ID card rollout begins

[Ian Batten]

On 28 Sep 08, at 1135, Roland Perry wrote:

> In article <9DE8A857-5558-4F9B-8334-7A95DEB9A18C@batten.eu.org>, Ian  
> Batten <igb@batten.eu.org> writes
>>> That you aren't a terrorist (as far as MI5 could tell when you  
>>> applied for the card, that is).
>>
>> No one is suggesting that issue of any of these cards is equivalent  
>> to any particular form of clearance, are they?
>
> If not, what kind of risk are they intended to avert, or what sort  
> of assurance (of anything in particular) do they give?

I know you didn't mean that question to be rhetorical...
>

> This is the sort of "trust anchor trail" (can you have a trail of  
> them?) that I'm interested in. So, for example, why wouldn't a pass  
> that's "good enough for GCHQ" also be "good enough for the airside  
> shops at Luton airport".

Would a pass that's ``good enough for GCHQ'' also be ``good enough for  
working with children?''  or ``good enough for working for FSA- 
regulated companies?'' They're on the face of it orthogonal  
requirements.

> Driving licences work a bit like that; you can use them for limited  
> periods overseas, and they allow you to drive [some] things other  
> than what you were specifically tested on - trivially automatics if  
> you passed on a manual, but not vice versa).

But they define very closely the things you can drive as though on a  
full license and the things you can drive as though on a provisional:  
they don't act as a general permit to drive wheely-type things.  And  
if you're outside the EU you'd be well advise to regard the license  
you passed your group B (group E back in the day) car driving test on  
as a license to drive cars; all those other extensions (B1E minibus +  
trailer and so on) may not be valid.  Which is the same problem we're  
seeing with other documents: the semantics aren't defined well enough  
internationally.

ian