Pilots boycott gov ID cards Airline pilots have warned the government that they will not take part in their security theatre trial of ID cards at Manchester and City of London airports. The Home Office wants to trial the cards for airside workers at the two airports. Several UK airlines have already pointed out the dumbness of the dumb idea. The British …
Kudos to BALPA standing up for their members while Labour-supporting unions such as UNITE sell out their staff. Pilots already go through some of the most rigorous security checks in the UK so they government cannot claim that ID cards improve security in this instance.
At the risk of annoying people by crossposting, the following is something I put on the No2ID site last month on the legislation affecting airside workers.
You may find it interesting to look at p32 of the consultation document.
http://www.ips.gov.uk/identity/downloads/NIS_Legislation.pdf
Rather than making it compulsory to have a card in order to gain employment, it aims to make it impossible to access the legal documentation necessary for employment without a card.
This is far more insidious. No ID card, no "designated document". No designated document, no job.
The inital target is airside workers who need a basic criminal records check. Airside passes are provided by the airport employer and therefore outside of direct government control. However, the proposal is that "if an airside worker [requiring a CRB certificate] refused to apply for an ID card then they should not be issued with the criminal conviction certificate necessary to obtain an airside pass."
According to the consultation "the Identity Cards Act provides a power at section 4 to designate existing documents – thus making it a requirement for persons applying for such a document to register and be issued with an ID card".
So basically, it's already law that the state can decide to make any "official government issued document" a designated one. And you won't be able to access it without an ID card.
Given the huge number of roles which now require even a basic CRB check, designating the Criminal Conviction Certificate will force millions (everyone who works with children and vulnerable adults for example) onto the NIR in order to keep their job.
And if you've got a nice private sector job which has nothing to do with the state and no contact with kids, your employer is still required by law to ensure that you are able to work legally. And the government gets to decide which official documents are necessary to prove this. Oooh, and it already has the power to designate any official document.
But remember folks that according to the IPS "Designation is not the same as “compulsion” as there is no penalty if someone chooses not to apply for a designated document, they simply would not obtain the designated document without also applying for and being issued with an ID card". Ahem.
[quote]
A spokeswoman for the Identity and Passport Service said: "Identity cards will be mandatory for all airside workers, just as other pre-employment checks are today, so that the benefits from the Scheme can be realised across the aviation sector.
[/quote]
Of course, once you make the cards (screw the cards, it's the NIR I care about!) mandatory for one section of population on grounds of security, it becomes a of a lot easier to load this crap on the public at large...
This country is in serious trouble. It's no laughing matter, and the election can't come soon enough. However, the "great" British public are dumb enough to vote Labour in again - although in their defence there's notmuch credible alternative - and that's not a laughing matter either.
Martin.
Paris, coz she's elected to do some interesting stuff in her time too...
I really hope the ground crew union(s) also refuse to participate. There is no way any airport is going to risk having to effectively shut shop, so they won't want to argue the case for this crackpot government scheme. And if everyone refuses, then there will be no choice but to abandon the trial.
They have given themselves a get out if they want to use it - pilots with jobs don't need pre employment checks, as they are already employed. The slice and dice can continue; only new pilots will need ID cards and they will probably be more motivated tp comply.
I don't think BALPA are going to achieve much, the only ways I can see out of this are (a) riots, a la poll tax or (b) a Tory government.
Also, one shouldn't underestimate the attractiveness of the scheme - there will be those to whom an ID card will be a source of pride and joy, giving them a feeling of being in with the in crowd. The psychology of slavery is quite pernicious.
>>"...does anyone other than Wacky Jacqui want ID cards?"
>Haven't you heard? Apparently she is constantly accosted by people in the street demanding she speed up the introduction of ID cards.
Good grief, that's some powerful weed she's on, if it can induce hallucinations like that. Better find some scientific advice to ignore and reclassify it again.
Fantastic to see. The first group being forced into having the "voluntary" cards have shouted a resounding "FUCK OFF" - and have a powerful position to do so from. I hope that they keep their resolve, rather then crumbling as soon as they hear the words "disciplinary action". Then the govt has a simple choice - U-turn or ground all flights, as they'll have no pilots.
If only everyone else in the country was as determined to retain some aspect of their freedom.
Hint .. vote Labour out at the next election and ID cards are set to be scrapped.
So the choice is tax cuts / no ID cards / drop in public spending (Cons) OR tax cuts and/or rises / no ID cards / increase in public spending and/or cuts (LibDems) OR continuation of an overly authoritarian state run by religious zealots (Bliar now Brown) who want to save the world from itself (self-determination is clearly always wrong in the same way that Markets were clearly always right).
My local MP is Labour, has a huge majority and is one of the best MPs (for his constituancy support and dedication in the old HP) BUT this time I have to change the habit of a voting lifetime and vote against the Labour government and its hysterical (The) War Against Terror laws ... I'd rather die in a free country than live in a facist state thank you very much.
Anon - because Big Sister Mssss "W" JS is out to get you.
I thought it was (or going to become) illegal to seek details about anyone who is or was a member of the armed forces that might be useful to a terrorist?
Seeing as most civilian pilots are ex-military, and the questions asked in order to produce one of these cards will produce answers which are useful to terrorists, does that not mean that the ID scheme will be illegal?
This post has been deleted by its author
'Haven't you heard? Apparently she is constantly accosted by people in the street demanding she speed up the introduction of ID cards.'
Is that the street in London where she has her 'main home', or the street in Redditch where she keeps the hubbie and kids?
Home Office 'Building an Orwellian Society, One Step at a Time' Press release (issue date July 2010).
Further evidence of the effectiveness of identity cards was released today. Following the successful roll-out of identity cards to British pilots, there have been no recorded instances of airline pilots committing acts of terror.
I can see checking the biometrics of all our pilots as they land. Presumably they drive upto to some sort of toll booth at the end of the runway and stick their head out of the cockpit window to have their biometrics scanned .
But what about all those johnny foreigner pilots, are they still going to be allowed to land at British airports without the regulation biometric moustache?
British airports for British aeroplanes I say - let foreigners land in their countries ........
bbcuckle (people in the street) says Wacky Jacqui is constantly accosted by people in the street demanding she speed up the introduction of ID cards. This is incorrect. Nobody gets anywhere near Wacky Jacqui. She has a police escort and whole streets get closed off whenever she visits her local kebab shop. Remember? The only people she meets are robocops who drool at the prospect of constant surveillance of everyone and banging up anyone who doesn't have an ID card because they must be a terrorist.
"Identity cards will be mandatory for all airside workers, just as other pre-employment checks are today, so that the benefits from the Scheme can be realised across the aviation sector."
When a single benefit of this scheme that stands up to even the slightest scrutiny can be identified, would someone let me know?
So far all I've seen is "we're spending billions so we can store all your data in one place (and track where you go), for all these spurious and easily knocked down reasons^H^H^H^H^H^H excuses"
"Balpa asked what would happen when the first staff member was sacked for not carrying an ID card. The group has also written to the government to warn of the difficulties that will ensue when pilots who refuse to register for the ID card lose their jobs."
When will this bunch of disingenuous deceitful snakes (Smith et al) get the message? We aren't all as stupid as they would like to believe. Go BALPA. We need the Doctors and Healthcare Professionals next! C'mon!
They are gonna have to send a LOT of people to prison, or at the very least, lose a large chunk of `their` workforce...
Last I heard there would be no routine connection to the database, the biometrics would be checked against those 'encoded' on the card. This is due to obvious technical and infrastructure requirements to enable automatic connection to the database hundreds of millions of times a day. Not to mention the inevitable chaos should the connection go down . . . That his makes the system less secure is a given, especially since the encryption has already been broken.
Look next for draconian punishments for being found carrying a fraudulent ID card. Like the mandatory sentences for carrying guns/knives has really reduced the incidence of violent crime.
"...does anyone other than Wacky Jacqui want ID cards?"
Yes, all the consulting and IT companies who will be able to partake of the huge amount of pork that will be set loose by the project.
How long until the UK.gov tries to sell this as a way to help stave off the recession?
(P.S. is any government lackey reads this post and tries to use this idea, I've just copyrighted it)
Why don't the MP's trial ID cards? It'll stop them getting blown to bits during a session if we are to believe the hype.
Of course I'll now get arrested for threatening the safety of the ruling classes by posting this.
ID cards are no better than the famous goggles - they do nothing!
Sam
As I understand it an aircrew normally stick together as a unit and they all know each other, plus there can't be THAT many pilots in an airline even if they are the size of BA. So, if a total stranger decides to sit down at the pointy end and try to take off I'd expect the rest of the crew to kick up a fuss.
No card required.
Osama bin Laden, your work is done, victory is assured thanks to the activities of your one true disciple and fellow terrorist, the blessed Jaqui Smith. Given your traditionally disrespectful attitude to women I suspect that even you must find it ironic that one of your greatest achievements will be attributed to a female follower.
Who would have believed that one woman would be able to circumscribe the liberties and freedoms of a whole nation while assuring them that they were being wrapped in a cocoon of impenetrable anti-terrorist safety measures.
But enough of these trivialities, Osama, for I have news of an independent, self-financing group of economic terrorists operating within the British government. Their morally bankrupt philosophy of unrestrained, unregulated greed and avarice has finally run its course and brought the economy to its knees. With friends such as these what need do we have of Jihad?
So, as you can see, my work too is complete and I beg your permission to rejoin you and my brothers in the caves. The life of a troglodyte is so much more appealing than a bare existence on this miserable little island,
Regards, Farouq
Pilots are going to be required to carry, what ? let's see.... at a guess a license, company ID, airport/CAA ID's + same for whichever company they arrive at. Airside groundstaff much the same I suspect + license for what ever vehicles they have to operate and no need for credentials for flight or other airports credentials of course..... In what way does this the addition of another piece of plastic contribute to security ? Oh yeah.... that's it, it makes Wacky Jacki and co feel secure that they are being seen to be doing something and extends job security to the contractors who are spending our tax bucks on this wrongheaded piece of crap.
The pilots are shortly going to have to have dedicated porters around simply to carry all the ID's as you can bet that each new ID is not balanced by removal of another.
I know I would be hunted down by people here, but I my be one of the few El Reg readers who WANTS an ID card. The only thing I would agree on, is the abandonment of the back database and for Britain to join Schengen to allow passport free travel in Europe.
The amount of times I have been ask to produce a passport or my driving licence so I can buy half of wheat beer in my local bar (I am 24, but I look around seventeen-years-old), or closing a bank account, where they would the paper licence as well the plastic card. In my humble opinion, the amount of fake ID use by kids to buy alcohol is astonishing, helped by the lack of awareness of the Pass cards and high cost of passports/driving licences (my provincial licence cost me £42, and I don't have a car). Not surprisingly, fake ID is practicality unheard of in many European countries, due to a standard card.
I will get my coat, together with all my papers (passport, driving licence, police ID card, and BII membership card) in the pockets.
A refusal across all sectors of society to conform to ID card rules. A strike, as it were.
Jacqui (or more accurately, the sinister types who have her ear) is probably already planning legislation making it illegal to counsel refusal.
I'm reading an interesting history of the East Asian war (Pacific theater of WW II) and it's astonishing to learn that Japan got embroiled in China almost by default because of repeated insubordination by its Army. I wonder if, in 100 years' time, the history of the transformation of Britain into a fascist police state will reveal a similar series of unintentional faux pas, pratfalls, and unguided stupidities. With the name "Jacqui Smith" writ large on each page.
I can see people being against the expense of ID cards, even if miracles happen and they don't go massively overbudget and fail to work properly.
However, on the *civil liberties* side of things, it seems strange to see people making a big thing about ID cards when most people carry mobiles, a great many use email for much of their communication, and over the next decade or two, financial transactions seem likely to be increasingly traceable as even small transactions will be done electronically more often.
Whether TPTB have the official right to look at such data in bulk, rather than for specific reasons, the paranoid among us should presumably be assuming that that data *will* be being looked at, and that future governments could easily and gradually change the rules for what they can look at, under the cover of crime/terrorist detection.
I'm trying to think which things I currently do might even *conceivably* require production of an ID card if/when cards arrive, and whether any of those things wouldn't *already* be traceable by existing means, never mind future ones.
It seems a fairly short list so far.
>>my provincial licence cost me £42, and I don't have a car
Provincial license? I know the provinces can be somewhat xenophobic at times but I didn't think things had got that bad.
>>Not surprisingly, fake ID is practicality unheard of in many European countries, due to a standard card.
Any evidence of this? I can't help but think of that documentary shown a little while ago, where a young girl managed to obtain counterfeit passports for many, if not all, EU states...
Sorry, my mistake, it is provisional, not provincial. Crap spellchecker.
I know what you are talking about, what I meant was that because there is a single ID card, fakes like those on websites like http://www.fluxcard.com/ or http://www.photo-id.co.uk/ don't really exist in say France or Germany.
A quick question for my Limey friends (and a good number of kin, as well): If Jackie is so terrible, is there no process to give her the boot due to a lack of confidence in her mental state? I figure that if a large part of the country believes she is bat-shit loco, then there should be a process in place to hit the ejection seat button.
At least, one would hope.
Paris, bat-shit loco.
No, it's not the spellchecker's fault, crap or not.
Some people still don't get it. It's not about the cards, it's about our relationship with the State. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.
If we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.
This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.
ID Cards are part of the anti-privacy agenda.
"....ake ID is practicality unheard of in many European countries, due to a standard card."
Funnily enough, this seems to work rather well without a massive centralised database, biometric flannel or charging an arm and a leg for it (you thought 42 quid for a Driving License was excessive, wait for the *real* horror story.....).
Nobody objects to the opportunity to take an ID card. It's the way that the Government has taken a very simple and useful idea, fed it through their neo-Stalinist planning process and turned it into a phenomenally complex, demonstrably unworkable and massively overpriced Edifice of Shite (tm).
Oh, and having comprehensively fucked it up, they want to make it mandatory as well.
Do you understand now?
"If Jackie is so terrible, is there no process to give her the boot due to a lack of confidence in her mental state?"
Yes. When the Prime Minister decides to call a General Election, the people in her constituency can choose not to elect her. Of course, the Labour Party can move her to a safe seat so that she still gets elected, but the truth of the matter is that the Prime Minister can have anyone in his cabinet whether they are a Member of Parliament or not. Indeed, he gave Lord Mandelson a Peerage in the House of Lords specifically to enable him to be a Cabinet Minister.
There is a mechanism for impeachment, but it require a majority in the House of Commons, and the Labour Party has the majority and the Whip.
The benefits of Party Poltiics...
Pretty much everyone is already leaving a trail wherever they go, which any future government with totalitarian leanings could easily tap into even in the absence of ID cards.
Whether they think various kinds of information are worth bothering with is another matter.
I can see a government being interested in what people are saying, who they're talking to, what websites they're looking at, but those don't seem to be the kinds of things that ID cards would much facilitate the tracking of.
Thinking of the things an ID card might make it easy to track - travel/shopping habits, bank accounts, etc, lots of people in private organisations already have access to that information about me, and I imagine various government bodies could get access to it if they wanted to (if I was of any interest to them).
Though I wouldn't necessarily want that information openly published, it's not exactly secret.
Am I the only one who wants a ID card?
Yes.
The real questions are: Why do you need so many forms of ID to do such simple things. It already proves that the government has intruded too far into the private lives of the citizens.
What documents support the creation of the ID SUPERCARD (tm), the passport, and other so-called documents. Your birth certificate? Your parents sworn statements? A bill to your home address? How secure is any of that? Seriously; how does any of that make you more secure in knowing who YOU are when you identify yourself to someone else. NONE. NOT THE LEAST LITTLE BIT. It's all a house of cards...built on someone saying "this is who this is".
Can it be forged. Yes. In each and every case all supporting documentation can be made up. Feel more secure now with the originating pile of paper? Thought not.
Now, tie all that into a massive government database that won't be secure; that won't be truly restricted in who can have access; that you have NO control over in any way, shape, or form; nor the ability to correct (and yes, there will be mistakes). Feel more secure now? Nobody else does, either.
It's like drugs. Just say NO!
I assume that crew who fly beyond UK borders ,will have passports with them for when they have stop overs , for R&R.
Why wouldn't that be good enough?
The crew who fly within UK , will be likely to have a Passport for holidays.
Another ID card is not necessary as newer passports are supposed to have security features to prevent forgery etc.
Hope you can find a politician or two with common sense.
My icon for a girl who is co-operative.
> 3 Terms
> You keep electing them, you get what you ask for.
I've never voted so I've ended up with what other people asked for, and this will also be so for the majority of people because unless 100% of people vote and the incumbent gummint gets more than 50% of the vote then fewer, rather than more, people get what they asked for.
Unfortunately voting turnout in the UK is usually somewhere between 71 and 78 percent, with the last couple of elections being particularly poorly attended (between 59 and 61 percent), and the split of the vote is usually somewhere in the 40-48% range for the winners and 30-38% for the runners up - in particular, there hasn't been one general election since the war where one party has won 50% of the vote (let alone more than 50% of the vote).
(see http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk.htm for details)
Which means that there hasn't been a single government since WWII elected by the majority of the voting public, and therefore - contra your point above - the people who elected the government asked for this, but the majority of us didn't.
On top of this it should be reasonably obvious that our democracy isn't democracy at all - it's not rule by the people because the people aren't doing the business of ruling, they're just electing people to do the ruling.
The Ancient Greeks would have been horrified and would probably want to know why the hell anyone would want to abdicate their responsibilities like this. But then they weren't British so they probably couldn't relate to the idea that life is easier if you've got someone else to blame for your problems.
If you think any of the current crop of vote-sniffing poli's would do any better than Labour (new or otherwise) you've got another thing coming, but I suppose it will be nice for those that indulge in party politics (*yawn*) to be able to blame someone else for a bit.
Practically speaking, *if* biometrics in a given ID system can make it very hard for someone to have two identities, that could lead to that ID system being more trustworthy *even when compared to a non-biometric system which required precisely the same initial documentation*.
Someone who has never been on the system could try to get on in place of someone else who has never been on it, but once a person was on as themselves, it could be tricky for them to try and impersonate anyone else, since there's the potential for the system to recognise matching biometrics and ring alarm bells.
>>"The Ancient Greeks would have been horrified and would probably want to know why the hell anyone would want to abdicate their responsibilities like this. But then they weren't British so they probably couldn't relate to the idea that life is easier if you've got someone else to blame for your problems."
It *is* rather easier having ancient Greek-style democracy in a small city state than a decent-sized country.
Maybe even easier if you don't let your slaves or women vote.
Perhaps someone should tell them. It seems pretty bloody newsworthy to me. The Governments highly controversial ID Card Scheme is dealt a not insignificant blow by a high profile professional organisation - an organisation which it hoped would swallow this shit down and therefore be able to justify forcing it on the rest of us.
Or, could it be, possibly, at a stretch, that the BBC....brace yourselves....isn't actually anything like fair and impartial? Or, to take it one step further, is no more than a propoganda machine for this government?
No no....surely not. What was it Reith said..."inform, educate and entertain" I believe. Well, they're certainly educatin us proper init. I owe all I knows about the Wurld from the good old `beeb`. Oh yes. Its flat init, and full of terrorists who would kill you as soon as look at you. Oh and as "Sir" Ian Blair, live on UK television (GMTV, broadcast on Sunday 6th February 2005) stated “I don’t think people should distinguish crime and terrorism too easily”. Yea. Anyone see the path we are on yet? I get the feeling that more and more can every day.
We live in "interesting times", indeed.
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