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Photo ID


MJ
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With this being Shetland, and the check-in staff being local, its probably quite unlikely that they will need to check ID on most of the islanders - they know a lot of faces!

 

That could lead to problems if they let you board at this end without ID. What happens when you try to get back home still without ID. I guess you'ld need to fly home, you don't need ID for that :wink:

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Yes fake IDs are fairly easy to come by, but in saying that - can you personally create an authentic looking ID such as a driving license or passport?

It's easier than you think. Start by tracking down someone who was born around the same time as yourself, but died as a small child, and obtain a copy of their birth certificate. Now you can use the birth certificate to apply for a provisional driving license or passport. Result: an authentic ( not authentic-looking ) driving license with a false identity.

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Ever been the victim of identity fraud? I haven't, and I sure as hell dont mind using ID to travel if it secures, in any way, things that are entitled exclusively to me....

 

....becuase now the thieves have to try harder!

 

Surely if we all have to go to the bother of taking our passports with us (that is the only photo ID a lot of people will have) it will be EASIER for a thief to steal your ID than if the passport is safely lying in a drawer in your house? People sleeping on the ferry in the bars etc will be easy targets!

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Guest willz320

 

That could lead to problems if they let you board at this end without ID. What happens when you try to get back home still without ID. I guess you'ld need to fly home, you don't need ID for that :wink:

 

Im not saying dont carry it, you just wont have to show it at most times if the staff recognise you. Obviously from Aberdeen the staff are probably going to id everyone.

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Why use an incorrect name if travelling as an honest customer?

No reason at all. But you've entirely missed the point. I'm asking you what difference it makes to anyone if, for whatever personal reason, I do. You're not trying to tell me that the only reason they need photo ID is in case I jump overboard and they need to contact my family?

 

If I get on the ferry it shouldn't really matter what I am called, nor what I look like. I'm not up to mischief (as for most people), and it shouldn't change any aspect of the service for either party what the finer details of my life are. Why go to all this trouble, extra expense and erosion of privacy for no benefit?

 

I happily provide my name already (except when using a bus, a cinema, a train, a taxi, etc); why not simply take my word for it, rather than put extra pressure on me to prove it? What reason do they have to assume it's anything other than what I say it is? This is the central point here.

 

Bearing in mind that we've already established that anyone with malicious intent can easily obtain a fake ID anyway, what is the point of all this?

 

Ultimately, as an honest person with existing photo ID, I can comply easily and it wont make much difference to me. But I would rather that approaches such as these had concrete and demonstrable benefits, rather than being applied 'just because'. A society where one cannot do anything or go anywhere without a photo ID has taken a grave step in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

 

*sorry not sure how to quote one part of text!! can anyone help?

Just delete the bits you don't want ;)

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Im not saying dont carry it, you just wont have to show it at most times if the staff recognise you. Obviously from Aberdeen the staff are probably going to id everyone.

 

Again your probably not getting my point. I dont have any photo ID apart from my passport and dont normally carry any. I would never normally dream of taking my passport on a trip to Aberdeen. If I turn up at lerwick and have no ID either because I didn't realise it was needed or simply forgot to take it, and If I was allowed to board without being asked for it, I would end up in Aberdeen with no way home! (apart from flying as I said, cos they dont need photo ID). If it's going to be enforced it needs to be rigidly enforced or there's no point.

 

As it is, Island residents have to register their details with Northlink to obtain the Island residents discount. Is that not enough proof that you are who you say you are?

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Having photographic identification is needed day-to-day now, its very unlikely this will change in future (especially with the mandatory ID debate....) - why fight.

Why fight ? Because I don't want all my personal details to be available to every nosy policeman, local council official and NHS bureaucrat who fancies a root around in my private affairs, that's why.

 

And I'm not even convinced photo ID is needed day-to-day. The only photo ID I possess is my passport, and that doesn't leave its drawer unless I'm travelling abroad. I've managed to travel south, attend gigs, and stay in hotels without it.

 

The above is absolutely correct !!

 

I realise that I might have to take my passport along to the bank or show my driving licence to collect a parcel from the post office - but I am against the state forcing me to supply biometric measurements and 49 separate pieces of information about myself to a database which will be accessed by God knows who without my permission or knowledge.

 

The government's arguments in favour of ID cards keep shifting, and the hugely expensive project has been sold to the British public on a false premis. The government began by saying it would prevent terrorism.

 

When that wasn't tenable, it said it would prevent ID theft. When that didn't work, it said it would prevent benefit fraud and when that didn't work it resorted to claiming that it would help control illegal immigration.

 

So, first of all, terrorism. The Spanish ID card did not stop the Madrid train bombers and a British ID card wouldn't have stopped the London July bombings of 2005. ID cards, it is plain, will not deter home-grown terrorists or suicide bombers who are quite happy for their names to be known once they have carried out their attacks for the obvious reason that martyrdom is pointless when it is anonymous.

 

So when that didn't work, ministers stirred up fears about ID theft as the great scourge of modern society. Yes, it is a problem, but it is nowhere near as large as the government has been making out. Recently, the Home Office published a report which said that ID theft cost the British public £1.7bn annually. It turned out that that figure included £395m for money laundering and £504m for the total loss of plastic cards. Thus the figure was exaggerated by a little under 50%.

 

Rather than stopping ID theft, ID cards are, in fact, likely to increase the problem, because this single unified and trusted identifier will be something that is really worth forging. Already, we hear, criminal gangs have compromised the chip-and-pin technology that will be used. And the new RFID technology - that's radio frequency identifiers - in place in some passports has been read by illegal scanners at 30 paces. Imagine that gadget in the hands of terrorists or criminal gangs.

 

In February 2004 the government published a report saying that a campaign against benefit fraud had cut losses by £400m. The report said that the government was on target to slash fraud and error by half by this year, quite an achievement. Then the boasting suddenly stopped. Why? Because the government's success at meeting its own targets go against the argument for ID cards.

 

Like crime, benefit fraud has decreased. But you hear little of this from No 10 or the rightwing tabloid press, because it suits them to keep us in a state of near frenzy about both. And there is something else to remember: in the majority of cases, benefit fraud is not the result of well-organised individuals using multiple identities, but rather people exaggerating their sickness and the extent of their disability. The ID card will do nothing to stop someone faking depression or lower back pain.

 

And, finally, the ID card won't stop illegal immigration. True, it will make the lives of illegal immigrants more difficult, but there is little evidence to suggest that it will actually deter people-smugglers and desperate migrants.

 

One thing we do know is that the cost will be enormous - The nation is currently £5 billion in the red; it is estimated that an ID system will cost between £15 - £20 billion !

 

The London School of Economics puts it at £19bn over 10 years, while the government has said it will cost just £5.8bn, which seems ludicrously optimistic given that £12bn is being spent on the National Health Service database, a much less ambitious project. The government estimates that the cost of running the scheme will be £584m per year, which happens to be exactly the operating deficit of the NHS announced in June last year. Think of the schools, hospitals or university research centres, or jails, if you like, that could be built for this figure.

 

The thing to remember is that this is our money and our children's money and if it goes ahead, it will be on a project that will divide people and government with mutual suspicion, that will invade everyone's privacy to a degree never seen in human history and that will make criminals of the people who feel that they cannot submit to the system.

 

It will involve considerable inconvenience, as the NO2ID website makes clear. You will be required to attend an enrolment centre with some form of identifying material - bank statements, credit cards, driving licence or birth certificate, who knows what. Then you will be fingerprinted, photographed and the iris in your eye will be measured. You will give the authorities 49 pieces of information about yourself. If you don't, you may be fined up to £2,500. Additional fines of up to £2,500 may be levied every time you fail to comply.

 

If you fail to inform the police or Home Office when you lose your card, or if it becomes defective, you face a fine of up to £1,000. If you find someone else's card and do not immediately hand it in, you may have committed a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to two years, or a fine, or both. And you will be fined £1,000 if you fail to inform the NIR of any change of address. You will also be expected to tell the authorities your previous addresses. Truly the government will be able to say with all the menace of the underworld enforcer: "We know where you live."

 

If you don't inform the register of significant changes to your personal life, or any errors they have made, you will face a fine of up to £1,000. Astonishingly, you may also face a fine if you fail to submit to being reinterviewed, rephotographed, refingerprinted and rescanned. And for all this you will pay between £100 and £250 (or more) to be registered, with further charges to change your details and to replace a lost or stolen card. It's a devilishly clever scam because, in essence, the government is charging you so that it can charge companies that wish to confirm your identity.

 

The card that you have paid for and have taken so much trouble over then remains the property of the secretary of state and he or she may withdraw it without explanation. Once that happens you will find it very hard to function in our brave new society.

 

Rather than being something that is designed to help us, the card and the register are, in fact, tools of government control and surveillance. Over and above the information you have supplied at enrolment (please note the voluntary connotations of the word enrolment ) your file on the NIR will build an entire picture of your life - your hospital visits, your children's schools, your driving record, your criminal record, your finances, insurance policies, your credit-card applications, your mortgage, your phone accounts (and, one presumes your phone records), and your internet service providers.

 

Every time you get a library card, make a hire-purchase agreement, apply for a fishing or gun licence, buy a piece of property, withdraw a fairly small amount of your money from your bank, take a prescription to your chemist, apply for a resident's parking permit, buy a plane ticket, or pay for your car to be unclamped you will be required to swipe your card and the database will silently record the transaction. There will be almost no part of your life that the state will not be able to inspect. And it will be able to use the database to draw very precise conclusions about the sort of person you are - your spending habits, your ethnicity, your religion, your political leanings, your health and even perhaps your sexual preferences. Little wonder that MI5 desired - and was granted - free access to the database. Little wonder that the police, customs and tax authorities welcome the database as a magnificent aid to investigation.

 

But know this: from the moment the database goes live, we will become subjects not citizens and each one of us will be diminished in relation to the state's power.

 

Something enormous and revolutionary is about to happen to us. We are giving the most precious part of ourselves to the government, allowing it complete freedom to roam through our privacy. And it's not just to this government, but to the governments of the future, the nature of which we cannot possibly know. And it's not just our privacy - it is the rights and privacy of future generations. While we are comfortable about handing this information over to the state, the citizens of the future may feel strongly about our complacency and our faith in the British government. We have a duty to those people, just as all the people who fought for the rights we enjoy today felt a sense of obligation to us.

 

I am afraid I do not trust the government's motives - nor do I trust its competence. The past decade is littered with failed government IT projects - the Child Support Agency, the immigration records, the working tax credit database, the farmers' single payment scheme are a few that come to mind. This is to say nothing of its record on security. The NIR will literally have thousands of entry points where the information on your file can be accessed.

 

A few years ago, one of the worst failures of a government database came to light a few weeks ago when the Home Office admitted that the Criminal Records Office had wrongly identified 2,700 people as having criminal records. I cannot think of a clearer case of defamation and it is surprising there is not some kind of class action against the Home Office. Not only were these people's reputations seriously damaged, many were turned down for jobs as a result of the CRO's mistake and can therefore argue for a serious loss of earnings. But the Home Office did not even apologise. It is exactly the arrogance that I fear will come to characterise all government dealings with the person in the street once this database is operational.

 

In a free country I believe that every human being has the right to define him or herself independently and without reference to the government of the time. This, I believe, is particularly important in a multicultural society such as ours. The ID card will bring about a kind of psychological conformity, which is utterly at odds with a culture that has thrived on individualism, defiance and the freedom to go your own way.

 

And it will remove the right of those who for whatever reason wish to withdraw from the cares of the world and the influence of society, to resort to the consolations of solitude and privacy without inspection from a centralised authority. Privacy, anonymity and solitude are rights, and we are about to lose them for ever.

 

Imagine handing over the keys to your home when you are out at work to allow some faceless bureaucrat to rifle through your desk and drawers, your photograph albums and children's school reports, your bills and love letters. That is the kind of access they are going to have, and it is going to grow as time goes by and we become accustomed to this unseen presence in our lives.

 

Well, it's not for me. I cannot do it. I will not do it, and I hope you won't either.

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In case you hadn't guessed, I'm strongly against the introduction of ID cards and the creation of a National Identity register. I am also against the idea of providing DNA from birth.

 

This site is American, but it would be just as valid for the UK:

 

http://www.xerraireart.com/blog/index.php?p=318

 

Even better is this site which everyone should see:

 

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/index.html

 

Copy and paste the link into your address bar; just let it run - no need to 'click' on anything. It takes about two minutes to run through.

 

To the doubters out there, do you still want this kind of society ?

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Guest willz320

Wow lots to reply to!

 

With regards to the comments on the ID for northlink:

 

There are several reasons which I think are acceptable for introducing the ID for the ferry, but i think the general fraud and security reason is probably the one that sticks out most.

 

Fraud as in using the island discount to book on non-islanders, or someone simply using someone else's discount number. Fraud as in simply giving a false name, it is required by law as it is.

As i said before, I'd be happy to give ID if the only reason for the introduction was to ensure they had the correct details for a passenger who either causes an incident, or is affected because of an incident.

 

For someone who does not carry ID, but who is registered as an islander- your islander card will suffice* - once you have given it to staff at one of the terminals who can put a photo on your card. This is free, and as far as I knew from the early days, islanders were asked to take their islander discount card along with them to check-in anyway, meaning you should always have your northlink ID when you travel.

 

I'm trying hard not too confuse my views on northlinks ID, with the compulsory ID.

 

And a stunning comment from lastpubrunner! I do think that showing photo identification for travel, driving, etc is acceptable but I dont agree with the national 'database' scheme. Although I dont think the video: aclu.org/pizza is completely accurate! :)

 

lastpubrunner: you should be leading the lobby against the national ID!

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I think what Northlink are insisting on is becoming the norm these days, proving who you are is no big deal as most of us aren't Jason Bourne trying to hide who we are. However, this is the thin end of the wedge as far as providing ID goes, we'll be made to carry ID cards eventually but that will only be the start in 10 years time we'll be lucky if some form of road charging isn't in place and our cars are tracked either by camera or satellite. Then there will be some reason to have everyones DNA on a database which will make the police lazy because they find a hair they have a criminal then in 30 years time everyones kids will have a barcode or a chip on them to make it even easier to identify them.

 

We really shouldn't be so casual about the death of our right to privacy.

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  • 13 years later...

They’re up to no good with this one.

The link states electoral fraud is negligible, so to me the motivation  seems to be an attempt to disenfranchise the people who don’t hold a driving licence or passport and are unlikely to go to the bother or expense of getting other forms of acceptable photo ID. Under 20’s, the poor etc. 

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