Coming next… an even bigger database
Rachel Sylvester writes about Transformational Government in the Telegraph:
It is not just ID cards that will be jeopardised by the loss of 25 million people’s bank details. What has not so far been noticed is that Mr Brown’s entire strategy for improving the public services is based on the Government getting more power over personal data.
One of the first things the Prime Minister did on arriving at Number 10 was to appoint Sir David Varney as his “adviser on public service transformation”. Based at the Cabinet Office, the former O2 boss is the hidden power behind the throne. One Cabinet minister told me recently that the Varney recommendations for streamlining the delivery of health, education and welfare would be far more effective than the introduction of more market-based reforms.
Ironically, Sir David was the previous head of HM Revenue and Customs who resigned eight months ago over billions of pounds worth of fraud and errors in the tax credit system. That is a side issue. More relevant are his proposals for the public services, which involve radically altering the relationship between the citizen and the state.
Sir David’s aim, set out in a report he wrote for Mr Brown at the end of last year, is to create a giant centralised government database containing information about everybody in the country. It would establish what he calls a “single source of truth” about each individual – “made more robust through the introduction of identity cards” – which could be accessed by any department that wanted to verify who somebody was. It could also be used to target services more efficiently at individuals.
Meanwhile, Christina Zaba has an article on the same subject in The Guardian:
So many benefits. Tony Blair declared himself “delighted”. The authorities would be able to target each of us – just like Tesco does, only much better. They would remind you to get your insulin injection; suggest you took the train instead of driving; help you pay your tax properly. With ID cards in place, linked to a constantly growing personal database in the government’s hands, we would have no more secrets. But that would be fine: if you had nothing to hide, there would be nothing to fear.
The advantages would be manifold. The country would work properly. Terrorists would pack their (transparent, resealable, non-liquid-holding) bags at airports, and leave the country, stricken with fear at the government’s efficiency. Crime would wither. ID theft would be a thing of the past. There would be no more speeding. Government coffers would ring to the happy tune of millions saved in efficiency measures.
There would be no dishonest, incompetent or half-asleep staff, bored or overhelpful on a Friday afternoon, picking up the phone and kindly disclosing a password to someone in distress who said they had lost their pin number. And when all the personal records of the UK citizenship ended up on a computer in North Korea, being sold piecemeal by organised internet gangsters operating from here to Vladivostok, there would be no need to find out who made that call. What would be the point? You’d never be able to retrieve the information anyway. Too late then for hand-wringing and resignations. With information on 60 million of us leaked worldwide, the chaos would be unimaginable. It sounds extraordinary – but it could happen.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:55
A “single source of truth”, eh? It has a religious feel to it, this phrase. But whereas religions inspire great paintings and architecture and music, the National Identity Scheme has inspired nothing more than a catechism of 53 questions we will all have to answer whenever we travel.
At least, we will if the eBorders initiative isn’t stopped in its tracks, along with the transformational government initiative, to which these articles refer.
Both initiatives depend on the National Identity Scheme (NIS), the cocktail of ePassports, ID cards and biometric visas which we are promised in the next year or two. At the centre of the NIS lies the National Identity Register (NIR), a database recording the details of everyone in the country aged 16 or over.
We already have dozens of these databases, dotted around the public sector and the private sector. The only thing that is special about the NIR is the proposed use of biometrics. Biometrics are understood by government ministers to provide certainty. They don’t, but these ministers would not listen to anyone who told them that. Until yesterday, when six academics wrote to the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Now they must listen. Biometrics was the last defence of the NIS left, after the disgraceful debacle at HMRC last week. Now even that defence is gone. The NIS has nothing left to recommend it.
And with the NIS goes not only eBorders but also transformational government, deprived as they both are now of the certainty that was supposed to be conferred by biometrics. We shall, as ever, have to look elsewhere for our single source of truth.
Not just us, though. At the behest of IDABC, every other country in the EU is busily deploying ID card schemes, based on biometrics, in pursuit of the EC’s eGovernment initiative. The six academics have lit the blue touchpaper. We had all better stand back. Because when this one goes off, the bang is going to be heard all over Europe.
These fireworks have been anticipated. It will be embarrassing for the government to abandon the NIS. We shall be the object of scorn with our EU partners, criticised for undermining the fight against terrorism. That will last for some days. But when people abroad realise that there never was any defence in biometrics, their ire will be turned against their own governments.
Properly handled – we live in hope, some of us – the UK could be seen as the hard-headed realist that looked at the evidence, drew the obvious conclusion and had the courage to act on it.
November 29th, 2007 at 17:42
…Or, to sum up the above… Mr Brown, shove your identity cards and database up you arse!!