Frankly, the row over the fact that a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6733245.ece" target="_blank"ID cards will not feature the Union Jack/a leaves me cold. We are told that the decision has been taken because of fears that it may upset members of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland. The cards will instead carry the Royal coat of arms along with images of a shamrock, a thistle, a rose and a daffodil to represent the four countries that make up the UK.br /br /In many ways it is an irrelevant storm in a teacup. What is most worrying about these ID cards is not what symbols will be on them but that the Government are wasting hundreds of millions of pounds of public money introducing them in the first place and that they are setting up a massive identity database to accompany them.br /br /These cards will not protect us against terrorism, crime or identity fraud. Indeed they may make identity fraud more likely due to the false sense of security they engender. They can be stolen and cloned like any other card. Equally as disturbing is the danger that these cards can be used to exacerbate social divisions.br /br /In a speech I gave in December 2004 (more details a href="http://peterblack.blogspot.com/2005/03/climate-of-fear.html" target="_blank"here/a) I set out my objections to the measure:br /br /emThe Government has claimed that entitlement cards will help to combat terrorism, fraud and crime. The 9/11 terrorists carried valid ID cards; most benefit fraud involves people who misrepresent their circumstances rather than their identity; and the difficulty in clearing up crime is almost always that the criminals are not caught, rather than not identified./embr /em/embr /emIt is also likely that members of ethnic minority groups will be stopped and asked for their ID cards much more often than white people are. This could lead to a serious deterioration in relations between ethnic minorities and the police and other sections of the community./embr /em/embr /emTo add to this injustice by requiring the ID card to be used to access public services will rapidly lead to a situation whereby the card is voluntary for most of the articulate middle classes and compulsory for those who use public services and/or can’t argue and resist the need for the card. This is one injustice the Welsh Assembly Government can resist and I urge it to do so./embr /br /It is a scenario that we appear to be drifting into without any acknowledgement of or concession to the dangers by the Government. In the circumstances I think that how the cards look is the least of our worries.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8266684-1008433974850145103?l=peterblack.blogspot.com'//div
Monday, August 3, 2009
A question of identity
Frankly, the row over the fact that a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6733245.ece" target="_blank"ID cards will not feature the Union Jack/a leaves me cold. We are told that the decision has been taken because of fears that it may upset members of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland. The cards will instead carry the Royal coat of arms along with images of a shamrock, a thistle, a rose and a daffodil to represent the four countries that make up the UK.br /br /In many ways it is an irrelevant storm in a teacup. What is most worrying about these ID cards is not what symbols will be on them but that the Government are wasting hundreds of millions of pounds of public money introducing them in the first place and that they are setting up a massive identity database to accompany them.br /br /These cards will not protect us against terrorism, crime or identity fraud. Indeed they may make identity fraud more likely due to the false sense of security they engender. They can be stolen and cloned like any other card. Equally as disturbing is the danger that these cards can be used to exacerbate social divisions.br /br /In a speech I gave in December 2004 (more details a href="http://peterblack.blogspot.com/2005/03/climate-of-fear.html" target="_blank"here/a) I set out my objections to the measure:br /br /emThe Government has claimed that entitlement cards will help to combat terrorism, fraud and crime. The 9/11 terrorists carried valid ID cards; most benefit fraud involves people who misrepresent their circumstances rather than their identity; and the difficulty in clearing up crime is almost always that the criminals are not caught, rather than not identified./embr /em/embr /emIt is also likely that members of ethnic minority groups will be stopped and asked for their ID cards much more often than white people are. This could lead to a serious deterioration in relations between ethnic minorities and the police and other sections of the community./embr /em/embr /emTo add to this injustice by requiring the ID card to be used to access public services will rapidly lead to a situation whereby the card is voluntary for most of the articulate middle classes and compulsory for those who use public services and/or can’t argue and resist the need for the card. This is one injustice the Welsh Assembly Government can resist and I urge it to do so./embr /br /It is a scenario that we appear to be drifting into without any acknowledgement of or concession to the dangers by the Government. In the circumstances I think that how the cards look is the least of our worries.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8266684-1008433974850145103?l=peterblack.blogspot.com'//div
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