Quangos: The Unseen Government of the UK

[Brendan]

There are systems where citizens can subscribe to a government scheme that gives them a unique reference number, perhaps with an associated document, so that they can prove their identity to other parties. That is hugely different to enforced system of personal identification that criminalises non-participants and is there for a government to have a unique reference to each individual in order to monitor their activities using a central database. It will also allow private companies to do the same.

May as well tattoo a number on my arm and have it checked by a trooper everytime a use a public service or travel outside of my alocated zone.

I won?t even go into the fact that they will force you pay for this privilege.

?But why should I worry about it if I?m not going to do anything wrong??

A very close friend of mine actually said that to me a while ago. I was exasperated! If you can?t see the problem with that statement you have obviously been bent over for so long you have no hope of ever seeing the sky again.

[clive3300]

david_carnell Wrote:

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>

> Someone gets my ID card data - they get

> everything. I'm screwed, am I not?

>

> Show me a data system that cannot be

> hacked/manipulated and I might reconsider.

It depends on how the system is designed: A monolithic central database containing everything where the only access requirement is your unique id would be this vulnerable. But only an idiot would design it as such, and its probably well beyond the capabilities of a single real world database.

If someone has your unique id number / card - its just a number. In itself it doesnt PROVE who you are, but for simple transactions might be enough. More complex would still require additional documentation (the level of proof dependent on the risk associated). E.g. A phone account query requiring less than buying a car on credit.

But once the link between the number and a person is made (from the point of view of a company or gov organisation) then the ID becomes a convenience. At no point can a company "look up" all your records using your ID number. E.g. your sort code and account number are potentially much more vulnerable to abuse (they link directly to your bank) - but without the correct authorisation, they cannot be used.

So your NHS records would be linked to your ID, but only within the NHS Database. Similarly your tax details within the Revenue. But the revenue database has no access to the NHS (obviously). However if they need to, authorities could get individual access to each to find out everything, but no one employee would ever have that access, any more than they would now. And to be honest - if they could do it then, they could do it now, it would just take a bit longer.

But the value comes in e.g.

1. when someone has committed fraud - its linked to their ID card and as soon as someone authenticates their documents to that number, it can immediately be flagged.

2. If someone steals your identity - instead of having to move house as someone is using some stolen bills, there is the potential for just getting a new number (granted you would need police clearance etc), completely seperating you from the stolen ID

3. You dont have to remember a zillion account numbers - the ID can work just as yoru post code can work now. but you dont have to give your physical address. I hate telling people where I live for transactions that have nothing to do with my location

[clive3300]

Another e.g. - How much harder would it be to conduct benefit fraud with an ID system. Currently people can claim to live in multiple places and claim multiple times. Each council unaware that Joe Bloggs in one address is the same as another.

With a unique number this, and many other simple cons that cost the taxpayer millions, become impossible.

[????]

Well if you got rid of benefits alltogether you'd stop that and save the taxpayer Billions

*walks away innocently hands in pockets whistling

[Brendan]

Fine by me. As long as the spare money is used to provide all children with the same high leve of education and private schools are outlawed.

[clive3300]

what if some kids dont want to learn?

or arent bright enough to learn past a certain stage?

[Brendan]

At least their children will still have an equal start in life.

[SeanMacGabhann]

You have GOT to stop doing that....

[clive3300]

Brendan Wrote:

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> At least their children will still have an equal

> start in life.

That is just a dream.

I am fine on spending taxes on poor kids with ability and who are interested in learning. But I object to taxes being wasted on keeping kids (of working age) in school who dont give a damn about education. I similarly would object to kids with ability being stuck in classes with clearly hopeless, disruptive and uninterested students. Spreading the resources, both money and human, simply gives everyone a substandard education.

Only the lefty nutters think everyone really wants to do an honours degree. Most kids want to get the hell out of school and the last few years of school are a total waste.

I went to a government school where I did get a decent education. But if necessary my kids will go to private if they would really benefit from it. However, if my kids just want to pull pints in a pub all their life, thats fine, but then no private education and they can leave school at 16.

[Brendan]

If it wasn?t for people dreaming unjust systems would never be destroyed. I am an idealist and I will never buy into this idea of acceptance things as "having to be that way".

A life not subject to an oppressive monarchy may have seemed like a dream to Frenchman in the 18th centaury.

EDITED: coz ideologist wsn't really the right word.

[SeanMacGabhann]

* sups pint and listens to clive3300, nodding simultaneously *

* meanwhile, slowly but very deliberately backs away *

Her we get to the nub of the question. As a society just what do we do with people who are feckless/uninterested (apart from make the president - ba dum tsh)

I have yet to hear the phrase "I object to my taxes..." come out of the mouth of anyone who isn't doing pretty darned well. Certainly compared with 98% (random made up figure to illustrate a point!) of the global population

Re: "I am fine on spending taxes on poor kids with ability and who are interested in learning. But I object to taxes being wasted on keeping kids (of working age) in school who dont give a damn about education"

It's easy enough to point out wasters in school. That doesn't mean they are without prospects. Any number of factors could contribute to disruptive behaviour. Making ghettos certainly won't lift them out of trouble.

"Only the lefty nutters think everyone really wants to do an honours degree" - by which you mean anyone on the left is a nutter presumably? Besides what good is a degree if everyone can get one

"Spreading the resources, both money and human, simply gives everyone a substandard education. " + "I went to a government school where I did get a decent education."

Ohh dear - what to make of that. Apparently the decent education didn't include how to make a consistent argument

But if we fast forward to the conclusion of targetting the money and resources to the good kids - how will it improve the world we live in?

"Most kids want to get the hell out of school and the last few years of school are a total waste. " - First half is true. Certainly for me. I left at 16. Second half... not so true

[clive3300]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

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> "I went to a government school where I did get a

> decent education."

> Ohh dear - what to make of that. Apparently the

> decent education didn't include how to make a

> consistent argument

>:D< nice try: unfortunately you have made a wrong assumption in your analysis: not all government schools try to give exactly the same level to all kids regardless of ability. Some are/were pragmatic and not driven by the ideology which seems to govern modern UK schooling

my school had 10 classes per year, ranked by ability. few in the last 5 did any more than the absolute minimum, and they tended to not have the best teachers. They didnt care, and the better teachers went to the best pupils.

didnt appreciate the snide remark. perhaps continue your education sometime huh

[SeanMacGabhann]

and I though the >:D< meant you did enjoy it ah well

I have been put in my place by my betters

[clive3300]

peace

[SeanMacGabhann]

(tu)*peace back *

but more seriously, and all snideness (snidity?) apart

you did say "everyone" a substandard education - only in your subsequent post did you exapand to say that, in fact you didn't mean "everyone". So was my analysis flawed or was I going with the facts as presented?

In any case the bigger questions remain unanswered. Do you believe (in your school for example) that EVERYONE in the bottom 5 were/are a write-off Were there people in there who might have benefited from proper guidance (not necessarily the school system in it's current form)

And if you do consider them a write-off, how much of your taxes saved will be spent locking them up or otherwise dealing with them later on in life?

[clive3300]

i would hardly consider my old school to necessarily be the best way to do things, but here's how it sort of worked. From what i have heard from Brits, a few friends who teach etc, it seems a bit better than the UK's system.

The kids were more or less ranked on ability, classes 1-10. However on a skewed bell curve (which is the sort of distribution you get), typically you would find kids 20-30% of kids with higher than average (academic) ability who can be clearly ranked. The rest hover around a broad average and are somewhat unrankable.

The teachers and headmaster had the ability/power to choose to put kids where was practical for everyone. The important bit is that this wasnt controlled centrally by some 5 year plan: The I. J classes were a bit of the dumping ground for unruly kids, and they loved it there - throwing paper aeroplanes etc. They didnt bother people who cared, and generally, people didnt bother them. They still had to pass the same tests to finish, which they were allowed to, on a Lower Grade. Naturally these people ended up in careers where school grades are irrelevant.

The E-H tended to be informal collections of kids who collectively preferred a certain subject, for which they might get the best teacher of that subject. For subjects they didnt care for, they got the grad teachers, or the teachers not teaching their primary subject, or the crazy/uncaring teachers. These kids generally were never going to be going to university, nor had much interest in it.

My argument is that good teachers arent stamped out of some factory somewhere. The really good ones that can make a real difference to talented kids are few and far between. Making them effectively punching bags for undisciplined, uncaring kids who will NEVER give a damn is a waste of their time and talents, and virtually guarantees they will leave the profession in a few years, taking their subsidised degrees with them. And gee, in spite of ?1000 a week contract wages, lots of them do. Here is the waste in taxes.

Any argument that believes all teachers are equal, and that there are enough good ones to go around is simply unworkable. That said, no one is saying put all kids not scoring A+ in the workhouse.

Many careers dont require academic credentials. Why dictate them and waste people's time? This is the nanny state in action. You must learn French, the civil war, spherical geometry, blah blah blah

[clive3300]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

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> you did say "everyone" a substandard education -

> only in your subsequent post did you exapand to

> say that, in fact you didn't mean "everyone". So

> was my analysis flawed or was I going with the

> facts as presented?

I mean everyone. When you spread the talent and resources thinly, everyone suffers. So the people who could get the most out of an education and contribute most to the economy (the doctors of the future, if you like) suffer because the best biology teacher in the school is wasting her time trying to explain reproduction to a bunch of laughing kids throwing things.

[SeanMacGabhann]

But my point is that by saying "everyone", the truth is you have done ok. I have done ok. Many people on here have done ok

Would we have done better had we stripped away the "chaff"? I'm not so sure

I agree with some of the problems you highlight but it's the solution that I disagree with

I'm not disagreeing that the environment and everything would be better. But if there are that many disruptive kids then I would say the solution is not to ghetto-ise but to figure out better ways of educating. Casting the wasters into whatever level 10 class with Mr NoHopeLoser as a teacher is only storing up trouble for the future

[mockney piers]

Back on the subject of this hypothetical secure, well designed and distributed database system, that will doubtless come in on time and under budget.

Who has been hired to implement it?

Fujitsu, who have fiiiinally been sacked from delivery (or not) of the monumentally costly and useless NHS IT strategy, CSC (see above NHS IT strategy) and EDS who have screwed up pretty much everything they've ever touched and have been woefully poor in the area of data security in the past (and I should know, I worked for them, incompetent and clueless doesn't even come close).

Well that's alright then, it'll all be fine!

[SeanMacGabhann]

yay - MP is back in the serious threads.....

[clive3300]

Sorry? dont know what the connection is between this and an ID card.

The "hypothetical secure, well designed and distributed database system"(s)already exist. The core change is moving from using your name, post code and housenumber to identify you to a random number.

Saying you'd throw out ID concepts because the NHS are idiots is like saying we should all stop using computers for the same reason - a wild overreaction based on misunderstanding.

This isnt rocket science - developing countries have done this successfully because its the only workable solution in such an environment. This works reliably in countries where 1/2 the population doesnt own property or live in formal housing or have phones or bank accounts. Many cant read or speak a language anyone understands. Throw in that there is no reliable central repository of the formal property that does exist and the people working for the government are largely badly educated and dont give a damn. And yet you want to make banking, benefits and voting secure. This already exists.

The UK system only works at all because the country is stable, educated, fairly homogeneous and developed. That doesnt make it optimal.

[david_carnell]

Does it? What 3rd world countries have biometric ID cards?

[clive3300]

Who said biometric?

[david_carnell]

The British government....

[SeanMacGabhann]

errr. the UK government in it's proposals?

That's partly why people like me object

edit: cross post with Carnell!