Hello Kafka, My Old Friend

Further jollity follows the Government and its attempt to catalogue and file the population of the UK. It’s been flying under the news radar the past few months, but preparations are continuing for the introduction of hugely expensive and largely unwanted biometric ID cards in the next couple of years.

The first step in this programme, allegedly intended to make identity theft harder, is the introduction of chipped passports. You will have one if you have renewed in the past two or three years and you will definitely have one next time you renew. They were introduced in the wake of 9/11 to help make it close to impossible for the bad guys to cross international borders.

Marvellous. Fantastic.

Now, whatever the reasoning behind the need for this technology in passports (and, to be frank, I have less of a problem with those than I do with ID cards simply because I can choose not to have a passport if I wish) it has always bothered me that a government that is supposed to serve the people rather than monitor every individual fart wants to spend vast amounts of our money on something that few people want or believe will make a difference. Anyway, I have grumbled about all this before; the point is, that the Government cheerfully tells us that it will work and that once we have ID cards, life will be a bowl of cherries, global warming will reverse, petrol will be free and Utopia will be achieved.

You recall seeing in the news that 3,000 blank passports had been stolen, but the Passport Agency told us not to worry, because they were worthless since no-one could forge them? Here’s a little reminder – note how suddenly they are worth £2.5 million on the black market, incidentally, well now The Times has published a report on how they have managed to clone the 'fakeproof' e-passport in minutes using over the counter software and a £40 card reader.

New microchipped passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports.

I don't feel lied to at all. The technology is necessary and fool proof. It will work and we will all eat rose petal salad and fart perfume. The Government says so.

Hello Kafka, My Old Friend

Further jollity follows the Government and its attempt to catalogue and file the population of the UK. It’s been flying under the news radar the past few months, but preparations are continuing for the introduction of hugely expensive and largely unwanted biometric ID cards in the next couple of years.

The first step in this programme, allegedly intended to make identity theft harder, is the introduction of chipped passports. You will have one if you have renewed in the past two or three years and you will definitely have one next time you renew. They were introduced in the wake of 9/11 to help make it close to impossible for the bad guys to cross international borders.

Marvellous. Fantastic.

Now, whatever the reasoning behind the need for this technology in passports (and, to be frank, I have less of a problem with those than I do with ID cards simply because I can choose not to have a passport if I wish) it has always bothered me that a government that is supposed to serve the people rather than monitor every individual fart wants to spend vast amounts of our money on something that few people want or believe will make a difference. Anyway, I have grumbled about all this before; the point is, that the Government cheerfully tells us that it will work and that once we have ID cards, life will be a bowl of cherries, global warming will reverse, petrol will be free and Utopia will be achieved.

You recall seeing in the news that 3,000 blank passports had been stolen, but the Passport Agency told us not to worry, because they were worthless since no-one could forge them? Here’s a little reminder – note how suddenly they are worth £2.5 million on the black market, incidentally, well now The Times has published a report on how they have managed to clone the 'fakeproof' e-passport in minutes using over the counter software and a £40 card reader.

New microchipped passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports.

I don't feel lied to at all. The technology is necessary and fool proof. It will work and we will all eat rose petal salad and fart perfume. The Government says so.