The wonders of Identity Technology

One thing for which I am immensely indebted to the DemTor government is the scrapping of the Identity Cards scheme.
Obviously there are the benefits in terms of personal liberty, and the removal of the danger that some civil servant will leave a CD containing your personal details on a Tube train, or that your mental health records and details of your 17 illegitimate children will be posted on e-bay. But that's not really what I'm thinking about.

No, I've been able to pick up a job-lot of old biometric equipment and related software from some fairly depressed early adopters.  And with the help of Young Keith (who, being the only member of the Coalition to belong to neither party, has a fortnight off) I've knocked up some really impressive ID bracelets. Forget about those rubbishy bits of stretchy coloured paper you try to keep around your wrist at Spring Harvest (let the Reader understand). Instead think of some rather nice chunky rubber bracelets, with copper inlays that may well help ward off arthritis during extended chanting sessions in damp orchards.  You simply wave these bracelets over the scanners when buying devotional aids, relics and other tat in the Beaker Bazaar, or when visiting the pay-per-view liturgical dance sessions.  We then directly debit the Beaker Person's Credit Card account - thus making our cashflow positive, reducing the risks of armed robbery, and awarding the Beaker Person loyalty points.

Now I know what you're thinking. There are alternative ways of encoding identity. But iris recognition is so much less workable in an environment where people frequently have black eyes, or red, blood-shot ones. And then people baulked at us putting RF-ID chips in the scruffs of their necks. The idea of applying an EAN-128 barcode to Beaker People seemed a sensible use of well-established technology. But we couldn't get GS1-UK to come up with an AI for "religious sect" - not without us joining, at any rate. And then there was the fraught question of whether the barcodes should be applied by tattooing or branding.

But what really swung it was, the copper insets were the only way we could think of to deliver electric shocks when we need to bring the Community to order in a hurry. And with the GPS transponders in every bracelet, I can now determine where every Beaker Person is at any time. So helpful when you "need to know" who was on a clandestine assignation with a Beaker Person of the opposite genital group -or, indeed, a confirmed bachelor - whatever that is.