UK ID card procurement likely to start in June
According to an article in Security Document World:
The UK’s biometric-based national ID card procurement is expected to commence in June, slightly later than planned. The procurement has been delayed to fit in with the publication of a report by Sir James Crosby (commissioned by the UK Treasury), which will highlight the possible private sector uses of the scheme.
April 12th, 2007 at 14:18
So, once we have a report on the “possible” private sector uses for the abomination, watch out for legislation that makes them compulsory. I’m thinking of the anti-money laundering “know your customer” claptrap. [Has it actually nailed any big time criminals or terrorists?]
April 19th, 2007 at 13:44
The procurement process for the ID cards scheme is blighted by many factors.
1. The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) cannot settle on the objectives for the scheme. Is the idea to implement a scheme which would help to detect and prevent crime and help with counter-terrorism? That is what people want in the UK but ID cards cannot deliver. Or is the idea to implement the EU’s idea of eGovernment? That could most obviously be achieved by repair-ing the National Insurance number scheme (NINO). It’s nothing to do with ID cards. And if we can’t repair NINO, then there is no reason to believe that we will be able to make ID cards work.
2. IPS were reorganised last year, when the UK Passport Service was dissolved, then they acquired a new Chief Executive, James Hall, and now the Home Office is being split into two, an interior ministry and a justice department. These reorganisations are black holes, absorbing resources which could oth-erwise be deployed usefully.
3. David Davis promised in early February to scrap the ID cards scheme, which must have put the wind up the prospective suppliers and revealed Intellect to be led by a blackmailer. Morale among the suppliers must be low and in IPS it must be rock bottom.
4. The OGC review of IPS’s plans must have been highly critical, otherwise why go to court to resist the Information Commissioner’s instruction to publish it?
5. The Crosby public/private forum on identity management was due to report this month but their deadline has been missed.
6. Now it transpires that the Chancellor (well spotted stu2630!) has yet to sanction IPS’s budget in full.
7. Some time in the next 11 days, the Home Office must publish its second Section 37 report on the costs of the scheme.
8. There are unknown pressures on IPS from the US and from the EU.
I hope that this is a tipping point. If the UK cannot deliver on the ID cards scheme, there are international implications. Perhaps other countries also will wake up to the fact that we are all involved in a charade. We are all pretending that a scheme based on old-fashioned smart cards and unreliable biometrics can somehow help with crime, terrorism and state entitlements when, mani-festly, it can’t.
IPS could be released from their misery, the suppliers could use their undoubted brains to do something useful instead and taxpayers’ money could be used on something effective, either by the government or by the taxpayers themselves, here in the UK and overseas.
May 8th, 2007 at 21:28
I have downloaded the list of suppliers to the ID card scheme from the IPS website. I have started down this list contacting these suppliers and attempting to use consumer pressure.