PRESS RELEASE

To:
Home Office
OIG (re US-VISIT)
IDABC (re OSCIE)
China (re Golden Shield)
Agencies

 

Read the salvo – the database state is fantastic
26 February 2009

On Saturday 28 February 2009, at the Cambridge Convention on Modern Liberty, organised by the redoutable No2ID, David Moss fires the latest salvo in his six-year bid to become the UK's first National Identity Scheme Commissioner, with a tough-talking presentation on how fantastic the database state is:

• The biometrics chosen don't work, he will say, so the ID cards scheme can't work. Stick to the fantasy that these biometrics are reliable, and 10 million people won't be able to prove their right to work in the UK. That's 10 million nice people, not 10 million criminals and terrorists.

• ID cards are a reality, the Home Office keep saying. They've given cards to a few students. Universities have no card readers to read the fingerprints on the cards, no scanners to check the students' prints, no telecommunications links to the National Identity Register and there's no National Identity Register anyway. That kind of a reality.

• Italy has 8,000 registration centres for ID cards, the Netherlands has 4,000 and the UK has 69. Two of these countries are serious. One is a fantasist.

Which one? To find out, read the salvo:

http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/cmlTalk.html

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Notes to editors
Embargo? Up to you.

Incidentally, according to the 20-page brochure Introducing the National Identity Scheme issued in November 2008 by the Identity & Passport Service, ref. 291464, when you want to get an ID card, "you will be able to visit one of our partners, for example a retailer, who will be providing official enrolment services on your local high street" (p.12). How many partners does the Identity & Passport Service have? So far, none on my high street. Fantastic.

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About Business Consultancy Services Ltd (BCSL):
BCSL has operated as an IT consultancy since 1984. The past 6 years have been spent campaigning against the Home Office's plans to introduce ID cards into the UK. It must now be admitted that the government are much better at convincing people that it's a bad idea than anyone else is, including BCSL.

Press contacts: David Moss, BCSL@blueyonder.co.uk