Posted by racingsnake
@ 10:22 PM GMT+00:00
06 Mar · Mon 2006
Ping-pong... with Identity Cards
Well, no winners of the 100:1 long shot, then. The House of Lords has rejected the ID Cards Bill a second time, overturning the preferences of the Labour majority in the House of Commons. The point of resistance appears to be the degreee of compulsion over who will have to be issued with a card... and more significantly, who will have their details stored in the accompanying National Identity Register.
So here's the Government's current position:
# Membership of the US Visa Waiver Programme requires biometric passports as of later this year;
# The UK is currently in the VWP;
# Therefore UK Passports must include biometrics as of later this year;
# Issuing biometric passports requires the same kind of enrolment process as issuing ID Cards;
# Biometric passports and ID Cards both require in a corresponding entry in the NIR;
# Therefore anyone being issued with a biometric passport will automatically be 'opted in' to the ID Cards scheme.
In the language of the Commons' rejection of the amendment, "The Commons disagree to this Amendment for the following Reason --— Because the Commons consider it appropriate that a person applying for a designated
document be required at the same time to apply to be entered in the Register and to have an ID Card issued to him." (From the Motions documented on the House of Lords website)
"Opposition peers say the plans break the government's promise that ID cards will initially be voluntary.
But ministers say there are no proposals to extend the scheme to holders of other documents. The ID Cards Bill will return to the Commons."
(From the BBC article)
So as things stand, the Bill enables registration in the NIR to be made a compulsory consequence of applying for anything which the government now or subsequently chooses to classify as a 'designated document'. It is not clear, furthermore, what happens if a citizen applying for a passport chooses not to participate in the US Visa Waiver Programme. That is currently, after all, an option which a passport-holder may choose to exercise.
In terms of my "3-layer" model of identity, this represents a clear confusion of the two lower layers: 'credentials' and 'entitlements'. The passport is a credential. It allows the holder to assert his or her identity (only 'his', according to the House of Commons rejection, you may notice). The US visa which the holder may choose to apply for is an entitlement.
This Bill, as drafted, makes the issuing of the credential conditional on applying for an entitlement. That is a bad design.
What's a tag?
I'm old enough, alas, to remember when a 'tag' was a Latin aphorism rather than anything to do with HTML or Technorati. I never had one for every occasion, so when Richard Veryard left one as a comment yesterday, I went to look it up online.
The 'tag' in question was "Vox populi, vox Dei" --- "The voice of the people [is] the voice of God".
That much I knew, but the full quotation is also interesting: ""nec audiendi qui solent dicere, vox populi, Vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit" --- "Neither are those who are apt to say 'vox populi, vox Dei' worth listening to, since the tumult of the rabble is always close to insanity".
On my way down the "V" section of Latin Sayings I also saw this one:
"Vade ad formicam" --- "go to the ant". The full quotation for that one comes from the Book of Proverbs, and goes (roughly): "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and learn wisdom".
Unfortunately I mis-read it the first time and thought it said "Vade ad fornicam", which sounds as though it could be an altogether less charitable piece of advice...
Posted by racingsnake
@ 04:00 PM GMT+00:00
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