Invincible Summer |||

IT IDiocy

The libertarian arguments against the government’s plans for a national ID database may be arguable; the practical ones are clear. David Birch sets them out in this month’s Prospect magazine.

I think we need a register but there is no way to make it secure, so we should not store personal data in it.

An easily-accessible register linking reliable biometric markers to an ID number would be a great convenience, as I have been saying for some time. It requires esssentially a 2-column database table and would be easy and cheap to set up. (In fact why not allow multiple private registrars, as we do for Internet domains?) As Birch says, most of the available benefits come from doing only this much. (He also has an ingenious variation, scarcely harder, by which your marker is linked to not your single ID number, but to several: one for the police, one for the NHS and so on.)

The technical and economic arguments for keeping it simple are nearly as strong as the government’s reputation for haemorrhaging money into overambitious IT stunts. What can be keeping this pig trough open but the lobbying of consultants, greedy for more swill?

Up next Irate about Iraq, Iran To Trafalgar Square today to demonstrate for withdrawing our forces from Iraq, and against joining the attack on Iran that the US has been publicly Who is my neighbour? As part of its Coffeehouse Challenge, the RSA is holding an online discussion at virtualrsa.com on Tue 30 October from 7-8pm on “Who Is My
Latest posts A struggle for life Notes on post-secular – 2 Before I forget Homily 1 – Education Heroes and villeins Swimming to America Notes on post-secular – 1 Meditation as civil resistance Without reservations Tour notes A revolution in France Your right to bare arms Y q? The return of the king Clarity, rigour and Rory Stewart The World’s End Book Club Remembering Bel Macdonald Barts hearts and faces Summer on wheels All that jazz: The librarian’s song Sandals on their way home A short history of the Australian Flat White Cycling glove, slightly foxed Untoward occurrence at embassy poetry reading To Go to Lvov The founding of Iverson College The pot-boy’s story Prisoners of our own device How green is my valley The ghost in the shell Policing protests in Glasgow