Adam and Eve.

[sherlock2040]

the guy at the counter in Tesco's said that he hoped I felt better soon, aww. I suppose when your basket is full of strepsils, tissues and aspirin there's only one logical conclusion.

Comments

[redconverse]

At first when I read the ID card thing, I thought they were just plastic.

Here in the US, everyone gets an SSN, but that's really just a number to prove "hey, I was born, this is my fancy number." It's not even connected to a photo. After that, it's certainly convenient to have either a DL or an ID card, but not mandatory--I got my WA state ID card when I was 17 or so, after realizing I was terrible behind the wheel. I also need one because I look wee, ha! I'm only 5'1". :P

The cards out here have barcodes on the back which store all the info printed on the front, but even that isn't very much info (and not enough to "steal" an identity with), and I've never seen one scanned, and the government doesn't track any scannings (unless, I presume, it was scanned at a governmental office).

What weirds me out is that, for all my conceptions of America as being the terrible big-brother country--a belief that was probably mostly fostered by my teen years working the library, around the time when Bush tried to start pulling library records, an act which our library system openly protested by constantly destroying records--it seems like a lot of freaky shit is on in England!

I mean, it may seem boring that your transport card logs where you go... But I can't imagine having a card that did such a thing. I want to swipe my bus pass and have it be my business--as boring as that business may be. OTOH, our transport systems aren't nationalised, and are usually pretty dodgy, heh...

I know that surveillance is everywhere--for example, after going to anti-war protests at the beginning of the war, I soon found myself on the "no-fly" list, despite the fact that I didn't write my name down or anything. But it doesn't mean one should be complacent about it.

[sherlock2040]

There is a lot of strange things going on here. There's always been a lot of talk about ID cards, particularly when the IRA were very active (Manchester bombing etc...). We have a bit of a history of being a paranoid lot - we had ID cards during the Second World War (and possibly first not sure) which were complusory and the police could demand to see it. Apparently these new ID cards are going to be compulsory, but the Act forbids compulsory carrying and the police can't demand to see them.

The tracking of my travel card is basically just the way the system works - when I scan my card the scanner thing knows which Zone I've come from and what Zone I am now in so it can charge me the correct amount. I registered mine in case of theft.

There is a lot of freaky stuff going on regarding databases but at the same time I know that I am free and entitled to see what information the government is holding on me (under the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act).