Anyone know more about this BT "uk identity verification" sc heme?

[Brian Morrison]

On Fri, 7 Mar 2003 12:16:54 -0000, David_Biggins@usermgmt.com wrote:

>Took No.1 son down to the sports centre to get his "swindon card", now
>required as proof of ID to use all the local facilities - made mandatory on
>the somewhat strange excuse that out-of-town people were actually daring to
>come into swindon and pay good money to use these services - and despite
>turning up as a family, they required proof of ID for him, separately from
>the rest of us, to be in the form of an official letter addressed to him at
>our address - birth cert etc., were not acceptable.  How many 15 year olds
>receive official letters, and keep them in case they need ID?   He
>eventually used the Nominet certificate for his domain - they were perfectly
>happy with that, even though Nominet of course require no proof of anything
>to create a domain.

Madness, so he now has a verified identity based on nothing at all, and
if that were to be used as proof of ID in another sphere one simply
builds on even more sand.

Interestingly this has just appeared on the BBC today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/business/2827917.stm

Essentially saying that Visa in the US is now insisting that by 2006
all card terminals in the US must show no more than the last 4 digits
of the credit card number. All to combat identity theft.

Clearly Visa haven't been to Swindon.....

-- 
Brian Morrison                                       bdm@fenrir.org.uk
              do you know how far this has gone?
               just how damaged have I become?
                                      'Even Deeper' by Nine Inch Nails