A witch....... burn her.

A couple of days I wrote the fallacy regarding the "biometric passports reducing terrorism meme" in which the powers that be are in some weird way, equating a clampdown on identity somehow with some sort of blanket safety barrier. Much in the same vein as Monty Python's "If she weighs the same as a duck, then she's a witch" form of logical reasoning.

Here's what I wrote reagrding the theft and switching of advanced identification. I couldn't recall the source.

I can't recall the source but there was a piece about how the more technological advanced identification such as holograms and biometrics would actually be highly prized rather than be a deterrent by those with less than honourable intentions. And yes these can be forged.

I tracked down the source. It was Phil Gomes Citystate which is a blog improving daily IMHO.

Phil writes:

"For some serious background, many of the answers to Beattie’s assertions can be found at Privacy International. I particularly liked the market value argument as a good reason not to pursue this course of action."

One unintended repercussion of ID card systems is that they can entrench widescale criminal false identity. By providing a one stop form of identity, criminals can easily use cards in several identities. Even the highest integrity bank cards are available as blanks in such countries as Singapore for several pounds. Within two months of the new Commonwealth Bank high security hologram cards being issued in Australia, near perfect forgeries were already in circulation. This conundrum has been debated in Australia, the UK and the Netherlands. It relies on the simple logic that the higher an ID cards value, the more it will be used. The more an ID card is used, the greater the value placed on it, and consequently, the higher is its value to criminal elements.