purpose

fears relating to terrorism and illegal immigration, and the growing problems of identity theft and fraud have induced several countries’ governments to propose national identity card schemes, most recently the US, UK, Japan and France.

identity cards are nothing new: in developed countries most people own numerous identity cards: passport, driving licence, bank cards, library card, entry cards for school, office or sports club, and so on. a national identity card is primarily used to identify people to government agencies: immigration, social and health services, and so on.

proposed schemes

most proposed schemes centre around a national identity register, containing key details about each resident and the identity numbers allocated by government departments, encapsulating an individual’s entire relationship with the state in one record. each presentation of an identity card involves contact being made with the central register to verify identity (with a biometric signature) and retrieve an identity number (which can then be used to retrieve records held by that particular government agency).

there are three principal grounds for serious concern with such schemes:

technically flawed

• the risk of failure of a centralised system is high.
• the tolerable level of risk of failure, sabotage and snooping is virtually zero.
• the costs of commissioning and maintaining such large scale systems rise exponentially as the risks are reduced towards zero.

civil liberties infringed

• large numbers of civil servants at many levels will have access to the national identity register on an ongoing basis.
• safeguards to ensure that information is only released on a need-to-know basis may be flawed, circumvented illegally, or deliberately removed for misguided reasons.
• it is a golden principal of civil liberties that nobody in a position of power should know more about an individual than necessary to do their job.
• if you have nothing to hide, why worry? because, even in a stable country run by a benign government, there are people at all levels of power who are prejudiced, indiscrete, vindictive or paranoid; and because anyone can become a victim of injustice.

unnecessary

• the data stored in the central register could just as well be stored on the card itself.
• all information on the card could be encrypted in such a way as to make it tamper-proof and updatable only by authorised agencies.

the alternative

any alternative scheme should satisfy the following:

• the technical and procedural framework for storing, updating, and retrieving data from an identity card should be published as an open standard.
• the standard must allow for different levels or combinations of identity verification to be used by different bodies depending on the risks entailed by misidentification.
• the standard should allow for verification by PIN or password entry (since biometric verfication will not be possible or cost-effective in all situations).
• the standard must allow for remote identity verification, for instance over the the Internet.
• the standard must allow for the technology used to verify identity and encrypt data to be changed over time (as more reliable systems are developed).
• all information on the card must be encrypted in such a way as to make it tamper-proof.
• an individual’s biometric signature must normally only be stored only on the individual’s card. (temporary exceptions would apply for criminal investigations, and permanent exceptions for certain classes of convicted criminals.)
• any public or private body should be able to store its own identity number for an individual on his or her identity card, allowing this one card to be used in place of other identity cards.
• it must be possible to make a backup or copy of an identity card with minimal difficulty.
• the card should be able to hold critical medical details (e.g. blood group, severe allergies, organ donation preferences) and emergency contact details if desired by the holder.

further reading

• UK Home Office : Identity Cards
• silicon.com : ID cards on trial
• Privacy International : Identity Cards

contributors

Edward Leigh

what is a sign language?

sign language is a complete language like any spoken language, but using hand and facial gestures (primarily) to convey meaning. some gestures are ‘pictorial’, and convey their meaning without reference to any other language; other gestures refer to words in a spoken language, usually by ‘finger-spelling’ some of the letters from the word.

is there an international sign language?

sign languages are regionally specific, to countries and even to regions within countries (just as with spoken dialects). there is an international sign language, originally called Gestuno, but it is an ‘artificial’ language (in the same way as Esperanto) and its use is limited.

who would use an international sign language?

if enough people learnt it, then we all would – all the time:

• in normal conversation: watch people talk and you’ll see that we use hand gestures normally. If we learnt hand gestures that reinforced what we were saying, communication would be doubly effective, with less chance of misunderstandings.
• in clubs and bars when the music is too loud to talk
• when travelling abroad
• with deaf people: approximately 1% of the population are severely or profoundly deaf and 15% are hard of hearing
• when you grow old: almost everyone experiences hearing loss as they grow older, which is frustrating and often isolating
• across large distances when shouting is ineffective or not appropriate
• to someone in another car: ever wished you could chat up someone in a neighbouring car at traffic lights?
• in noisy environments: many people work in noisy conditions where accurate communication is essential for their safety: building and other engineering sites, factories, assembly lines, marshalling yards, power stations, engine rooms, …
• on set, in theatre, film, TV or radio: when the action’s running, many people need to communicate behind the scenes, but silently

why is sign language preferable to, say, English?

English is a spoken language used on an everyday basis by less than a tenth of the world population. English is of direct benefit only to those who work in international business, the tourist industry, or who have access to cable TV. English has a cultural history that is seen as threatening to many people for whom it is not their first language.

an artificial sign language on the other hand would enhance communication on a day to day basis for all ’speakers’, whilst also opening up the possibility of communicating with those who do not share a spoken language. we would all have to learn it, but we would all benefit from doing so.

what would be the downsides?

• sign cannot assist with written communication. however technology is better able to address this problem, both with machine translation (most easily with e-mails and web pages) and, in the longer term, with widespread use of video telephony.
• people would be able to cheat more easily when sitting examinations together.
• we would never be able to play charades ever again.

further reading

• HandSpeak : International Sign
• English Speaking Union : how many people speak English
• RNID : facts and figures on deafness
• Deaf Resource Library : directory of links relating to sign languages

contributors

Edward Leigh

what’s wrong with democracy?

the fundamental principle of democracy is beyond question: that government is for the benefit of all people, and so must answer to their needs and aspirations. but implementations of democracy are flawed:

representation

• disempowerment of minorities whose interests (e.g. religion, language and culture) are opposed or ignored by the popular majority.
• parties elected on manifestos of incompatible or contradictory promises, especially in different areas of government (business and environment, social security and tax, public services and minimal government, law & order and civil liberties); the biggest contradiction, which leads to recurrent disappointment, is the promise of improvements in public services and lower taxes.
• politicians who assume higher levels of responsibility become unable to honour their obligations for local representation.
• party line overrides individual views and inhibits proper representation of electors.
• governments make decisions that have consequences for people of other countries to whom they are virtually unaccountable.

communication

• unregulated lobbying of elected representatives, with influence correlating with financial resources.
• public scrutiny frustrated by secrecy, arbitrary application of ‘classified’ status, and controlled presentation of evidence, inferences and decisions.
• dependence on distorted and partial coverage by the media to present government policy.

professionalism

• elected representatives having no proven competence to do the job – compare this with the qualifaction requirements for lawyers, accountants, doctors or teachers.
• poverty of technical expertise amongst elected representatives for assessing scientific and statistical evidence.
• personality being the principal criterion for candidate selection, tending to favour vain, ambitious, corrupt and sociopathic individuals.

accountability

• autocratic decision making owing to lack of accountability during a term of office.
• candidates for election to high office requiring commercial sponsorship, creating obligations that may conflict with constituents’ interests.

continuity

• periodic hiatus in government in run-up to elections and following changes of government.
• planning, statistics and decision-making manipulated to improve a governing party’s chances of re-election.

what should a reformed government look like?

government should satisfy the following standards:

• transparency: there should be total transparency of planning, policy, decision making and spending. government should publish (electronically) minutes of all meetings; details of experts consulted, evidence and counter evidence acquired, assumptions, lines of reasoning considered, and conclusions drawn; detailed accounts of revenue and expenditure and formulae governing apportionment. where security or diplomatic issues are concerned and publication is believed to be inappropriate, an independent body of ‘civil auditors’ should scrutinize information on behalf of the public/media, publishing material as and when it ceases to be sensitive.
• avoidance of conflicts of interest: potential personal conflicts of interest should be identified, recorded and avoided. this would be made easier if responsibility were vested in groups rather than individuals.
• taxation policy should follow from other policies: people should vote for policies and feel the tax implications that follow; if people want to pay less tax, then they must vote for policies that entail lower taxes, not vote for lower taxes as a policy in itself.
• empowerment of special interest groups: special interest groups, such as those that represent the environment, trade, employees, people with disabilities, heritage, should participate directly in government in proportion to their popular support.
• professionalism: anyone involved in higher levels of government must have a proven competence in the disciplines required and knowledge of the framework (social, political, legal, historical) within which government operates.
• ongoing accountability: the electorate should be able to re-invest their vote at any time, not just at termly elections. a delay between the election and transfer of a vote (of, say, 60 days) provides a ‘cooling off’ period during which an elector may reconsider their decision; it also ensures that power shifts can be predicted and prepared for.

how can this be achieved?

modern government is a mammoth and enormously complex business that, barring war or disaster, will not change rapidly. therefore reform will only be achieved through incremental changes, each of which must be fully thought through, readily comprehensible and will have to attract popular attention and overwhelming support. a tall order!

further reading

• Central Government Reform (JP)
• Fabian Society (UK)

contributors

Edward Leigh

WHO report

the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a report on patient safety in December 2001 quoting several national surveys, which indicate that ‘adverse events’ (unanticipated problems which cause harm) occur in around 10% of all health care interventions in the US, Australia, UK, and Denmark. clearly the problem is grievous and costly, yet it attracts little media attention, few prosecutions, and little inclination for systemic change to tackle it. the WHO subsequently published a resolution urging member states to improve monitoring procedures and foster better practices.

learning from mistakes

there need to be national bodies (’patient safety observers’) set up to:

• monitor, investigate and document medical errors and ‘near misses’
• identify patterns leading to error
• instigate research into improvements to existing medical procedures or alternatives
• compile a freely-accessible knowledgebase of best practice

to avoid conflicts of interest, patient safety observers should:

• be directly funded by, and answerable to, government not hospitals
• not lead investigations into criminal negligence (though they should be required to co-operate with such investigations)
• have powers to subpoena medical staff, suppliers of drugs, and suppliers and maintainers of medical equipment
• preserve the anonymity of all parties to an investigation (except in cases of criminal negligence)

the WHO, or an international body under its aegis, should:

• co-ordinate the work of national bodies and disseminate the findings
• maintain a public international directory of health workers barred from practice, and of suppliers found guilty of negligent or unethical practices

negligence

there must not be an assumption that error implies negligence: the full co-operation of doctors, nurses, patients and others is necessary if facts are to be established with minimal disruption and distress. changes to procedure and/or retraining should follow as soon as possible. where negligence or incompetence is uncovered, then disciplinary or criminal procedures should take their course.

reparation

whether or not someone can be blamed should not determine the extent and terms of reparation available to a victim of a medical error, and/or their family. though this is a debatable issue of justice, a ‘no blame’ policy of reparation (medical, psychological, practical or financial) for all ‘adverse events’ would be advantageous to both victims and health professionals.

further reading

• WHO : Quality of care: patient safety - resolution
• National Patient Safety Agency (UK)
• National Institute for Clinical Excellence (UK)
• Cure Research : Medical Mistakes
• Harvard Medical International : Tackling Medical Error

news articles

• One in three medical errors ‘procedural’ (BBC)
• NHS Watchdog to Monitor Operations (BBC)
• Surgeon Hid Ban to Get Work (BBC)
• Firm Silent As Patients Died (Washington Post)
• Human Error Causes of Medication Errors Discovered (Doctor’s Guide)

contributors

Edward Leigh, Len Caune