I'm catching up on Slashdot, and I stumbled across this story - Your Right to Travel Anonymously: Not Dead Yet.

In a nutshell it's apparently near impossible to take an internal flight or long distance bus or rail journey in the US without having to produce government issued photo ID. Why is this so? Here's the Slashdot answer:

The requirement to show ID for flying on commercial passenger flights started in 1996, in response to the crash of TWA Flight 800. This crash was very likely caused by a mechanical failure. How showing ID to board a plane prevents mechanical failures is left as an exercise to the reader.

Hardly convincing grounds, especially when one considers that all of the September 11th terrorists had government issued ID.

To make matters even more surreal the US government are currently refusing to confirm or deny whether a law exists that insists identification must be shown.

This situation is absolutely nonsensical, and Tom's allusions to alchemy ring very true.

That's pretty common knowledge in the UK, after all most government projects work on the reverse Midas principle - if a politician gets involved everything turns to shit.

However, for an all-party commitee of MPs to condemn government IT projects as "an appalling waste" might mean that the scale of the disaster is slowly sinking in.

Now tell me why they think that the id fiasco can come within even sniffing distance of the projected £6 billion?

If Big Blunkett and crew can't be persuaded of the lunacy of the proposed ID fiasco, it'll be a good time to buy EDS shares...

Via Currybetdotnet, and Phil Wilson, a classic example of un-joined up Government and a tacit admission of one of the many blinding flaws of an identity card system.

The Home Office Identity Fraud Steering Committee has a shiny new website about identity theft and how to avoid falling victim to it.

One of their gems of wisdom is Never carry documents or plastic cards unnecessarily, fair enough that makes sense.

Then, on their What Is Being Done page they try to sell us the advantages of an identity card. Where your entire identity can be encapsulated and easily carried on one simple (easily forgeable) piece of plastic. Run that one past me again?

You just couldn't make this stuff up. I wonder how many interesting facts will appear on Government websites from soon to be redundant civil servants, if we had a real freedom of information act this stuff wouldn't be hidden anyway...

As it appears that this is a war that can't be fought using reason, financial justification, ethics, human rights, or just plain old common sense, Big Blunkett has to fought with yet another weapon in the armoury of the good, comedy.

Social Scrutiny are good at this and even have draft National ID card application forms, print some out and leave them in the pub. The classic Rockall Times also chimes into the debate, with an article on identity crime which is also available in a pub-friendly printable format.

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall fight them in the pubs... Winston Churchill

Yet more proof that current biometric measures are poor and hugely fallible:
FBI apology for Madrid bomb fingerprint fiasco

And possibly even more chilling: Benson versus Identix a number of real world examples of how reliance on identity systems based on the use of ID cards and biometrics can go seriously wrong and cause real suffering.

So now the ID and central identity register bandwagon is rolling North, and the lucky Scots are the next to get their names and identities put on the line list.

Of course, there's one rather big fly in the ointment in that biometrics still haven't been proven to work accurately over a large sample of people, even the traditional fingerprint isn't guaranteed to be unique.

The "ID cards and an ID database are fine because I've got nothing to hide" argument really falls down when there's a criminal running around leaving fingerprints identical to yours...

Well there's a surprise! Despite all the government spin, there remains a significant proportion of the population that doesn't see any need, advantage or point in having ID cards.

Maybe it's the costs, the govt say £3billion, other less biased estimates are at least double that, and I wouldn't be surprised if the eventual cost was actually significantly higher, given the govt's proven track record of incompetant handling of major IT based projects.

More probable is as Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, says "The more people hear about the government's proposals, the less they like them,"...

It's Stand's Mistaken Identity event this afternoon in London, get along there if you can. It's your rights, identity and money on the line.

Based on the estimates of £6 billion, here are ten alternatives that could be acheived with this level of state funding.

£6,000,000,000.00 is rather a lot of our money, shouldn't we be doing something useful with this rather than giving it shareholders of foreign IT companies?

Thought for the day. Which would you prefer? An ID card or 60,000 extra policemen? Which would be the most likely to reduce crime, and even the semi-mythical threat of terrorism? Not a hard question, but that's what the ID card is likely to cost you the tax payer.

Put like that the ID card only makes sense if you're a crook, terrorist, EDS employee or shareholder...

I had an email from the STAND folks earlier, they've got some important things to say about the proposed UK ID cards, this is an significant change to UK laws and has far reaching implications, and as they say about the whole debacle:

After all, it's not every year you get to protect fundamental civil liberties won over a period of many centuries. Or even the chance to stop the government throwing several billion down the drain labelled 'Yet Another IT Debacle'.

For starters there's a big meeting on Weds May 19th, details below and more details available from STAND's website.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

Wednesday May 19, 2004; 13:30-17:00 hrs

The Old Theatre, London School of Economics Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE

Organised by Privacy International, in association with Liberty, Statewatch, Stand.org.uk, The Register, The 1990 Trust and the Foundation for Information Policy Research. Hosted by the Department of Information Systems of the London School of Economics

The government has introduced draft legislation for a national identity card. The card system will cost at least £3 billion and is likely to become an essential part of life for everyone residing in the UK.

If the draft legislation is accepted by Parliament, everyone will be required to register for a card. Biometric scans of the face, fingers and eye will be taken. Personal details will be stored in a central database. A unique number will be issued that will become the basis for the matching of computer systems.

The proposed card may be required to access vital public services and to receive benefits. The government proposes to enforce the programme through numerous new criminal and civil offenses, including provision for unlimited financial penalty and up to ten years' imprisonment.

The implications for everyone in the UK are far-reaching.

Join us at this important meeting to hear from key figures in the fields of law, politics, security, technology and human rights. Decide for yourself whether this is a plan that should be supported.

The meeting is free of charge.

Draft programme (subject to change):

13.30 Welcome: Simon Davies, London School of Economics
13.35 Rt Hon David Blunkett, MP, Home Secretary (invited)
13.50 Rt Hon David Davies, MP, Shadow Home Secretary
14.00 Mark Oaten, MP, Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman;
David Winnick, MP, Labour;
Simon Thomas, MP, Plaid Cymru;
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
14.40 Q&A with audience

14.50 Dr Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary General, Muslim Council of Britain
15.00 Karen Chouhan, Executive Director, The 1990 Trust
15.10 Shami Chakrabarti, Director, Liberty
15.20 Q&A with audience

15.35 Roger Smith, Director, JUSTICE
15.45 Paul Whitehouse, former Chief Constable, Sussex Police
15.55 Q&A with audience

16.10 Peter Williamson, President, Law Society
16.20 Prof Ross Anderson, Cambridge University
16.30 Jonathan Bamford, Asst Information Commissioner
16.40 Q&A with audience

16.55 Next steps
17.00 Close

More details will appear here: http://www.stand.org.uk/mistakenidentity.php3 In the meantime please let us know if you would like to attend by emailing meeting@stand.org.uk

Media enquiries should be directed to simon@privacy.org

I've got so much ranting steam building up about this subject that I've decided to give it its own sub-category, previous posts on this subject have appeared in my rants category.

For the next few months I'll be posting one or two pertinant links a day to other discussions on this subject.