Vendors left waiting on ID scheme details
Mark Ballard writes in The Register:
Jerry Fishenden, national technology officer at Microsoft UK, told The Register that those IT suppliers that will be expected to implement the ID scheme are concerned about the blinkered approach the government has taken to its preparations.
Any healthy debate about the best way to build what will be the most ambitious project of its kind anywhere in the world has been bullied into submission.
“There’s a problem for anyone who is vaguely critical. The reception the LSE got has put anyone off putting their head above the parapet,” said Fishenden.
The London School of Economics report, which offered constructive criticism of the government’s ID plans, attracted government derision.
The Home Office says it has been conducting a “market sounding” with hundreds of suppliers since last summer and it will publish the findings shortly.
Yet Fishenden said: “Most of the consultation appears to be about the procurement process rather than the system…there’s not a diversity of opinion to cover off angles we’ve not even thought about.”
