Police national video ID system

ZDNet News reports that British police are to develop a national video id system which will enable the identity of individuals captured on video to be identified automatically. The system will make use of newly developed facial-recognition technology. This development will be managed by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) , soon to become part of the National Policing Improvement Agency. 

What next? Technology to trace our every move? Oops - we have that on stream already. It is called Gallileo while we are in our cars and ID Cards, while we are on our feet.  What the HO did not bother to tell us when they were pushing all that tosh about the advantagers of ID cards is that each is to have a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag which will allow government to keep track of our every move. 

Reporting on the matter in The Telegraph (28/1/06), Philip Johnstone stated that Home Office minister Andy Burnham said in a parliamentary written answer that there were "no plans to use radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in ID cards". However, it appears that information leaked indicates that the chips will have RDIF -  to allow "contactless" reading of the card by special scanners. While the HO says the signals emitted would be picked up only at a distance of a few inches, Phil Booth, co-ordinator of the No2ID campaign, said receivers could easily be boosted to receive signals from much further away, allowing anyone carrying the card to be tracked in the street or entering a building. He added that unlike normal RFID technology, which simply broadcast a number as a means of identifying an individual holder, the chips envisaged for use would transmit personal details.

Booth said that the technology makes ID Cards a snooper's paradise, and that it was "outrageous for the Government to conceal this from the public and try to deny it in parliament."

And now the bit that blows the bullshit out of the water. Because there is no legal requirement to carry the cards, the people that the police most wanted to keep tabs would not be picked up if they took the simple precaution of leaving the card at home. Billions on ID cards, supposedly to identify terrorists, which will not work.

Labour. A waste of money, a waste of time, a waste of space. Get rid of them. 

Full story here. RDIF - The Register  RDIF and ID Cards No2ID Website. Living in a surveillance society |:| 

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