National ID: It's the database that matters, not the cards

I haven't heard a single debate in any news media about the most important issue concerning ID cards, namely:

The cards don't matter. It's the database that matters.

The cards are no more important to the national identity scheme than a badge saying "Hello. My name is Susan. How may I help you?" is to a department store.

We urgently need to stop blabbing on about the cards and concentrate on the database. Otherwise, it is going to work exactly like this:

All the politicians are going to be running around in a panic because their constituents have complained about ID cards. Politicians, being norms (ie. non-techies) will perform a huge publicity-friendly "rebellion" against the cards. "Ooh, we don't want to carry cards", "What do you think this is, [ Nazi Germany | Communist USSR | Other totalitatian state]? 'Vere Are Your Paperz?' Not on my watch! Go home, you card-toting [ Hitler | Stalin | Etc ]!!!111one" and so forth.

Meanwhile the civil servants and megacorp DBAs will have already built (or rather, synchronised) the database "in preparation", because they know full well that they'd be in deep poop if the law got passed and they weren't ready. The suits then turn round to the politicians and say "Hey, you don't want the cards? You don't have to have the cards. You know what? Don't worry about the cards. We'll ditch the whole card idea. That's fair enough. But we already built this database at a cost of X billion and it would be a shame to waste it. Your constituents would kill you if they found out you'd wasted all that tax money".

The politicians don't know what a database is, other than it sounds administrative and back-office, so they have no idea whether they approved the spending on the database in the first place or not. So the politicians say "Sure, keep the database. My constituents haven't complained about databases, they've complained about cards. And we're getting rid of the cards, right? Everybody's happy! Yay! We all win!"

IT'S NOT THE CARDS, DAMNIT! THE CARDS ARE MERELY A PRIMARY KEY. THEY COULD JUST AS EASILY USE YOUR NAME AND DATE OF BIRTH. THE CARDS DON'T MATTER! NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE WAS EVER GOING TO BE HELD ON THE CARDS, IT'S HELD ON THE COMPUTERS! YOUR PRIVACY CAN BE JUST AS EASILY VIOLATED BY ANY INTERCONNECTION OF DATA SYSTEMS REGARDLESS OF CARDS! STOP GOING ON ABOUT THE BLOODY CARDS!

We've got to start thinking a little less 1984 and a little more Yes Minister.

Now when it comes down to it, I don't actually mind either the cards or the database, provided that you only have to have an entry in the database IF you are a consumer of government services and that your entry is restricted to those services. I do think it's perfectly fair that the government should confirm ID when handing out benefits, non-emergency NHS treatment, being arrested etc. I'm not convinced that a card is necessary - hacking smartcards used to be one of my hobbies, after all ("Today, Matthew, I will be... Brunette!") - but I don't object to the database. What I do object to is the news media portraying this as a simple argument about Nazi-like card-carrying papers, when it is nothing of the sort; it's a database.

Some things can't be simplified down to a discussion about bits of paper. Some things actually are hard to explain. If you can't be bothered or aren't clever enough to learn, don't enter the debate and don't complain about the outcome.

Public Domain - Andrew Oakley - 2005-05-25

Top - More Computing Articles - More Politics Articles - Article Index - aoakley.com