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Government starts rollout of national biometric ID card starting with the vulnerable who can't easily refuse

category national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis author Wednesday July 31, 2013 11:48author by fred

Government is currently rolling out a national biometric ID card scheme ostensibly to help stamp out welfare fraud. It currently holds facial data and signature data. However the card is extensible and designed to hold other data in the future. (No doubt they started with the least offensive biometric measurement! )
It has been stated that these cards may act as driving licences etc in the future. It is a national ID card by the back door. Expect it to be issued to everyone. How can government justify such expensive schemes in times of recession without a murmur from the MSM?? And where are the protests against this attack on our civi8l liberties in the wake of the NSA / UK mass surveillance scandals?
id.jpg

The Irish government has begun roll out of a biometric ID cards ostensibly to help prevent welfare fraud by the unemployed. It has been stated openly that more data can be stored on the card and It is intended that it will also act as your driving license etc in the future.

http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-is-the-new-social-welfare...2012/

http://www.nascireland.org/campaign-for-change/social-p...raud/

This is, of course, a national ID card for everyone by the back door. These things are generally imposed first on vulnerable people not in a position to object as they will lose their welfare payment. Or immigrants. People that have been systematically demonised in the mainstream media so it is unlikely will rush to their defence.

To facilitate this no doubt bloated and expensive venture at a time of massive social spending cuts to special needs assistants etc, all over the country, whole floors of new buildings have been rented and kitted out especially with cameras, wooden booths, computer systems, a queueing system, reception, staff, etc etc.

This, of course, is the icing on the cake in the lucrative drive to "stamp out welfare fraud". Recently we already saw the expensive installation of useless electronic signature recognition hardware and software systems in most of the welfare offices around the country. No doubt a most profitable contract for someone, and possibly exceeding the cost of fraud itself to install. if you claim that you cannot write, ( as many foreign visitors or "indigenous people" are known to do) then it's an effectively useless and expensive measure!!. But I digress.

In Britain, when they tried to bring in ID cards, there was a huge uproar. You had the likes of the NO2
ID campaign etc.

http://www.no2id.net/IDSchemes/

and it gave rise to wonderful protest gems like the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8ZHXGHEfHM

In the wake of the huge uproar surrounding the whole NSA / UK spying debacles, don't you just have to admire the "cojones" of the government bringing in such a fundamental pillar of the orwellian state, starting with the vulnerable just shortly afterwards?

And doesn't our media's conspicuous silence on this and other such important matters whilst continuing to gush interminably about the royal sprog just make you want to throw your hands up in the air in utter exasperation?

So should we be out on the streets objecting to yet another erosion of our civil liberties or should we just roll over yet again as the state, under the guise of "policing welfare schemes" slips in another such Orwellian erosion of civil liberties into our society, and in doing so, wastes loads of money, paid out to private companies, while happily cutting special needs, rent allowance and indeed the very same vital social safety nets they are supposedly designed to police to help pay for this intrusion. Because in reality, this is not just designed to reduce welfare fraud. It's a measure meant for all of us. The rollout on the unemployed is just the softening up phase of the process.

Soon your face will be recognised on garda cctv cameras and by the facebook photo facial recognition algorithms, and tied to your ID card data and all the information held about you by the state. Lots more data can be tied together by this biometric. And even if you are of the opinion that government is totally inept and cannot get this right, do you really want all this stuff left somewhere on a laptop unencrypted as information has been before by government departments? Talk about an identity thief's wet dream!!

And down the line when a garda stops you, the first sentence will be the paddy equivalent of "show me your papers". Do we really want that as a society?

As fraud measures, these, as most others, can be circumvented easily enough by clever people once the cards get into wide circulation. They don't work.

These schemes are costly to the taxpayers.

They result in centralisation and collation of larger volumes of personal data by government. Often with insufficient security measures.

It brings us one step closer to a police state having to carry biometric ID around with us everywhere we go. Increasing electronic surveillance, biometric ID cards, Do we really want to drift this direction as a society?

Comments (4 of 4)

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author by Morgan Mandelapublication date Sat Dec 21, 2013 16:02author address author phone

I was sent this letter almost a year ago and yes I am one of those vulnerable people that depends on the Social Welfare Department to live. I sent them a NOTICE OF NON-CONSENT and I haven't heard fro them since except for a short note written in pen stating that they received my notice. I also stated in the notice that if I have any problems accessing services I am entitled to in the future because of non-consent, that I will hold them responsible. I think though that once they have a critical mass of the public on these cards they will start deliberately making it difficult to use the current ones.

This changeover was announced to the public in a deliberately subdued manner just so there would not be opposition as there was in Britain when they tried to introduce them under Gordon Brown and had to roll back on it.

Also they most offensive part of all this is that in the letter asking for consent they write that if you don't consent you need not take any further action; this is a complete and utter blatent lie as 'silence is consent' in law. This shows the disgusting arrogance and contempt the government have for the public that they will bare faced lie to them, confident that they will get away with it.

The public needs to educate themselves in matters of law that they could be confronted with as every letter from the government or a business is a legal document and Legalese and English are not the same thing. I implore people to do their homework whenever they get a letter asking them for consent or money or a contract.

author by William crawfordpublication date Sat Dec 21, 2013 20:51author address author phone

My mum and Dad's generation in Belfast. Fought and died to stop this trype in the 2world war. And here it is being sneaked in by an inept government on to the people of our little island. I know it does not apply to the people in the north, but we in the north admire those in the south for their freedom, and here it is being stripped away from them by their elected government.

author by Davepublication date Thu Apr 03, 2014 14:28author address author phone

Morgan, could you provide us with a copy of your letter? or at least an idea of what you wrote in it.

Thanks in advance

author by fredpublication date Thu Apr 03, 2014 17:11author address author phone

be careful of "freeman of the land" rubbish.
After some initial confusion, the courts usually laugh and stick you in the clink anyway.
It's nonsense.

It was probably invented to damage and divide genuine NVDA protest movements.

Curiously it became much bigger around the time of the occupy movement and
it's insidious divisiveness was largely responsible for the demise of some of the groups.

If "freeman of the land" junk did not exist, the state (or states!) would have to invent it
because it's so very useful to them.


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