UK ID Cards, Choicepoint, and Privacy
Usually, government ministers wait until a new program has been rolled out before they start reneging on their promised of how it will work. But in the brave new world of UK ID cards, they’re being honest. As the Independent reports in “Ministers plan to sell your ID card details to raise cash“:
Personal details of all 44 million adults living in Britain could be sold to private companies as part of government attempts to arrest spiralling costs for the new national identity card scheme, set to get the go-ahead this week.
The opening of commercial talks contradicts a promise made when the Home Office launched a public consultation on ID cards in April last year, when officials pledged that “unlike electoral registers, the National Identity Register will not be open for any general access or inspection.”
Any guesses as to who’ll be first in line? (I already gave you a hint in the title.)
Meanwhile, Stefan Brands has a 4 part summary of the LSE analysis of the new ID card system. Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV. Summary of the summaries: The proposed system was designed by companies selling “enterprise” software with no concern for, or thought given to, the appropriateness of that software for national ID use.
(UK ID tidbit via Pacanukeha’s “It’s all about Control.” ID card from ID Unknown)
There’s something refreshingly unselfconscious about funding a boondoggle by selling people out, immediately, to the company most likely to defeat the entire purpose of ID cards.