Identity crisis

I bought myself a new car last month. As part of my finance agreement I had to prove beyond doubt who I was and they were suggesting gas bills and the like as reasonable proof.

Gas bills! I don't have gas bills lying around! The ones I do get I glance at once, think “err, I guess that's right” and chuck in the bin! And that's not counting the ones I get online these days (and I'd be very disappointed if printouts of those were accepted as proof as they're so easy to fake). But I managed to find some things in my junk pile so all was good.

But how ridiculous in this day and age that I can't do a simple thing like prove my address?

Which brings us neatly to the recently sacked Charles Clark.

You might think after the rant above that I'd be all for the swanky new ID cards.

Err, hell no!

A single, hackable government database keeping a record of, amongst other things, every house you've ever lived in? Making it a criminal offence to fail to tell the government when you move? Data shared and sold without any control or consent and much MUCH more - I don't think so.

That, coupled with the fact that IT JUST WON'T WORK!

Unless ID cards – and presence on the National Identity Register – are compulsory THE WORLD OVER terrorists, posing as tourists, will always be able to give fake addresses! And making the NIR compulsory, even in just this country, would create a Police State far far worse than watching out for the odd bag on the underground!

But this being a narcissistic blog* Throgmorton does of course have a solution: the National Cross Reference database.

Let me explain.

My passport has my address – but that's far too valuable to wave around in a car showroom – and my new euro-pink driving license has my picture (and address, but for some reason it wasn't enough proof...)

But tie the two together and Bob's yer Uncle!

A very simple chip-n-pin card that contains your photo and address both printed on the front and stored in the chip - cryptographically signed so gov. agencies etc. can know the photo is real** - plus a pointer in the NCR all of which can only be read if the holder types in their pin.

That makes the card incredibly useful to the public, secure against frivolous prying, and protected as much as a bank card – if you lose it or it's stolen just ring the number, the card is cancelled (and watch alerts put in the system for it) and you get a new one in the post with all the “activation” protection of a credit card.

The point is that, what with driver's license, passport, NI number, various social security numbers, criminal records and so on the government ALREADY HAS, all the information it needs plus all the legislation to control it (that's the important bit) – so constructing a new huge, fallible database and legislation is just a colossal waste of money (£5.5 - 19 billion estimates for the rubbish ID Card scheme represents 8 – 30% of the UK education budget for example) Compared to this a National Cross Reference database would be incredibly easy to build – so much so that it would be virtually free!

An NCR card needs no new information to be gathered on the public.

Membership of the NCR would be completely voluntary (if it's useful they will come), a cardholder would just need to nominate at least one existing government number to get on. I'd nominate my main 3 – driver, NI and passport – and be done with it. But the details held in the NCR would be entirely limited by the cardholder. Obviously there'd have to be special checks for the same name appearing at the one address etc. to stop people trying to get more than one identity.

The exception would be anyone who receives a large service of some kind from the State, for whom it would be compulsory: those receiving Social Security benefits (solves some of the £50 million benefit fraud), prisoners (solves some of the recent deportation issues), and new immigrants (should make the whole process more streamlined and easy for them and cheaper for the taxpayer – new immigrants are already compelled to have an ID at customs anyway).

All useful to the taxpayer, solves all the problems the current government have claimed in public, and extremely easy and cheap to implement. But what this doesn't buy is all the extra surveillance that the government secretly really wants.

But it will only happen if you write to your MP. Do it now.

Is there anything I've missed?

* “narcissistic blog” being a tautology of course :-)

** sorry geeky bit there – and it wasn't originally Throgmorton's idea either)

*** blogging on its own achieves nothing...

Please, just stop

Her of the Majestic Bottom - Carol Vorderman, the thinking man's crumpet - has, I'll admit, one teensy weensy flaw. Unfortunately it's a flaw that makes her the spawn of whatever Satan is in your religion.

I'm talking about about the way she has sold her very soul to the "Secured Loan" brigade - using her reputation as a red-hot maths whizz to sell the utterly ridiculous and frankly objectionable idea that, if you're in debt and short of money the best way out is to borrow more!

At last a real money-whizz with enough Internet clout has had enough. Head on over the the Carol, for the benefit of the masses, please pack it in petition and make your electronic whisper heard.

The rest of Martin Lewis' website is not bad either...