Comment Re:The advantages (Score 1) 380
UK administration might actually start working
Can you name an instance when it will be used and will actually help? I suspect that the cost of rolling out biometric scanners that are always online to the central database will mean that most govt bits and pieces won't end up using it. The only case the government seem really keen on using it is at your doctors. But do you really want to put your hand on a fingerprint scanner in the doctors waiting room. Hello - sterile procedures. Or how about struggling to get your iris scan to match when you need your eye infection fixing!
You can for once prove you are who you are in the UK
To whom? If the police have reason to stop you and doubt that you are who you say you are they can already detain you while they establish who you are. And criminals will still "prove" they're innocent with faked IDs, or IDs that have been put through on the side by contacts in the ID processing centre. There are very few cases where proving your identity is by itself useful, but your identity is the only bit the card can actually prove.
No need for that silly census where they try to guess how many people live in their own country
Great, so I can pay £300 every five years to avoid five minutes of form filling once every 10 years. You must be better paid than me if this is a worthwhile trade off for you!
Credit card scams are ripe in the UK with people stealing identities and having to provide an absolute minimum of ID to empty your account.
Banks aren't about to start requiring us to turn up in person to take out a new credit card; it would cost us far too much business. As you can't send your ID card through the post, how would it help?
Your post typifies the governments approach. Its thought of a "solution" - an ID card and database. Unfortunately it hasn't identified the problem its supposed to solve. When you analyse the problems they vaguely throw around, it generally turns out that an ID card and database don't solve the problem, or solve it only at far greater cost than simpler solutions.
