From: bill payne <billp@nmol.com> To: webmaster@cylink.com CC: federico pena <" Federico.F.Pena"@hq.doe.gov>, jy@jya.com, john gilmore <gnu@toad.com>, j orlin grabbe <kalliste@aci.net>, cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Jim Omura
<B>cn010598.txt Electronic Surveillance News January 5, 1998</B>
2 January 1998, Newsbytes: British Govt Announces Smart Card Plans for UK Citizens London, England: Amid the quiet of the Christmas and New Year break, the British government revealed plans for a "citizen's smart card" that will streamline the interfacing of British people with their government. In plain English, that translates to a smart card that can be used to allow people to pay all of their taxes, including income tax, national insurance, and local taxes, as well as apply for passports, state benefits, and other forms of government welfare. The idea behind the smart card, according to Peter Kilfoyle, the British public services minister, is that people will be able to use the card to identify themselves to the various government computers, all of which will be interlinked with each other. Kilfoyle claims that there are "huge potential savings" to be had from the introduction of the smart card, although he revealed that possessing a card will be voluntary. When questioned further on this, he admitted, however, that people could find it difficult to operate in the future without such a card. Initially, the citizen's smart card will rely on traditional PIN protection systems to allow a person to ID themselves alongside the card to the government computer systems. In the longer term, and certainly within the next five years, the plan is to allow an individual to use a fingerprint or similar biometric system for positive identification. ---- Fingerprinting everyone on the planet: those of you in CA and a handful of other states have already been fingerprinted "so you can drive". Police will eventually be able to stop anyone and demand to check their fingerprints via cheap small portable scanners. EFF/EPIC etc need to specifically target these biometric systems as being way over the top. Totally unnecessary. ---guy How did you CA cypherpunks feel about being fingerprinted?