PTSD

Identity concerns in the ID card debate

I've been keeping up with the ID card debate on the other side of the Atlantic because it fits in with my ongoing interest in how people are categorised (and categorise themselves).

This report today doesn't actually inspire confidence that biometric ID cards are going to be the solution to problems of border-crossing and entry that states seem to face.

The report says that irises and fingerprints will be used to identify people but that typists and manual labourers are among those whose fingerprints may be worn out (and, hence, misidentified and not recognised as citizens, most likely).

The news report followed up with this:

"Men who go bald also risked being identified as someone else."
(How about women? Does the same apply for them? )

So, bald people, especially men, have to be wary of suddenly being someone else.

Then, being scanned "in the wrong type of light or in shadow" could lead to "inaccurate identification". This is rather unclear about what sort of inaccurate identification they are talking about: would that person get classified as a non-British citizen? Would s/he not be recognised at all (hence being a non-person)? Or would other, non-British people get identified as British?

Depending on what would happen, the possibilities of wrong (in terms of the ID card's goal of identifying legally-resident British people) classification seem quite high, especially as the report further adds that brown-eyed people have high chances of being "misidentified".

I can only conclude, from all this, that if you are British and bald and brown-eyed, you are likely to be in deep trouble. Presumably you could be categorised as an alien of some sort, with a non-valid ID card. Probably carted off to questioning where you could then be held up to 90 days without charge.

posted by Priya @ 4:57 PM