DRUNKNORGY

With Immigration being the hot topic at the moment, Do you think we should fall into line with the rest of Europe and introduce I.D. Cards for all ?.

Clarebabes

I would carry one, I have nothing to hide. There are the arguments about "stop and search", but for the everyday person, it wouldn't have too much effect.

There will still be forgeries because it is easy for criminals to get their hands on machines that would be able to print them. I think the police should be looking closer into where this type of machine is bought.

There are also the costs involved, but I think that will be passed onto the citizen, rather than the Government footing the bill, don't you?

DRUNKNORGY

I carry my driving license with me all the time, As you say, 'whats the problem if you have nothing to hide'.
The Police will stop and search you anyway IMO if they want to.
I think there are too many reasons to carry them personally.

Luke

yes why not.

Reffro

I have nothing to hide either, but I prefer to remian anomynous if I so choose. I don't need/want to be forced to identify myself at every opportunity, if the police or anybody want to confirm who I am I will be happy top do so at a time convenient to myself, not on demand.

DRUNKNORGY

How do we keep tabs on the Illegal imigrants or persistent offenders then?.
Also If you catch someone pinching your car and manage to 'detain them', how could they be identified without ID. They give you the slip and they just become another face in the crowd.

Not convinced with that argument, Sorry !

what would scooby do

we all carry ID in the form of credit cards, driving licences etc - there will be no impact on law abiding citizens to carry a photo ID card that is quickly checkable by the police etc. It's not as if you are going to get stopped every 5 mins is it !

Reffro

For the above to be of any use, you would have to make the carrying of your ID card compulsary. I.E. you have to have it on your person at all times, otherwise you are stuck with the same situation as today.

And once it becomes compulsary then you must have some sort of punishment for not carrying your ID, lets say arresting you, taking you to the police station until your ID is brought in by a friend/family and you can prove who you are. Or at the very least you are going to have to have comprehensive database of people's addresses, birthdates etc etc that the police can readily access to confirm ID's of those people not carrying it at the time you stop them.

Now bearing the above in mind, and complete success of recent government computer projects, Inland Revenue being one, do you really think that the government will be able to implement this without it going completely **** up, not with standing the fact that sophisticated criminals will soon have the means to commit identity fraud on a mass scale, and such crime will soon become common place.

I agree that whilst it may be desirable to keep track of certain criminal elements in our society, by that I mean terrorists, not your average asylum seeker, do you really think they are going to be outsmarted by a simple ID card?..........



[Edited by Reffro - 1/27/2003 12:02:13 PM]

rsquire

As a *cough* outsider looking in..

It seems that more and more the Uk is truly becoming the Orwellian state.. CCTV everywhere and now people "testing the water" on the acceptability of ID cards ..

In my recent time in the UK I found one thing wrong with an other wise very nice country to live in.

There are simply, IMHO, to many people in too small a place..

Nothing racist, sexist or religious in that...

Simply too many people..

Sadly, the basic infrastructure of the Uk, to me, seems to be completely breaking down. The State ( and in many cases the private sector) services cannot cope with the sheer volume of people that are requiring their services.

From the inability of the NHS and other government services to cope, the rise in street crime,the rise in stress in simply driving to work on a motorway, to the simple fact of having to queue for 15 mins to drop a film off in Boots to have it developed.

There are simply too many people in the UK..

SWRTWannabe

I have nothing against carrying an ID card.

The problem comes in that the authorities have to accept that someone is not necessarily who their ID card says they are - theft and forgery can of course result in this situation. And with that tiny caveat, are ID cards any use?

paulr

With Immigration being the hot topic at the moment, Do you think we should fall into line with the rest of Europe and introduce I.D. Cards for all ?.


Yes

David Lock

Yes...

Sbradley

What, and trust this joke of an administration with a centralised database of all our personal information that they can sell on to interested parties?

Not on your nelly.

Oh, and yes, they've already done it (sell on marketing information from an olnine registration scheme), despite the objections of the civil service. Trying to find a link to the story now...

SB

skipjack

reffro's right about ID cards. doomed to failure, easy to subvert. there are already an estimated million and a half fake driving licences in current circulation and the DVLA doesn't have the resources to do anything about it.

try a practical root and branch reform of immigration and asylum first.

- seek exemption from clause 3 of the EU Human Rights Convention as the french have already done, that clears the way for appropriate deportations.

- resurrect the foreign office 'white list' filter of countries from which asylum applications will automatically not be accepted.

- ensure that the first EU country to which an asylum seeker arrives processes the application instead of "letting" them travel halfway across europe to come to the UK.

- build sufficient transit centres to process and verify all asylum seekers and refugees on entry. this enables us to keep tabs on those coming in and arrange for their integration while letting us deport the bogus applicants at source.

- give our border security services the power to arrest, detain, transfer and investigate suspects at our airports, international rail stations and ports.

do these things and we're halfway to solving the problem: we should accept skilled economic migrants and our share of genuine asylum seekers and peoples displaced by war or famine. but that's it.

we need practical solutions and a whole new infrastructure and approach for dealing with what is becoming a global problem. we have to be prepared to pull up the drawbridge when necessary.