The end of the UK ID card project
Graham Titterington writes on Ovum’s Straight Talk news service:
The project was in reaction to the 9/11 terrorist incident and had confused objectives and incoherent use cases. It was intended to deliver an identity system for every adult in the UK, but “identity” was never defined. The government promoted the vision of a card that would solve most of the world’s problems, including illegal immigration, terrorism, illegal working, and even crime – although it would not be issued to the juvenile age group, which commits many crimes. It would control access to services such as the National Health Service, but whether it would be used just when registering with a service or on every visit was never made clear. The card was to be a “gold standard of identity,” incorporating biometrics such as iris scans and fingerprints, and based on a “clean” database with everyone enrolling in person.
The project suffered an early setback when the three uses of the card were reduced to two. First, the card would receive a simple visible inspection, which would simply replicate existing forms of identification. Second, it would be used to access the national identity register for a full check against the citizen’s record. This would incur a fee and the transaction would leave a permanent record in the database, which worried civil liberties campaigners. The intermediate mode of a check against biometric data held on the card was dropped for spurious “privacy” reasons, devaluing the card.
A major weakness of the project, unlike several other European ID card schemes, was that it did not give any real benefits to the cardholder. In other countries the same card provides access to banking or transport services. The UK card did not even provide access to online government services. A multi-functional card would have been more attractive. To the citizen, the UK card was just another liability and cost.
May 17th, 2010 at 15:19
Hopefully this is the first of many obituaries for the National Identity Scheme.
Mr Titterington understands that Identity Card themselves were pointless, but doesn’t seem to have spotted that the National Identity Register, not the cards, was the scheme’s raison d’etre.
May 19th, 2010 at 22:26
I’m not sure that he is right in saying it was a reaction to the World Trade Center attacks of September 11 2001. It wasn’t so long after Michael Howard’s Home Office had started making noises about a National ID scheme, and many have speculated that Home Office civil servants have had an evolving National ID scheme on the shelf waiting for an opportunity ever since the abolition of national ID cards in 1956.
Herein lies the continuing risk that the scheme, or elements of it, will continue. There are many in the civil service who’s jobs would be made easier by a central database linked to identity. There are many companies who see profit to be made from developing and maintaining such schemes. These people will continue to push for the database state – without any particularly nefarious reasons. The obituary of the National ID Scheme may be written, but the database state is still attractive proposition that must be kept in check.
May 20th, 2010 at 11:36
Abolition was in 1952, not 1956 as I said above.
May 20th, 2010 at 19:55
The id scheme was an abomination but I fear that new labour or old labour or indeed any labour has not really learnt its lesson. We may have won this initial round but the war will go on. Milliband looks set to be the next shoed in leader with his smarmy ignorant brother not far behind. He wanted the cards and he wanted the Chilcott inquiry behind doors. Brown wasn’t sure what to say about it. Milliband and Alan Johnson are still there unsure why not to continue with the bullshit.