May 17, 2012
Published: 14 Dec 09 15:48 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20091214-23931.html
The German Interior Ministry confirmed on Monday that new identification cards containing radio-frequency (RFID) chips will be introduced starting November 1, 2010 - but some data protection experts are critical of the decision.
Kristen Allen (kristen.allen@thelocal.de)
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
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Your comments about this article:
When the expiration date comes, a new one costs a fee of 8 € at the moment.
But im sure with this fancy new chip in it, the lady at the CRO will surely smile and say "That makes 15 € please" and "oh yes, it can take between 10 to 12 weeks until its ready instead of the usual 8 weeks"
and before someone turns this into a privacy thing, technology exists to pull the data off the magnetic strips on your credit cards from 15ft+....
[personally I'd like a credit card-sized ID that actually fits in my wallet.....]
Sounds like science fiction, but tracking ones movements and identifying from a distance has many unpleasant possibilities...no more anonymity...ever...which is a grotesque violation of ones right to privacy in my opinion.
I understand that it is an offence not to have it on your person.
Aside from the scientific flaws and fundamental misunderstandings of certain technologies...the level of conceit/egotism/inflated sense-of-self-worth is astounding!!!! "the anti-christ"??!!! What could POSSIBLY lead you to believe that some (by definition superior) ethereal being could give a flying f#ck about your pathetic and inconsequential corporeal existence or about your "eternal soul"??!! (it would be like you or I worrying about family-dynamics, worker-satisfaction/reward-system in an ant-farm...)
Under German law it is not an offence for a German citizen to have no ID card or a passport on his or her person. However - and this is the Catch-22 - you have to be able to identify yourself to the authorities here on demand. The police are usually content to accept a driving licence but your local town hall won't, so most German find it convenient to have the ID card on them at all times.
mixxim:
Even us Brits are NOT required required to carry our passports around with us all the time. But there's some talk that we will have to carry the proposed electronic foreigners' ID card masquerading as a residence permit (you know, the one with the compulsory fingerprints) on us all the time. Time will tell.
martell:
German citizens were allowed to opt out of the fingerprint requirement because (a) it was/is felt in many quarters that this would infringe the right to informational self-determination for many of them and (b) those Germans who have passports are required to hand over both index-fingerprints anyway.
However, there may be a Catch-22 if the private sector starts requiring fingerprints before it lets you do business e.g. banks. But this remains to be seen.
As an aside, apparently us furriners will be obliged to hand over both index-fingerprints for the new, pesky foreigners' ID card - sorry, residence permit.