boomer

VinnyP!

"Where did this 2 or 3 Billion come from? I haven't seen these figures. There are approx 60 million people in the UK Not all are over 16, not all are citizens, very few could get a free card. These figures work out at well over £50 per card."

A bog standard passport already costs GBP30, and that isn't high-tech, and all the infrastructure is already in place to produce them!

If ID cards had fingerprints (or retinal scans) on an embedded chip, in order to take advantage of the security you would need expensive finger-print scanners (or very expensive retinal scanners) at all places where the cards are used.

Two or three billion then sounds very conservative!

mb

p.s. Sorry i haven't replied to you earlier reply (yet) but i though that i would give others a chance Thanks for keeping up the discussions though :thumbs-up:

johnfelstead

you cant use security ID smart cards at the moment, as it was recently discovered by a student in a British University that you can read their contents using very simple optical devices, it would take very little money to make a comercially available (for the crims) decripter based on this technology. This is why the smartcard technology has stopped being publicly pushed by the government for ID/NI cards.

But you wont hear that on news at 10! Kind of embarasing for the billions already invested dont you think.

noodle

Yes - if you've got nothing to hide, where's the catch?

Mr evolution

The catch ! how about the **** ups with your details remember this would be a government agency "sorry sir it says on my computer that you are a woman so please wait until the police arrest you for fraud "
The cost would obviously be huge investigating the idea will probably have already cost millions. The many ways the unscrupulous could take advantage of all that data about you stored in one place or how about the fact that if it is not compulsory to carry it at all times it serves no purpose if it is compulsory then think of the frivolous court cases that would happen I could right a ten page essay on why this is a bad idea.

MarkO

Don't really care, and no.

Why? Well, ID cards would be a complete waste of time and money. They wouldn't be compulsory, which renders them useless for stopping crime. And besides, all the law-abiding people would faithfully carry 'em, but the people they're there to stop (i.e., immigrants/criminals) would either not carry them at all, or would carry fakes.

If people need ID, they can use their driving licence and/or passport. Many c/cards have photos on them anyway, so it won't stop store theft any more than they do already.

I've nothing to hide, but I just think it's a pathetic waste of time, effort and money.

As for the Euro? Well, everyone seems intent on concentrating on the fact that "you don't have to change your money when you go abroad". Erm - who gives a f*ck?!? [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img] Foreign currency for holidaymakers is not a big deal - it's possible to change it (and change it back) for zero commission, and most of the time for the last 15 years (and for the forseeable future) the pound has been and will be strong. So if anything, it allows better value for money. Oh, and a large proportion of holidaymakers travel outside of Europe these days, so it's not as big an issue as it was 10 years ago.

But really, what's the big deal - particularly now all the other sheep-like countries have dived in, we get the best of both worlds - one currency for when we travel in Europe, but monetary policy control for ourselves.

The biggest problem is that there is a huge divergance of economic factors across Europe, and trying to have a single monetary policy for all countries is daft. I mean, a consistent policy isn't even appropriate across England (let alone the UK) - look at the difference between employment, house prices and manufacturing levels between London and Yorkshire. It's hard enough to maintain a balance between low interest rates for us poor saps in the S.E. who need to buy houses, and higher interest rates for companies in the North who have different needs.

Etc., etc., etc.

Fact is, we are very different from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Greece and all the other countries, so to pretend we can have a common economic policy and not drag ourselves down to the lowest common denominator is just dumb.... [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img][img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img][img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Oh, and to those who say that a common currency will show up price differentials between countries, this is cobblers - and has been proven already across Europe. And if it'll make things that transparent, how come I can go into a shop in Scotland and buy the same products for less money than I can in London? I've even seen price differences between Kent and Surrey (for the same item, in the same store)!!!?!?!

WRX Baker

SD you must have something to hide or you wouldn't worry about having DNA & fingerprints taken. You know as well as i do that the Police won't build another Police station for your area they would buy more speed cameras ther not intrested in real criminals just easy money out of motorists.