mark starr

We'll be able to sign up for ID cards at Tesco
By Philip Johnston
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 12/05/2008

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Almost unnoticed last week, the Government announced it had shaved another £1 billion off the cost of its proposed identity card scheme.

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It did so by deciding to let the "open market" capture citizens' biometrics, effectively outsourcing the cost of enrolling people on to the ID database. You could end up getting your fingerprints taken at a supermarket, rather than at a passport office as originally proposed.

Almost imperceptibly, the security architecture originally built around the ID card project has been dismantled.

When it was proposed in 2002, the intention was to establish a bespoke database. David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, said: "We've got to build a clean identity database from scratch. We can't use the National Insurance numbers, as there are 20 million more National Insurance numbers than there are people in the country."

But this idea was abandoned. Instead, biometrics will be stored on an existing system in the Home Office used for asylum seekers, biographical information will be held on a National Insurance database in the Department for Work and Pensions and a third database at the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) will hold administrative details related to the issue and use of the ID cards.

It was also envisaged that everyone would have to give an iris print, which is the most secure biometric with a far lower chance of false readings than fingerprints. Last year, however, the Identity and Passport Agency said it would proceed only with fingerprints, which are far cheaper to capture.

Still, at least these fingerprints would be taken in the secure and official environs of a government passport office, one of 70 being set up for this purpose. But when it became clear that far more than 70 offices would be needed to enrol 60 million people on to a database, and it would be costly, this changed as well. Hence the announcement that private contractors will be asked to bid for the work.

Does any of this sound secure to you? It seems to defeat the purpose of the whole exercise, which is to protect identities, capture terrorists, bear down on benefit fraud and stop illegal immigration. But of course none of these will be ameliorated by the possession of an ID card, which nobody will be required to carry with them.

As one perplexed campaigner said after the publication of the new costings: "The Government now appears to have junked the primary pretext for the scheme. So what is it for?"

The answer has nothing to do with security, any more than the presence of CCTV cameras everywhere has anything to do with stopping crime, as even senior police officers now concede. It is about political control. The state wants to know where you are, and those who run it have always believed it has a right to know, but have usually been beaten back by Parliament.

Information technology has provided the wherewithal for these details to be captured, so the Government has seized its chance. The problem for us, though, is that it expects to be given the information without guaranteeing its security.

The only thing that would make this bargain remotely worthwhile is the certainty that our details will be secure, and a promise that we will not be mistaken for someone else. After all, it is the law-abiding citizen accused of being an illegal immigrant or an armed robber who stands to lose most.

So what is the ID scheme for? A few years ago the Treasury was developing the Citizen Information Project (CIP) - an attempt to "improve services by increasing the sharing of basic citizen information (contact details such as name, address and date of birth) across central and local government."

This envisaged establishing a population register, initially using the passport, DVLA and National Insurance databases to access and centralise personal information. The population database would be updated as births, deaths and changes of address were registered, and people came to live in the UK. The CIP was abandoned in 2003 when the ID scheme took over.

A valedictory report on the project said: "The National Identity Register proposed as part of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme will deliver many of the CIP benefits... by effectively acting as the UK adult population register."

Shorn of much of its security paraphernalia, that is what the ID scheme now is. It will fulfil an aim of British public policy since the 16th century. The Tudors wanted to set up a population register, and another failed attempt was made in 1753, when it was proposed to take an annual local count of population, and a record of all marriages, births and deaths. The idea was never pursued and Britain instead moved to a census as a way of counting the population.

But the population register concept was picked up in countries like Sweden, where everyone has a unique personal number (UPN) allocated at birth. For instance, 454010-1488 is a woman born on April 10, 1945 with the individual number 148 (an even number denotes a woman) and an anti-fraud check digit 8. All administrative records relating to this person carry the UPN from birth until death.

Politically, it seems peculiar that the Government did not define this whole exercise in the context of a population register from the start, rather than as the imposition of an identity card with all the attendant civil liberties connotations.

It would have sounded less sinister than an ID database and would have been far cheaper. A feasibility study for the CIP estimated it would cost £13 million to develop a register, £240 million to implement it and £25 million a year to run.

Given the gradual removal of the security walls around the proposed ID database, it is clear that this scheme has nothing to do with protecting our identities. It is about setting up a glorified population register to keep track of us.

Those who think the Government will scrap the ID cards are mistaken, since its main purpose is to establish a population database. This is also why it will eventually be compulsory to join in. You should start working out your UPN now.

mark starr

Observer on same topic

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor The Observer, Sunday May 11 2008


A government-appointed panel of experts is warning that the new ID cards system will be open to fraud by the people running it.

In a potentially damaging revelation, which undermines claims that the scheme will enhance national security, the group has concluded that it will be prone to corruption.

A new report by the Independent Scheme Assurance Panel (Isap), set up to advise the government on the implementation of ID cards, states: 'Based on the likelihood that the scheme will aggregate a lot of valuable data, there is the risk that its trusted administrators will make improper use of this data.' It adds: 'The scheme will be subject to data errors and errors in decisions made.'

The acknowledgements come as the government has admitted it is to contract out the taking of fingerprints and photographs of ID card applicants to the private sector to save money.

The news has alarmed opponents of the scheme, who say this will increase the risk that the data of individuals will be illegally shared with third parties. 'By cutting costs and cutting corners, the Home Office has fundamentally undermined the integrity of the scheme,' said Phil Booth, spokesman for the campaign group, No2ID.

The Isap report goes on to warn that the scheme may not be embraced by government departments, suggesting the cards are not being well received in some Whitehall departments.

The panel also warns the initiative is struggling to fulfil its remit. It states that the scheme lacks a 'robust and transparent operational data governance regime and clear data architecture', suggesting there is confusion over its roll-out. And it goes on to say: 'Though the tender process is supposedly well advanced, requirements for information, communication and technology systems, processes and operations have still to be adequately specified and the rationale for key design decisions is unclear.'

The report is potentially damaging to the government as it battles to convince the public of the necessity for the cards. The Conservatives have pledged to scrap the scheme and spend money on building prisons instead.

A spokesman for the Home Office said the decision to outsource the biometric part of the ID cards contract to the private sector was taken on cost grounds. 'Using the private sector to provide biometric enrolment will give applicants a choice of competing services which should maximise convenience and drive down price,' the spokesman said.

And he said there was no risk to security. 'The private sector will provide the Immigration and Passport Service with the photograph and fingerprints of applicants but will have no decision-making powers over who is eligible for a passport or identity card,' the spokesman said. 'This will be made by security-cleared civil servants.'

But No2ID said the sysyem was open to corruption. 'Ministers pride themselves on biometrics and security,' Booth said. 'But now this is going out to all and sundry.'

Westcountryman

This has been posted before at:

ID cards scheme 'is open to fraud' (The Observer)

Also, there is a specific NO2ID forum at:

NO2ID - British Democracy Forum

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jim h

Re Atlanticist comment the problem is not many people go to the special forum, far more read these threads. It is interesting that both the Telegraph and Observer have picked the same story up and regard ID cards with equal dislike.