.

There are a number of quite fundamental issues with the database, from my point of view. Identifying a person by referring to the database and using the database to identify a person are two very different things. The analogy I use is that that it is difference between "if this person in front of me really you, they must have blue eyes" and "if the person has blue eyes, it must be you". Ok, the DNA sample takes something like 15 characteristics into account not just one, but its fundamentally the same. Moreover, you can't (easily) use the database to pick out likely suspects and then use it again to find which is the best fit - the mathematically inclined will remember Bayes Theorem here. It was the failure to understand Bayes Theorem and other probability manipulation that led to the mess with Sir Roy Meadows and I can't see a sudden mass improvement in sophisticated numeracy myself.

Then there is the fact that in forensic work you are looking at very small samples. That introduces the fact that we don't really know enough about how DNA can be transferred. For example: if you have dandruff and travel on public transport, how do you know where those flakes of your DNA will end up?

If you are innocent you have nothing to fear? It's not so simple.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Tig
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 07:04 PM

If TB's dictatorship wants to do it = it will be bad!

The Badger

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:35 PM

Does anybody seriously doubt that:

1.This system will cost billions to set up ( several time more than whatever is quoted) and be expensive to use.

2.It's security will be severly comprimised several times, both with identity theft, and people breaking in to create false identities for themselves, for whatever reason.

3.We will still have serious problem of crime commited by people not registered in this scheme, as common criminals, illegal immergrants or terrorists.

I don't believe it will do much to prevent crime of any sort, but will cost a fortune and be a huge infrigement of our civil liberties.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:00 PM

Doubt Tony Blair will haunting for stuffed matresses.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 04:17 PM

'If you've nothing to hide then there's nothing to fear'

Tell that to the Jews in Nazi Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 02:41 PM

Nick nailed it. The recent large scale identity thefts in UK, I'm thinking the rail workers and civil service dept, have proved that the Govt can't guarantee our details security. And as such they should not be surprised that the majority of people do not want them to hold anymore of our personal details.

If you sent your child to the shops for a loaf of bread with a five pound note and he lost it on the way, would you send him back with a tenner?

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 02:30 PM

My driving licence has always had a photograph on it. My personal details were taken at least once a month on the street, name,age, date of birth,address,employment,friends and families details. I have no problem with an I.D. card. I also support a national D.N.A. data base. If you have nothing to hide why fear it ? There is a rapist loose in Belfast at present, several late night attacks over the past twelve months. If there was a data base then these poor young girls and their families wouldn't have been put through hell after his first attack.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 08:36 AM

Then there's the fact that it will cost about £90 to obtain, and you will have to have it, so they are once again taking your hard earned money out of your pocket for a nil return.
We have 7 UK citizens who would have ID cards in any case once they are issued, and they are on trial for terrorism offenses now. How would having an ID card stop them?
As for you wage slip and your bank balance, do you think they don't know that already?
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: GUEST,redhorse at work
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 07:30 AM

The issue is not so much the carrying of ID card (to which I have no objection) as the government-held database that will be behind it, and which will be added to at each use of the card for confirmation of identity. Irrespective of whether one trusts the present govenment, this database will be available to every future government. Whatever safeguards are in place now, any future government will be free to remove them. Who is to say that a future government will not sell the information on the way electoral registers and census data are now sold.

Neither does this take into account illegal access to the data. It's illegal to access the Police National computer without authorisation, but it would be naive in the extreme to assume it doesn't happen. Personally I see the new identity card database as the ultimate one-stop shop for identity theft. There is no such thing as a secure system, just varying levels of vulnerability.To beat security, all you ever need to do is corrupt an authorised user.

nick

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 07:02 AM

Thanks. Over here, the driving licence might be acceptable too for that purpose but not a credit card I think.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 06:59 AM

You generally have to produce a driving licence or a credit card with your signature on it.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 06:56 AM

I'm curious. How is the verifying done now in the UK? There must be situations where you have to prove you are who you claim to be?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Crystal
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 06:37 AM

Probably banks etc will want your DNA etc on file too so they can verify you are who you say you are.....

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:58 AM

How will holding my DNA sample enable the government to look at my bank balance, or my last wage slip?

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 05:24 AM

This government as with all socialist governments promises to lift us all up to the same level, but is busy dragging us all down to the same level.
Apart from MPs and their cronies that is, they're exempt from the rules that we ordinary plebians are forced to follow.
I am against all this DNA and ID cards nonsense, if the police and immigration did their job properly, the problems it is designed to solve would not exist in the first place. They need to get their arses out of their patrol cars and their flat feet back on the street.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 04:10 AM

gillian, kindly PM a copy of your last wage slip and your bank balance to me. None of my business perhaps? If you don't understand that government is to be trusted only as far as we can control them, you have led a sheltered life indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: Crystal
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 04:03 AM

I'm planning to turn my DNA, finger prints and retinal picture into a work of art! It will then be protected by copyright and make it VERY difficult to put on file! This is really to make a point, but if enough people do it it will helpfully scupper any daft ideas that the goverment has to fource ID cards on us!

Subject: BS: U.K. ID CARDS AND D.N.A.
From: GUEST,Gillian Brookbrough
Date: 30 Mar 06 - 03:53 AM

I really cannot understand the uproar about I.D. cards being brought in within the next few years. Driving licenses in Northern Ireland carried a photograph since the 1960's and I never heard of a problem over there. I feel that everyones D.N.A. should also be held on file. It would cut a lot of crime. Yes there will be those against it, but this is only my view and the life I lead has nothing to hide or be fearful of. Those against probably can't say the same.