National ID Cards

[Kat Stevens]

Do you have a telephone? Credit Card? Driver's License? Bank loan? File a tax return, ever?  I've got some bad news, I'm afraid..... Big Brother ALREADY knows all about you.  What's the big whoop?  Jeez man, a healthy mistrust is one thing....tempest in a teapot.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>You lose your card, you show up to a government office (on a business day) and they scan your hand/eye/whatever, and voila, you get a new card with all your info. There, problem solved.

A bunch of people take over, your life's history is in a registry under a heading of which they disapprove (lawyer, teacher, whatever), you "lose" your complete collection of ID and claim to be a migrant fruit-picker but you're still in the government's handy-dandy biological database, and voila, you spend the rest of your life blindfolded listening to fire control orders.

Yeah, it's far-fetched.  Unfortunately, events have a way of happening in a way that only looks predictable with hindsight.  I like to keep the odds in my favour.

 

[redleafjumper]

Another problem I have with such a card is as was previously mentioned, giving access to a range of information to more than the agency that needs to know.  Such a card poses a real risk to personal privacy.  I don't want anyone knowing anything about me other than exactly what they need for completing the transaction that is in their realm.  This is not a "your papers, please" society; we will all rue the day when it becomes one.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Brad,
I guess you don't use ATM machines then?....cause guess what "big brother" already knows about you....

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I'm no genius (watch it!) but I'm sure that the card would be sophisticated enough to only show details pertenant to the card reader being used. ie hospital, police, etc. I understand the Big Brother syndrome and the concerns of some for privacy, but I think these are all things that can be addressed, if and, when such a card becomes a reality. As for your privacy, credit houses, banks, insurance companies and medical labs already have every detail of your personal life. If you collect airmiles, every purchase you've made has been tracked and sorted. They know your driving habits by the amount of gas you purchase, etc. Your lives are already an open book, and not just to the government. Unless you've worked your life on the underground economy and have been paid in nothing but cash under the table, and bartered for everything you have, it's to late. There's already a dossier (or more) on you two inches thick....and it's not owned by the government. Although, I'm sure they have theirs. If you in the CF, your history, and your families, is already on file. Spilt milk and all that.

 

[TCBF]

There are about 3,000,000 Canadians on the FIP file alone.

Tom

 

[bbereziuk]

Now.. normally I'm not hyper suspicious about this stuff, but is the card really necessary for Canadians to travel outside of Canada.. or is it more to keep the American-Canadian border happy?  Certainly.. our boarder is a HUGE issue, and for business sake.. we should try to keep it as open as we can, but is a multi-card necessary?  Part of what makes the passport great is that if you don't want to travel.. you don't have to get one!  Same thing with the driver's license, and theoretically with the health card (though I don't know who wouldn't want one).  If you make one multi-card, you're really taking away the citizen's right to participate...  or not participate in the workings of the government.  If travel is the issue.. than I'd say we should focus on travel:  Step up security on the passport.. AND especially in the offices that issue them!  We shouldn't be seeing any more reports of 500 Canadian passports getting 'stolen' from government offices.  I'm sure there are other answers than coming up with a card with bio-metric information on it.. especially when there will be obvious suspicions about it..

 

[Rodders]

Funny.  All I did was take in the required ID and filled out an application and I got my Health Card without any problems.  It was just that easy.  No idea what your problem could be.......

Me neither. I applied some years ago for my photo health card and never received it. Even phoned to follow-up.

Do you outright dismiss the possibility that it could have been departmental ineptitude?

 

[Rodders]

Now.. normally I'm not hyper suspicious about this stuff, but is the card really necessary for Canadians to travel outside of Canada.. or is it more to keep the American-Canadian border happy?  Certainly.. our boarder is a HUGE issue, and for business sake.. we should try to keep it as open as we can, but is a multi-card necessary?  Part of what makes the passport great is that if you don't want to travel.. you don't have to get one!  Same thing with the driver's license, and theoretically with the health card (though I don't know who wouldn't want one).  If you make one multi-card, you're really taking away the citizen's right to participate...  or not participate in the workings of the government.  If travel is the issue.. than I'd say we should focus on travel:  Step up security on the passport.. AND especially in the offices that issue them!  We shouldn't be seeing any more reports of 500 Canadian passports getting 'stolen' from government offices.  I'm sure there are other answers than coming up with a card with bio-metric information on it.. especially when there will be obvious suspicions about it..

Good post Zook!

 

[George Wallace]

I see a lot of naive and paranoid perceptions being put out here in contrary debate of this proposal.  Preconceptions, that more freedoms and liberties are going to be removed.  As some have already pointed out, you aren't loosing any freedoms or liberties that you haven't already lost.  It is an attempt to simplify the Identification process.  Hopefully, it will combine several other Identification means into one, and free up the necessity to have so many.  Perhaps even cut the costs of administering and maintaining all that data.

How many 'cookies' are you picking up when you surf the net?  How many people are monitoring your Credit Card and Points Card transactions?  How many people are monitoring your Driver's Licence?  How many Government Departments track your SIN?  How many people are listening to your phone conversations?  How many people are tracking your travel movements?  How many know all about your Student Number?  What Credit Agencies have records on you?  What is your Credit Rating - have you checked?  Have you ever done a Security Clearance?  Get real folks.  If you are reading this, your privacy really is a figment of your imagination.  What are you going to do about it?  Wear a Tin foil hat?  Move on.

 

[redleafjumper]

George, people are expressing some legitimate concerns.  It is unfair to characterize reasonable concerns about a very divisive proposal as merely naive and paranoid.  Your points seem overly simplistic to me, even if you have made some good points that bear further discussion and scrutiny.  It is dismissive to postulate that privacy is a figment of one's imagination and to advise people to "move on" just because they have a contrary view. 

In regards to the points you raise , I am very selective about when and what cards and ID I use and when.  I prefer to pay cash, because I don't like my purchases being tracked, and I don't want a biometric card that defines who I am.  One of the nice features about all these different people and agencies tracking my spending habits, credit card ratings, telephone conversations, etc., is that no one party has access to the whole picture, and certainly not without the due legal process of probable cause and a warrant. 

Fair enough?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

One of the nice features about all these different people and agencies tracking my spending habits, credit card ratings, telephone conversations, etc., is that no one party has access to the whole picture, and certainly not without the due legal process of probable cause and a warrant. 

Fair enough?

Until someone does something illegal enough to garner attention. That's terrible.

Oh wait. Maybe that's a good thing! Maybe they can track a criminal during his crime spree, and catch him before he kills you or someone you know. Or maybe you'd rather have your privacy, and die quietly while he drives down the road to his next victim.

Yep, monitoring peoples habits and whereabouts should be illegal, especially if they're breaking the law and are intent on murdering people because you caught them stealing a can of ham from your cupboard.

I've done nothing wrong. I have nothing to hide.

 

[redleafjumper]

"I've done nothing wrong. I have nothing to hide." 

Wow.

Gee Recceguy, what you're saying sounds very familiar.  It is the same sentiment expressed by various ethnic and religious groups all over the world just before they were rounded up and sent off to the camps, the gulags, the killing fields, or just plain disappeared.  The funny thing is that most of them really hadn't done anything wrong, well, except speak out against the people in power, think differently than some, or perhaps just look differently than those with power.

I think it was either Tom Payne or Ben Franklin who said something to the effect of "Those who give up a little freedom to achieve a little security deserve neither freedom nor security."  It may have been "Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty."  I am in the innocent until proven guilty club on this issue.  I have seen too many abuses of the legal system to trust that such a thing as a biometric national ID card would not become yet another one, as well as being unnecessary, expensive and as big a farce as the administration of the firearms registration system.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Please quit being so melodramatic. It's unbecoming and borders on the ridiculous. If you really feel that way, it's time for you to give up on the modern world and move so far into the wilderness that you'll never contact another human again as long as you live.

People ALWAYS have a choice. What you decide to do with it is up to you and you alone. You can simper and whine, going quietly to the cattle car. Or you can fight tooth and nail, taking as many with you as you can. How you go, or what gets you to that point, may be of your own doing and volition. It does not mean because your reasoning ulimately brought you there, you have to accept it. Belief in human nature is a powerful thing, and if you believe most people are basically good, you should be ready to take the chance. Be on your guard, but for the good of all, take the chance. If you give up on the better good, you've given up on the human race, and ultimately yourself for not trying to change it. In which case your alone in a sea of humanity.

Edit for spelling

 

[redleafjumper]

So, what's your point?  Why the personal attack?  I respond to your argument, you respond with a personal attack.

Tsk, tsk.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I'm not attacking you personally, your opinions are yours to voice. I just find your example a little over the top for the subject of the discussion. That takes care of my first paragraph.

The second is simply a rebut to your view that if you don't stand up to authority your doomed to extermination.

That and the fact that you do have a choice. It's all a matter of perception and will. That's my point.

Don't take offence, nothing personal was meant.

 

[redleafjumper]

Thanks Recceguy, I appreciate the apology, and the sensible way in which you made it.

I concede that I felt compelled to take your point to its logical conclusion, and I see how you may have found that "over the top".  My view is not that "...if you stand up to authority, you're (sic corrected) doomed to extermination",  far from it; however, I do believe that there must be a real understanding by those in authority about what their purposes are and also what is achievable.  Authority needs to challenged now and then to ensure that it is not abused.  I learn much from my children in that respect.  My point might be better expressed as it is important to stand up to authority to avoid problems from it expanding unchecked.   

I am a great believer in choice; I choose to maintain some aspects of my life in privacy.  And, I still don't like the idea of a national ID card.

Cheers

(edited to fix typo)

 

[Thirstyson]

So... to all those who think this is a great idea, please make a small list of what existing cards these new ID cards will replace and how much you expect this program to cost.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I voted ‘Yes’; not because I like or even approve of the idea of a National ID card: I am too much of a libertarian leaning classical liberal to do anything but turn up my nose at the whole idea.  I voted ‘Yes’ because I think they will be a practical necessity and I think we – all North Americans – should discuss how to implement them.

My idée fixe is that they should be sub-national in administration but designed to a super-national standard with regards to data and bio-metric identifiers.  In other words we North Americans (Canada and the USA, at least) should agree, at the bi-national level, on what data will be held on each card and how it will be possible to match the card to the holder.  The business of issuing the cards and maintaining data bases should be delegated to the provinces and states.  This addresses two issues:

• Efficiency – the provinces and states already hold the data, we are not creating new data bases with all the inherent problems of security, updating, etc; and

• Privacy – we do not need to create new, large, national or even bi-national data bases; all we need do is create a 60+ way communications network so that those agents (machines) which need to verify data can do so from the appropriate , exisiting data bases.

A typical young adult Ontarian, for example, might have her own Ontario Card which would serve as:

• Her driving licence;

• Her health card;

• Her university student card; and

• Her continental internal passport – which is why we will need these cards, in any event.

 

[FredDaHead]

So... to all those who think this is a great idea, please make a small list of what existing cards these new ID cards will replace and how much you expect this program to cost.

I can definately make a list of the cards this will replace, but as I am not privy to all the cost details for each and every card and the specifics of costs needed for one card, I'd say asking for one as proof that the idea is good is, well, a bit demagogic and, honestly, stupid.

"Having cops is a bad idea, look at how much it costs!"

"Having healthcare is a bad idea, look at how much it costs!"

"Having a government is a bad idea, look at how much it costs!"

Getting my point, yet?