Identity cards

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Contents

[edit] What is it?

A card and a database.

[edit] Executive Summary

The Government has suggested that the new measures introduced by the Identity Cards Bill will tackle a number of issues, such as terrorism, identity theft, illegal immigration and benefit fraud. NO2ID contends that the legislation proposed will do little to combat any of these problems, while restricting the freedoms and contravening the civil rights of law-abiding citizens.

51 categories of registrable fact are set out in the Bill, though they could be added to. Every registered individual will be under an obligation to notify any change in registrable facts. Overseas ID cards are not comparable, many western countries that have ID cards do not have a shared register. Mostly ID cards overseas have been limited in use, with strong legal privacy protections, not so with the UK ID card. Limited provision for oversight has so far been included.

The National Identity Register (NIR) is a giant database used to hold information about people registered on the Identity scheme.

The cards will be a credit card-sized photo card and will include a computer chip. there will be two forms of biometric data on the card iris scans, and fingerprints. The current Identity Cards Bill does not make it compulsory to carry the card.

Estimates of the cost-per-head of the system vary widely. There have been widely varying estimates of the cost to the individual, from the £93 official Home Office quote to the £300 of the LSE report.

No2ID The problems with "ID Cards Also see Biometric passport

[edit] What are the party lines?

  • Labour: In favour
  • Conservatives: Against
  • Liberal Democrats: Against

On 7 February 2007 the following was agreed in the House of Commons:

That this House ... welcomes the introduction of biometric identity cards to combat immigration abuse, illegal working, identity fraud and crime as well as strengthening national security and improving access to public services;[1]

[edit] Why do I care?

The seizure of ID cards by criminals could fatally compromise your liberty and wreck your finances. It will be easier, not harder, for criminals to create a false ID.

Numerous surveys in a variety of countries - Spain, the US and China among them - have indicated that the possession of ID cards is no deterrent at all to terrorism

Illegal immigrants and those who profit by bringing them into the UK already operate using false passports, social security details and driving licences. This information, transferred to an ID card, consolidates rather than exposes their false identity

The Government has an appalling record of database malfunctions. If the ID card database fails, you might find you can't leave the country, drive a car, withdraw money from your bank or even go shopping.

ORG has got two priorities:

We need to help create better understanding about the digital-rights issues surrounding the Home Office ID plan. This will be controversial and unpopular. There may be civil-rights activity and protest. ORG's job is to help key people understand the digital rights issues.

But there's a second issue which ORG needs to help people understand better. What is the general consumer need for identity in an de-enabled world. What technical options are there that people can understand, use and trust? That's the story ORG needs to get out.

Government is treating these as the same issue. But they're separate, because for all its expense and intrusion the Home Office plan won't meet the requirements of the on-line world.

[edit] Home Office IT systems hacked 5 times in 5 years

Nick Clegg MP - To Ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many a) suspected and b) confirmed security breaches of databases controlled by his Department occurred in each of the last five years

Home Secretary - All incidents listed are confirmed security breaches. No areas have reported suspected security breaches

Year Incident
2001-2 1
2002-3 1
2003-4 0
2004-5 1
2005-6 2

[edit] See Also

[edit] Links

[edit] Documents

[edit] News

[edit] 2008

2008-10-18 - The Guardian - Free agent
Author: Decca Aitkenhead
Summary: Former MI5 chief and spy novelist Stella Rimington speaks her mind - on Iraq, the 'huge overreaction' to 9/11, and why the secret service is much more liberal than we think ... She is opposed to ID cards, because she can't see how they could be "a significant counter-terrorist measure", and although she admits she's "had more time to think about it since I left the service", she says her attitude to civil liberties has always been liberal. The big change, she argues, has been not her position, but the politicisation of the issue.
2008-10-17 - Public Servant magazine - Credit locks better than ID cards
Summary: The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, has said giving people the power to lock their credit report would be a better way to combat identity theft rather than identity cards. Clegg said letting people lock their credit reports would make it harder for fraudsters to open bank accounts or apply for credit cards in other people's names. Speaking on a visit to Cambridge University, where he met credit card fraud expert Professor Ross Anderson, he said: "People currently have no control over who accesses their credit history. Sloppy credit-granting practices have made life easy for identity thieves, who can get credit and open fake bank accounts in other people's names.
2008-10-16 - The Register - Wacky Jacqui's yoof ID site goes silent
Author: John Oates
Summary: The Home Secretary's opinion-harvesting site for young 'uns, mylifemyid.org, has shut up shop and looks likely to drag its feet on publishing the research. Jacqui Smith launched the site back in July to kickstart debate amongst the yoof about government ID cards. The only trouble was that opinions expressed by those using it were overwhelmingly negative. The requirement to register to post on the boards didn't stop the No2ID crowd getting involved. Still, the views posted did not seem to match the Identity and Passport Service's claims of majority support for ID cards among young people - the site being only for 16-25 year olds. This morning, as scheduled, the survey ended and the site disappeared. This was despite promises from site admins that the results of this penetrating research would be published on the site itself.
2008-09-08 - Computing - ID cards limited to 50,000 in first six months
Author: Tom Young
Summary: The National Identity Scheme will produce just 50,000 cards between the launch this November and April 2009. It has also been revealed that the government has yet to appoint a commissioner for the scheme, or finalise a budget for his or her work. Home secretary Jacqui Smith outlined the 50,000 figure in response to a parliamentary written question from Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Chris Huhne.
2008-06-24 - Computing - Identity card scheme will not mandate fingerprint readers
Author: Tom Young
Summary: The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) will not mandate the use of any particular type of hardware for collecting biometrics under the National Identity Scheme. A report by the Biometric Assurance Group to the IPS has noted that a proliferation of different fingerprint reading machines will be used in government programmes.
2008-06-20 - The Guardian - Post Office calls for ID contract to cut closures
Author: Patrick Wintour
Summary: Ministers are being urged by the Post Office to give it valuable contracts to take over the distribution of ID cards, biometric data, and e-passports, in a bid to save it from a further round of politically-damaging closures, and loss of customers. The organisation is arguing in private talks with ministers that it is best placed to take on some of these contracts since it is already responsible for checking passport applications and has an existing national network to draw upon. Ministers in both the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Home Office are stressing that they cannot hand out the contract without open commercial competition, but see both political and business advantages to a deal.
2008-06-09 - OUT-LAW - MPs propose new safeguards for Government uses of personal data
Summary: A Parliamentary committee has called on the Government to be more transparent about its uses of personal data and to adopt "a principle of data minimisation." Its report includes safeguards it recommends to avoid the UK becoming a surveillance society. The Committee examined surveillance in public and private life, from CCTV and plans for a national ID card to credit card records and search engine logs. Warning of the risks of excessive surveillance, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee called for a new approach. "In the design of its policies and systems for collecting data, the Government should adopt a principle of data minimisation: it should collect only what is essential, to be stored only for as long as is necessary," said the report, released yesterday."

It warned that the Government "should resist a tendency to collect more personal information and establish larger databases."

2008-06-09 - The Guardian - ID cards could help turn Britain into a surveillance society, warn MPs
Author: Nicholas Watt
Summary: A compulsory national identity card scheme could be used to monitor the movements of British citizens because of the dangers of "function creep", a committee of MPs warned yesterday. Britain is in danger of turning into a "surveillance society", the Commons home affairs select committee says in a report which calls on the government to promise that the multibillion-pound ID card scheme will not be used as a matter of routine to spy on people. "We are concerned about the potential for 'function creep' in terms of the surveillance potential of the national identity scheme," the cross-party committee concluded. "Any ambiguity about the objectives of the scheme puts in jeopardy the public's trust in the scheme itself and in the government's ability to run it."
2008-06-09 - The Times - MPs fear ID cards could be used for spying
Author: Richard Ford
Summary: The multibillion-pound identity card scheme could be used to carry out surveillance on millions of people, a Commons select committee said yesterday. MPs added that they were seriously concerned at the way that local councils and other agencies were using spying powers to deal with low-level crimes such as dropping litter. In a 117-page report on surveillance, the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee urged the Government to make it easier for the public to challenge decisions to keep their DNA on the national database. Keith Vaz, its chairman, said: "What we are calling for is an overall principle of 'least data, for least time'. We have all seen over the past year extraordinary examples of how badly things can go wrong when data is mis-handled, with potentially disastrous consequences."
2008-06-09 - Liberal Democrats press release - Unnecessary surveillance has undermined trust in government
Author: Christopher Huhne MP
Summary: Commenting on today’s Home Affairs Select Committee report A Surveillance Society which calls on the Government to minimise the amount of personal data it collects and retains, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Affairs Secretary, Chris Huhne said: "Ministers must end their unhealthy obsession with monitoring the lives of ordinary people." "Unnecessary surveillance and gross incompetence have undermined public trust in government, eroded individual liberty and intruded on personal privacy." "Ministers must adhere to the ground rules identified in this report or risk leading us further down the road to a surveillance state." "The quickest way to restore public confidence would be to scrap the ridiculous ID card scheme, and invest the money saved in front-line policing where it can really make a difference."
2008-06-08 - BBC - ID cards 'could threaten privacy'
Summary: The government should limit the data it collects on citizens for its ID card scheme to avoid creating a surveillance society, a group of MPs has warned. The home affairs select committee called for proper safeguards on the plans for compulsory ID cards to stop "function creep" threatening privacy. It wants a guarantee the scheme will not be expanded without MPs' approval. The Ministry of Justice said it had to balance protecting the public with protecting a right to privacy. The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show that many people welcomed the use of devices such as CCTV cameras.
2008-06-08 - The Register - UK is not a surveillance society, MPs claim
Author: John Oates
Summary: The Home Affairs Committee has called on the government to follow a "minimum data, held for the minumum time" approach to British citizens' personal information in its long-awaited report into surveillance. ... On Home Office use of databases and sharing data the committee said there were three questions to be answered: "Where should the balance between protecting the public and preserving individual freedom lie? How should this balance shift according to the seriousness of the crime? What impact will this have on the individual and on our society as a whole?"
2008-06-05 - Computing - ID card critics query competitiveness of bidding process
Author: Tom Young
Summary: Last month's announcement that all five remaining suppliers bidding for £2bn-worth of contracts for the government’s ID card programme have gone through to the next round has prompted critics to question the rigour of the procurement process. The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has yet to reject a single bidder from the original shortlist of eight ­- Accenture, BAE Systems and Steria dropped out of their own accord ­- while CSC, EDS, Fujitsu, IBM and Thales all went through to the next round.
2008-06-03 - Kable - ID supplier doesn't fear Tory government
Summary: The European boss of Fujitsu, one of the contractors to the National Identity Scheme, said he does not fear a Conservative victory at the next election The party's shadow home affairs minister David Davis has written to Fujitsu Services and the other vendors stating the Conservatives' intention to cancel the identity card scheme if they win the general election which must be held by 2010. But Richard Christou, Fujistu's corporate senior vice-president and head of European operations, told GC News: "I don't see that presents a particular problem. If you look at the contracts, the way they are let, a lot of them are to do with managing passports and the national identity database. I think those will happen in any event."
2008-05-27 - ZDNet - Fresh calls to bin ID cards as IT suppliers dwindle
Author: Nick Heath
Summary: The government is facing more calls to cancel its ID card scheme after it announced that all of the five remaining IT suppliers have now been short-listed to deliver the system. Opponents questioned whether the complex £2bn system has any chance of being run effectively or competitively when the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has just five companies left to choose from and five parts of the contract to fill.
2008-05-12 - Computer Weekly - The Sun reports on potential security flaw in NPfIT Choose and Book
Author: Tony Collins
Summary: The Sun has reported on a potential security breach with the “Choose and Book” system – part of the NPfIT - at a GP practice at Essex; and it has an editorial under the headline "Data Dunces". The editorial says: "There’s nothing more private than your medical records. Yet it seems anyone can access the NHS computer database. The Government promised it couldn’t happen. Yet a GP finds he can log in without security checks. Labour insist that the ID Cards database will be totally secure. But how can we believe them?"
2008-05-11 - The Observer - ID cards scheme 'is open to fraud'
Author: Jamie Doward
Summary: A government-appointed panel of experts is warning that the new ID cards system will be open to fraud by the people running it. 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.
2008-05-08 - Guardian comment is free - Give it up, Gordon
Author: Damian Green MP
Summary: As the delays have grown, public support for ID cards has shrunk. The combination of the lost discs with 25 million people’s financial details, the 5,000 illegal immigrants cleared to work in the security industry, and the half a million false names on the DNA database have convinced people that putting all their most private information in the hands of the British state might not be the best of way of keeping it safe and secure. As a final killer blow, the government has lost the intellectual argument for the scheme, mainly because it keeps changing its case. At various stages, ID cards have been necessary to protect us from terrorism, illegal immigration, and benefit fraud. But former home secretaries, academics and senior figures in the IT industry have lined up to demolish each individual argument. I hesitate to suggest that the prime minister does something popular, right, and helpful for the public finances. This is not the usual role of opposition politicians. But the time has come, Gordon. Put yourself and us out of this particular piece of misery. Scrap the ID cards scheme now.
2008-05-08 - Kable - ID set up cost rises 37%
Summary: The cost of setting up the National Identity Scheme has risen by more than a third, as IPS considers discounts for off peak applications. In its biannual report on costs released on 6 May 2008, required under the Identity Cards Act 2006, the Identity and Passport Service said that the cost of establishing the scheme for the decade from October 2007 has risen by 37%, from £245m to £335m.
2008-05-07 - The Inquirer - Apparatchiks seek to cut costs of UK ID scheme
Author: Mark Ballard
Summary: Following years of criticism that the ID scheme will amount to nothing more than an expensive bodge, the Identity and Passport service said it has slashed the cost by nearly a £1 billion. But opponents say it has cut corners to cut costs and British citizens will suffer the consequences, while the Home Office has had to create a rush job mini-ID scheme to meet its own 2009 deadline. The IPS said today that its cost estimate for giving ID cards to every UK national and running the system for 10 years had been cut from £5.43 million to £4.56 million. It had done this, it said in its quarterly ID costs report, by deciding to leave the “open market” to capture citizens’ biometrics, effectively outsourcing the cost of enrolling people onto the ID scheme.
2008-05-05 - The Scotsman - ID cards? Government can’t be trusted with our personal information
Author: Margaret Smith
Summary: We have seen only recently just how incompetent the Government is at keeping our personal information secure. Last year, HM Revenue and Customs lost computer discs containing the personal information of about 25 million people, including their bank account details and National Insurance numbers. ... The danger of databases increases with every increase in the amount of data they hold. A comprehensive national identity database, holding 50 pieces of personal information about every person in the UK, would be the most dangerous database of all. Yet the Government are still determined to press ahead with this scheme.
2008-04-22 - Kable - Minister seeks to cut £30 ID card cost
Summary: Home Office minister Meg Hillier has said the government wants industry to help drive down the cost of the identity cards to the public. The first cards will be issued at a charge of £30, but Hillier said that as the volume issued increased, companies should be able to produce them more cheaply. She emphasised, however, that most of the cost of the scheme was created not by the cards themselves, but by databases and supporting systems.
2008-04-09 - Kable - IPS wants service pilots for ID cards
Summary: The Identity and Passport Service is discussing a round of pilots that use identity cards to join up service delivery. James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, told GC News the agency is talking to government departments about how the card may be used to support service delivery. He said the move has the enthusiastic support of the home secretary and that the IPS is aiming to run some early pilots.
2008-03-14 - Information World Review - MPs raise fears over data protection for national ID register
Summary: Repeated breaches of data protection laws by government departments raise huge question marks over plans for the national identity register required for ID cards and biometric passport, an influential parliamentary human rights watchdog has warned. MPs and peers on the Lords and Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights said repeated losses of personal information by departments had increased their concern, and announced they "intend to take a close interest in the government's detailed proposals for the national identity register as and when they emerge."
2008-03-13 - Computing - Experts wary over ID card plan
Author: Tom Young
Summary: Home Office slows ID card rollout as independent Treasury study recommends fast implementation. The government's failure to take on board the recommendations of independent reports on the national identity card scheme may lead to faults and extra cost, warn experts...
2008-03-11 - ZDNet - ID cards chief dismisses U-turn claims
Author: Nick Heath
Summary: The head of Britain's ID cards project and national identity database has defended the government's revised ID-card plans in the face of allegations of a U-turn, after the project was scaled back. ... Shadow home secretary David Davis launched a further attack, citing the risk of a massive data breach on the system. He said: "It is something very dangerous the government [is] doing. We would cancel this database."
2008-03-08 - Daily Mail - Nothing to hide, but plenty to fear from Ms ID Card
Author: Peter Hitchens
Summary: Ms Smith has now put off plans to force us to be fingerprinted when we renew our passports, probably until 2012. Originally, this was meant to have started by now, but thousands of people renewed their passports early – to avoid being fingerprinted and to protest – and this has plainly frightened the Home Office. We can still beat this grotesque plan.
2008-03-06 - The Times - Identity cards link to passports is cut
Summary: The public will be allowed to apply for identity cards without having to wait to renew their passports, under moves to speed up the scheme and cut its £5.6 billion costs (Richard Ford writes). Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, will announce the move today in the belief that there is a large market for the card, which can be used for travel within the European Union. This would speed up the issuing of cards and help to get people’s biometrics on to the national identity register. Ms Smith will also announce that some foreign nationals resident in Britain will be issued with an ID card within the next few weeks under a pilot scheme.
2008-03-06 - The Daily Politics - Id Cards
Summary: Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn discuss ID cards with Meg Hillier of the Home Office and Phil Booth of NO2ID, a campaign group opposed to the initiative. They're also joined by Baroness Young
2008-03-05 - Computing - First compulsory ID cards to be announced, claim Tories
Summary: The Conservatives have claimed that the government will announce plans tomorrow to make identity cards compulsory for airport workers. Shadow home secretary David Davis said he believed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will make the announcement on Thursday in breach of an undertaking not to introduce compulsion without a prior vote by MPs. About 100,000 airside staff are expected to be covered in a statement from Smith to MPs, which is thought to be in line with leaks last month indicating a national rollout is being postponed to 2012 but that workers in sensitive locations would be covered sooner.
2008-02-26 - silicon - ID cards: Gov't slap on fines of up to £1,000
Author: Nick Heath
Summary: The latest government ID card plans have revealed people will face fines of up to £1,000 for skipping biometric scans. Penalties ranging from £125 for not notifying the government of the loss of an ID card, to £250 for not applying for a card or missing an appointment for fingerprint and facial scans, were revealed in the Home Office consultation papers. The fines would apply to foreign nationals entering or living in the UK, who will be required to have ID cards from November - ahead of the cards' introduction for UK citizens next year.
2008-02-20 - Finacial Times - MPs deride £5.4bn cure-all
Author: Jim Pickard and Jimmy Burns
Summary: Meg Hillier, Home Office minister, will next week outline details of the next phase of Britain's £5.4bn ID card programme - with the government insisting that the public still wants the scheme. But with MPs yesterday calling for the project to be ditched, ministers have a fight on their hands to justify not only its cost but its scope.
2008-02-13 - The Register - How believable are government claims on ID cards?
Author: John Oates
Summary: British people are maintaining steady levels of disbelief over goverment claims about ID cards, according to official Home Office research.
2008-02-13 - Daily Mail - Less than a quarter of us think ID cards will work
Author: James Slack
Summary: Only 24 per cent of us are convinced that the £5.5billion ID card scheme will achieve its aims, a survey revealed yesterday. The poll, by the Government’s own Identity and Passport Service, showed that there is widespread scepticism about the plans. Only 27 per cent of the 2,000 surveyed found it "very believable" that ID cards would disrupt terrorist plots. Just 29 per cent believed identity fraud would be slashed. On the matter of making it more difficult for illegals to work in the UK - one of Labour’s key aims for the cards - the figure fell to 24 per cent. The report on the findings admitted: "Across the board, full buy-in and belief in the scheme’s ability to deliver the proposed benefits is weak."
2008-02-13 - The Times - New database increases power of surveillance over citizens
Author: Richard Ford
Summary: More than half the population supports the Government’s controversial identity card scheme, according to a survey for the Home Office. ... The research, the most recent available, was carried out before HM Revenue and Customs lost two CDs containing the personal details of 25 million people.
2008-02-11 - BBC - The campaign group: No2ID
Author: Brian Wheeler
Summary: Like many great - and not-so-great - ideas, the No2ID campaign against identity cards and the "database state" started with a trip to the pub. In less than four years it has become one of the best-known single issue campaign groups. Public concern about data security is running high at the moment, after the loss of millions of bank details by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and other scandals. Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears to be having a few second thoughts about whether the cards should be compulsory - and the scheme’s introduction was recently delayed by two years. But in early 2004, when the then Home Secretary David Blunkett first proposed a national identity register, it seemed the only real opposition would come from what Mr Blunkett liked to deride as "airy fairy libertarians". Groups attending a public meeting at the London School of Economics in May 2004, where the idea of a campaign against ID cards was first proposed, included Privacy International and Liberty. Speakers included the future Conservative leader David Cameron. In the pub afterwards, the No2ID campaign was officially born.
2008-02-10 - The Times - The Last Enemy turns eyes on the spies
Author: Sally Kinnes
Summary: With the would-be energy and pace of the American series 24, The Last Enemy is a cautionary tale about where such a technology-driven society might lead. It tells the story of Stephen Ezard (Benedict Cumberbatch), a brilliant but reclusive mathematician who has obsessive-compulsive disorder. He returns to Britain after several years when his brother (Max Beesley) is killed, and finds that it is an ID-demanding, card-swiping, body-searching nation where surveillance is omnipresent. For Berry (who also wrote Prime Suspect 6), the germ of the idea was planted when he saw two men at Euston station. “They were businessmen, in overcoats, and one was larger than the other. The larger one picked a piece of lint from the smaller one’s coat, as though he owned him. The other one looked completely powerless.” For Berry, this was a metaphor for identity cards. While The Last Enemy is not about the rights and wrongs of ID cards, the threat that the technology behind them will get out of hand makes for high, perhaps paranoid drama. "The idea of having to account for yourself to someone who has power over you is so appalling," Berry says. "You may not have to carry it, but if you don't, you will have to report to a police station within 24 to 48 hours. I don't want to live like that." Anyway, like all technology, ID cards are open to fraud. The series demonstrates how to forge fingerprints for £10.
2008-02-07 - The Register - Brits split on ID cards
Author: John Oates
Summary: The British public is evenly split on ID cards - 47 per cent think they're a good idea while 50 per cent think not. Fuller survey results available as a pdf here.
2008-02-07 - ZDNet - Half of UK opposed to ID cards
Author: Nick Heath
Summary: Support for the UK's national ID card programme continues to plummet, with one quarter of people saying they are strongly opposed to the scheme. The idea of the government taking data submitted for one use and sharing it between departments also made 52 percent of respondents uncomfortable.
2008-02-06 - The Guardian - Poll shows growing opposition to ID cards over data fears
Author: Alan Travis
Summary: 25% now strongly against their use, says ICM survey, Majority concerned about sharing of personal details, 50% against 47% in favour. The number of people strongly opposed to the introduction of a national identity card scheme has risen sharply, according to the results of an ICM poll to be published today. Those campaigning against ID cards said last night that the poll, with results showing that 25% of the public are deeply opposed to the idea, raises the prospect that the potential number of those likely to refuse to register for the card has risen. If the poll's findings were reflected in the wider population, as many as 10 million people may be expected to refuse to comply. The ICM survey also shows that a majority of the British people say they are "uncomfortable" with the idea that personal data provided to the government for one purpose should be shared between all Whitehall-run public services.
2008-01-31 - The Guardian - Our state collects more data than the Stasi ever did. We need to fight back
Author: Timothy Garton Ash
Summary: To trust in the good intentions of our rulers is to put liberty at risk. I'd go to jail rather than accept this kind of ID card. ... Today, the people of East Germany are much less spied upon than the people of Britain. The human rights group Privacy International rates Britain as an "endemic surveillance society", along with China and Russia, whereas Germany scores much better. ... All this from a government which, having collected so much data on us, goes around losing it like a late-night drunk spreading the contents of his pockets down the street. Twenty-five million people's details mislaid by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs; at least 100,000 more on an awol Royal Navy laptop; and so it goes on. ... The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has said he would go to jail rather than accept an ID card of this intrusive kind. So would I. And so, I believe, would many thousands of our fellow-citizens. (There's a good website called NO2ID where you can join the fray.) Which is why, I suspect, the government won't be so foolish. But we need to draw the line well before ID cards. There are liberties that we have already given away, while sleeping, and we must claim them back.
2008-01-29 - The Register - Forget passports - teachers and kids are the new ID card targets
Author: John Lettice
Summary: Teachers and 16 year olds are the favoured 'soft targets' for the redesigned ID card scheme rollout, according to an Identity & Passport Service planning document. As suggested in leaks last weekend, IPS now plans to soft-pedal fingerprints and - astoundingly - it seems on the point of abandoning the notion of forcing ID cards onto the public via passport renewals.
2008-01-28 - Kable - IPS sticks to fingerprint plan
Summary: The Identity and Passport Service has denied that fingerprints could be dropped from the National Identity Register. An IPS spokesperson also described as "entirely wrong" reports of plans to prevent young people who do not have an identity card from obtaining a student loan in the future.
2008-01-27 - The Guardian - Costs set to rule out register of fingerprints
Author: Jamie Doward
Summary: The future of the UK's identity card scheme was thrown into further confusion last night after it emerged that the Home Office is looking to scrap one of its key components - a national register of fingerprints.
2008-01-27 - Financial Times - No ID, no problem
Summary: In the two years since legislation for a UK national identity card scheme gained royal assent, the case against the multi-billion pound programme has become overwhelming. The government’s arguments in favour have crumpled. Now, if leaked official documents are to be believed, its roll-out is to be delayed until 2012. Some investors, concerned that it is not worth the wait, are already walking away. Gordon Brown inherited this deeply flawed plan from his predecessor as prime minister. He should follow his instincts and abandon it altogether.
2008-01-25 - ZDNet - Students refuse to be 'guinea pigs' for ID cards
Author: Nick Heath
Summary: Students have launched a stinging attack on UK government proposals to make young people "guinea pigs" for ID cards. Leaked Home Office documents reveal teenagers may need an ID card to open a bank account or take out a student loan from 2010 — making them among the first people to have the biometric cards in the UK. The National Union of Students (NUS) described the revelation in the leaked National Identity Scheme Delivery Strategy document as "morally reprehensible" and said it would bog students down in red tape.
2008-01-24 - The Register - Accenture and BAE pull out of ID card project
Author: John Oates
Summary: The UK ID card project suffered another serious blow today with news that two potential suppliers have pulled out of the procurement process. ... Documents leaked yesterday reveal the Home Office will target teenagers for early take-up of the cards. Anyone wanting to open a bank account, apply for student funding or buy alcohol or cigarettes will be forced to buy an ID card.
2008-01-24 - Kable - Two retreat from ID card procurement
Summary: BAE Systems and Accenture have withdrawn from discussions on the procurement framework for the National Identity Scheme. A spokesperson for the Identity and Passport Service, which is managing the scheme, confirmed to GC News that the two companies had dropped out of the process, saying it was "part of the competitive dialogue".
2008-01-24 - The Guardian - No student loan without ID card, says government
Author: Anthea Lipsett
Summary: Students will be "blackmailed" into holding identity cards in order to apply for student loans, the Tories have warned. According to Home Office documents leaked to the Conservative party last night, those applying for student loans will be forced to hold identity cards to get the funding from 2010. ... Shadow immigration minister Damian Green called the plans "straightforward blackmail" to bolster "a failing policy". "This is an outrageous plan. The government has seen its ID cards proposals stagger from shambles to shambles. They are clearly trying to introduce them by stealth."
2008-01-24 - Daily Express - Students will be bribed to accept the first ID Cards
Author: Tom Whitehead
Summary: Students are to be "blackmailed" into having ID cards, the Tories warned yesterday. Without them they would be unable to open bank accounts or access loans, it was claimed. ...

On the targeting of young people, Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: "This is an outrageous plan."

2008-01-24 - Silicon - Students revolt against being ID card "guinea pigs"
Author: Nick Heath
Summary: Students have launched a stinging attack on UK government proposals to make young people "guinea pigs" for ID cards. ... The National Union of Students (NUS) described the revelation in the leaked National Identity Scheme Delivery Strategy document as "morally reprehensible" and said it would bog students down in red tape. ... Shadow immigration minister, Damian Green, said: "The government are clearly trying to introduce the cards by stealth. This is straightforward blackmail and a desperate attempt to bolster a failing policy."
2008-01-24 - The Mirror - ID cards by 2010..but just for students
Author: Bob Roberts
Summary: Students are to be "blackmailed" into carrying ID cards two years before the rest of Britain, leaked papers revealed last night. Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: "This is an outrageous plan. The Government have seen their ID proposals stagger from shambles to shambles. They are trying to introduce them by stealth by making them necessary if you want to work for the Government, take out a student loan or open a student bank account."
2008-01-23 - Daily Mail - Youngsters to be 'blackmailed' into getting identity cards
Author: James Slack
Summary: Young people who want to open bank accounts will be "blackmailed" into having ID cards by 2010, leaked documents revealed last night. Anyone aged 16 or over will be expected to obtain a card - costing up to £100 - when they first open an account or apply for a student loan to get through university. ... Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green called the plans "straightforward blackmail" to bolster "a failing policy". He added: "The Government have seen their ID cards proposals stagger from shambles to shambles. They are clearly trying to introduce them by stealth."
2008-01-23 - The Financial Times - Companies abandon ID card project
Author: Maija Palmer and Jimmy Burns
Summary: The IT services company Accenture and the defence company BAE Systems have decided not to pursue contracts linked to the biometric identity card system, with IT experts warning that some suppliers are growing increasingly frustrated with the government’s indecision. ... Last night the Home Office confirmed a further leak suggesting that smaller volumes of ID cards should first be issued from 2010 onwards to young people to "assist" them in opening up their first bank accounts as well as to individuals employed in "positions of trust", such as teachers and social workers. ... Damian Green, shadow immigration minister, said last night that the leaked documents showed that the government was engaged in an "outrageous plan" which was "staggering from shambles to shambles". Mr Green said: "They are trying to introduce ID cards by stealth by making them necessary if you want to work for the government, take out a student loan or open a student bank account." "This is blackmail and a desperate attempt to bolster a failing policy."
2008-01-23 - Telegraph - National ID cards scheme delayed until 2012
Author: James Kirkup
Summary: The Government's national identity card scheme was "in the intensive care ward" after leaked documents showed plans to issue UK citizens with the cards have been delayed until after the next election. Amid growing doubts that the multibillion pound scheme will ever see the light of day, a confidential Home Office report suggests that the widespread introduction of cards for British nationals will not come until 2012 at the earliest. ... Further fuelling suspicions of a Government climbdown on ID cards, a major review of the scheme appears to have been shelved. James Crosby, the head of the HBOS bank, completed a review of the potential private sector uses for ID cards last year. But the Treasury has now confirmed there is no date set for its publication.
2008-01-23 - Computer Active - ID cards to arrive in 2012
Author: Andrea-Marie Vassou
Summary: UK citizens will receive their compulsory national ID card two years after the proposed date, according to documents leaked to the Conservative party. ... Security expert Richard Clayton agreed, attributing the delay to the Government's recent "incompetent handling of private data". Becky Hogge, director at the the Open Rights Group told Computeractive: "It would come as no surprise if the Government was to reconsider its plans for ID cards given its recent record on data protection."
2008-01-23 - The Guardian - ID card scheme put off until after election
Author: Patrick Wintour and Alan Travis
Summary: A compulsory identity card system for British citizens looks as if it will be deferred beyond the next election, according to documents leaked to the Conservative. Leaked documents show starting date of 2012. Pilot plan for foreign nationals to start this year.
2008-01-21 - The Guardian - The national ID register will leak like a battered bucket
Author: Jackie Ashley
Summary: The record of lost data of the past few years should be a warning to us all: our personal details are safe in nobody's hands. ... With the national database for ID cards looming, just how much do you trust the government to keep your identity details safe? ... The government is going to introduce a single system for all our identities. And I promise, you can't trust it. It will leak like a battered old bucket.
2008-01-15 - The Guardian - ID cards for foreigners within three years
Author: Alan Travis
Summary: The introduction of compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals in Britain will take at least three years to complete, ministers are to confirm this month. Despite repeated promises from ministers, including Gordon Brown, as recently as last week, that compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals will be introduced from this year, the Home Office is expected to confirm that their introduction is to be gradually phased in because that is "less risky" and will "minimise the burden on businesses".
2008-01-14 - BBC - New ID bill 'several years' away
Summary: UK citizens are unlikely to be made to get an ID card for "several years" because a voluntary scheme needs time to "run in", a minister has said. But Home Office minister Liam Byrne insisted the government remained enthusiastic about compulsory ID cards. Gordon Brown last week appeared to have cooled on compulsory ID cards after describing them as just an "option". But Mr Byrne said the PM was reflecting the fact MPs would have to pass new legislation for cards to be compulsory.
2008-01-14 - The Register - Immigrant ID cards and border checks slip towards 2009
Author: John Lettice
Summary: Immigration minister Liam Byrne has concealed what looks like further ID card slippage and set himself a remarkably unchallenging series of immigration and border control targets in a "ten point plan" for 2008. Humorously described by the Home Office as "challenging", the plan consists largely of low targets, targets already achieved, and harder targets lobbed off into the middle distance. Check out the roadmap. Down at the bottom it tells us that Byrne won't start issuing immigrant ID cards until the second week in November (330 days, count them), won't start counting foreign nationals in and out of the country until the year end, and won't hit the target of processing 60 per cent of asylum claims within six months until the end of the year either.
2008-01-10 - The Independent - Brown gives himself 'wriggle room' on ID cards scheme
Summary: The commitment of Gordon Brown to identity cards was in question last night after he declined to say if he personally supported making them compulsory. ... Downing Street and the Home Office insisted that the scheme was on track. But opponents of identity cards detected a softening in the Prime Minister's enthusiasm following a series of scandals over the loss of personal data by government departments.
2008-01-09 - BBC - Brown 'still supports ID cards'
Summary: Gordon Brown has not changed his mind on identity cards despite speculation he is preparing for a U-turn, a home office minister has told the BBC. Meg Hillier said the PM had "made it very clear" he supported the scheme. Tory leader David Cameron has written to Mr Brown asking for clarification after a Commons clash over whether he wants them to be compulsory or not. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said he believed there had been a "significant shift" in the government's position. The row was ignited by an interview Mr Brown gave to a Sunday newspaper in which he said: "Under our proposals there is no compulsion for existing British citizens".
2008-01-07 - NO2ID - Evasive Brown misleads about ID scheme
Summary: Gordon Brown lied in his interview with The Observer, says NO2ID. The civil liberties and privacy campaign this morning accused the Prime Minister of making deliberately misleading statements about ID cards in a "softball" interview with the Observer, published this Sunday, 6th January. A list of statements and links to what is factually incorrect about them.
2008-01-04 - The Guardian - Whitehall wastes £2bn on abandoned computer projects
Author: Bobbie Johnson and David Hencke
Summary: The cost to the taxpayer of abandoned Whitehall computer projects since 2000 has reached almost £2bn, not including the bill for an online crime reporting site that was cancelled this week, a survey by the Guardian reveals. ... The extensive list of failed projects calls into question other major government IT programmes, such as the proposed £5bn ID cards scheme.
2008-01-03 - The Times - Just don't do it: a motto for Gordon
Author: Anatole Kaletsky
Summary: If the Prime Minister wants to get his Government back on track, here is some more seasonal advice to get him started ... You should do exactly the same with the ruinously costly national ID card scheme. The data management fiascos have proved that government cannot cope with more information. Nobody has given a convincing argument for a national ID scheme - and anyway, you will incite a revolution if you try to force the British to carry compulsory identity cards like the Germans and French. You may believe that you have no alternative but to carry on with a programme to which you are publicly committed. But if you are banging your head against a brick wall, there is always an alternative: stop doing it.
2008-01-02 - eGov monitor - 2008 will be a momentous year for the Liberal Democrats
Author: Nick Clegg MP
Summary: ... In control of their own privacy, not forced to submit personal information to a massive government identity database. ... So we should campaign tirelessly to stop the expensive, invasive and unnecessary Identity Cards scheme in its tracks. The child benefit and learner drivers’ data loss scandals mean there is a looming crisis of public confidence in the government’s capacity to look after their personal information. So let 2008 be the year we bring down the Identity Cards scheme.
2008-01-01 - The Guardian - Give them up for new year
Summary: Mr Brown previously let it be known that he saw big problems with Tony Blair's pet ID card project. But when he moved into No 10, polls showing strong support for the scheme deterred an immediate change of course. That support has now slipped thanks to concern about lost data; it will slip further as the costs become stark. After a battering few months, Mr Brown must use the new year to define his government more sharply, making plain how it differs from what went before. He should ditch ID cards — and make a virtue of the change.

[edit] 2007

2007-12-31 - BBC - Clegg pledging to fight ID cards
Summary: The new Lib Dem leader has pledged to campaign "tirelessly" against "expensive, invasive" ID cards in 2008. Nick Clegg said the recent data loss "scandals" had created a lack of public confidence in the government's ability to look after personal information. His comments were made in his New Year message to the Lib Dem party.
2007-12-30 - The Sunday Times - Beware the state’s ID card sharks
Author: David Davis MP the shadow home secretary
Summary: If Gordon Brown picks one failure from his first six months to learn from, it should be the loss of 25m people’s personal details. If he makes one resolution for 2008, it should be to scrap his reckless plan to introduce compulsory ID cards. "Discgate" was the result of ministerial incompetence, but also flawed policy. As chancellor, Brown relentlessly pursued his forlorn vision of a "joined-up identity management regime" across public services. As prime minister, he continues this vain search, like an obsessed alchemist, for a giant database that his closest advisers ominously refer to as a "single source of truth".
2007-12-28 - The Register - Byrne puts fake ID frighteners on illegal employers
Author: John Lettice
Summary: Immigration Minister Liam Byrne is to celebrate the first wave of the ID card rollout next year with a scary ad campaign threatening employers of illegal immigrants with fines of £10,000 per offence and up to two years in prison. But even by the low standards of the Home Office, "the biggest shake-up of the immigration system for 40 years" promises to be impressively toothless - if Byrne is depending on the fine income for the 2009 New Year party, he will be a disappointed man.
2007-12-24 - The Independent - PM in new pledge to secure databases
Author: Andrew Grice
Summary: Gordon Brown has accepted that the Government will need to bring in new safeguards to restore public confidence in the huge databases held by state-run services. ... His pledge came during a telephone conversation with Nick Clegg in the past week. The new Liberal Democrat leader raised the dangers of pressing ahead with giant databases across the public sector, warning that the Government faced a "serious backlash". He also reiterated his party's objections to a national identity card scheme. Mr Brown supports the idea, but is likely to seek extra safeguards to allay the public's doubts.
2007-12-13 - The Midlothian Advertiser - MSPs consider ID cards plan
Summary: A Liberal Democrat-led debate in Scottish Parliament calls on the Scottish Government not to allow the UK ID database to access personal information held by authorities in Scotland and that there should be no blanket retention of DNA samples.
2007-12-07 - The Guardian - In the age of leaky data, there is no such thing as a secure online computer
Author: Simon Jenkins
Summary: This week Britain's information commissioner, Richard Thomas, confessed that "a stream" of sheepish data custodians had formed outside his door "on a confessional basis" after last month's Revenue & Customs child-benefit data leak. They had all lost material that the public had entrusted to their care. They had taken it home, posted it somewhere, left it on a bus, dumped it in a bin or sent it to some government department. ... The groups most eagerly awaiting the government’s ID computer are criminals and terrorists. The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, will supply them with detailed, supposedly confidential identification, including digitised biometrics, of every British citizen and visitor passing through immigration.
2007-12-07 - BBC - Better data protection 'required'
Summary: A report by Demos warns that people are losing control of their private data and are not sufficiently aware of how many bodies hold their information. The report comes less than a month after HM Revenue and Customs lost discs containing 25 million people's details. ... Demos recommends a stronger role for the Information Commissioner's Office, with new powers to audit any organisation holding personal information. It also says plans for ID cards must have "belated public engagement" or the scheme should be "abandoned".
2007-12-07 - Kable - Thomas demands ID card clarity
Summary: The information commissioner has reiterated the need for clear communication and transparency over the main purpose of the National ID Card Scheme. In relation to the ID card programme, Thomas remarked: "It is inevitable that the problems at HMRC will lead to some fresh thinking. We need to be clear about what is the primary purpose of the ID Card Scheme. Is it the fight against crime and terrorism? Is it providing people better and easier access to public services? Is it to prevent identity theft?"
2007-12-05 - The Guardian - Information chief calls for review of ID card plans
Author: Patrick Wintour
Summary: The Information Commissioner told the justice select committee that the scale of the ID cards plan needs to be reviewed and that the government isn't clear about it's objectives for the scheme "Any massive collection of information like the identity card carries risk ... We still have some uncertainties about what the primary purpose of the identity card is ... Is it to improve policing, to fight terrorism, to improve public services, to avoid identity theft? I think there is a lot of thinking still to be done on its primary purpose."
2007-12-05 - Computing - ICO warns of more breaches
Author: Tom Young
Summary: More cases of public information lost by central government departments have come to light since the HMRC fiasco, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas told the Commons Justice committee yesterday. ... The commissioner also warned that the governments national biometric identity cards programme needs to be reviewed carefully - particularly the plan to keep records every time a card is used. "Keeping this massive database with records of every time the card is swiped through a terminal is distinctly unattractive and would increase the risks," he said.
2007-12-05 - The Register - Information Commissioner calls for more money and more powers
Author: John Oates
Summary: Giving evidence to the House of Commons Justice Committee hearing on the protection of private data, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas called for changes in the law and a rethink on government data-sharing between departments. ... Asked about the ID card project, Thomas said it was difficult to comment in detail because the primary purpose of the cards was still not clear.
2007-12-04 - BBC - More firms 'admit disc failings'
Summary: Several firms have admitted security failings in the wake of the loss of two discs containing 25 million people's details, MPs have been told. ... The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas told the justice committee "I would question whether anybody should be allowed to download an entire database of this scale without going through the most rigorous pre-authorisation checks." "It was a really shocking example of loss of security." He also said he continued to have "anxieties" about the impending introduction of ID cards, particularly if information would be uploaded onto central databases, whenever cards are used.
2007-12-03 - The Telegraph - Poll shows more people now oppose ID cards
Author: Philip Johnston
Summary: More people now oppose Labour's proposed ID cards than support them, a poll for The Daily Telegraph has found. Just 43 per cent of those questioned said they favoured the introduction of a national identity scheme compared with 48 per cent who were against. It is the first time YouGov has found more against than in favour. ... Since then, there has been a gradual erosion in support for ID cards and the recent loss of the country's entire child benefit records on two CDs seems to have tipped the balance. ... Phil Booth, of the campaign group No2ID, said: "Clearly a majority no longer trust that the Government can secure their personal information.
2007-11-28 - The Register - Tories: Europeans could get access to UK ID database
Author: Lewis Page
Summary: News emerged yesterday of a mysterious international ID card plan, described by the Tories as "a European-wide identity card project called Project Stork". The Conservatives suggested in Parliament that Stork was a huge Europe-wide extension to the planned UK National ID card with its associated databases and biometrics. "How," asked the shadow Home Sec David Davis, did the government intend to "prevent a repetition of the disaster of the past few weeks when sensitive personal data are held not by one Government but by 27?" ... The Home Office, asked about this, said that proposals had indeed been submitted but they didn't expect any EC decision before next April. Even then, they were at pains to emphasise that "this is purely a research effort". When it was pointed out that the Belgians were calling Stork a "large-scale pilot", the Home Office spokesman said "well, we're calling it a research project."
2007-11-27 - Daily Mail - Lost disc fiasco could scupper ID card scheme
Author: James Slack
Summary: Leading academics have rounded on the Government's "fairytale view" of the technology needed to make the scheme work on its introduction in 2009. In a letter to MPs, Professor Ross Anderson and Dr Richard Clayton warned lives would be ruined if information from the ID database went missing. The Cambridge computer experts said that if iris or fingerprint scans fell into the wrong hands the victim would suffer a lifetime of fraud. Unlike with bank accounts, the individual would have no way of changing their details. Ministers claim the biometric data will protect against fraud, crime and terrorism.
2007-11-27 - Kable - MP claims ID card terror loophole
Summary: A Conservative MP has claimed the government's ID cards strategy will not protect the UK from terrorists. Speaking in the Commons on 26 November 2007, Tory MP Patrick Mercer said that those who were resident in the country for three months or less would not be required to carry an identity card.
2007-11-27 - Computing - ID cards criticised as "fairy tale"
Author: Tom Young
Summary: The national biometric identity card programme should be suspended until security fears have been eliminated, according to a group of academics. The open letter to Andrew Dismore, Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, refutes chancellor Alistair Darling's statement that the scheme will increase protection against identity fraud. "These assertions are based on a fairy-tale view of the capabilities of the technology, and in addition, only deal with one aspect of the problems that this type of data breach causes," it says.
2007-11-26 - Blogzilla - Biometrics are not a panacea for data loss
Author: Ian Brown
Summary: Copy of the letter sent to Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights. The government, in response to the recent HMRC Child Benefit data breach, has asserted that personal information on the proposed National Identity Register (NIR) will be 'biometrically secured'. These assertions are based on a fairy-tale view of the capabilities of the technology, and in addition, only deal with one aspect of the problems that this type of data breach causes. ...
2007-11-24 - The Guardian - Two discs, 25m names and a lot of questions
Author: Esther Addley
Summary: The personal records of 25 million people, including their dates of birth, addresses, bank accounts and national insurance numbers, were lost in the post on October 18, leaving half the British population at risk of large scale fraud. ... Does this mean the end of ID cards? Both the chancellor and prime minister insisted there would be no change of policy on ID cards, but in practice ministers have privately said the scheme will be reviewed in the spring, following a report from the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, into the way the government holds citizens' personal information. Thomas said this week he would like breaches of this kind to become a criminal offence, adding that he would demand powers to conduct random spot checks of government departments to ensure their data handling procedures were as secure as possible.
2007-11-24 - The Guardian - Now for ID cards - and the biometric blues
Author: Ben Goldacre
Summary: When Alistair Darling was asked if the government will ditch ID cards in the light of this week's data cock-up, he replied: "The key thing about identity cards is, of course, that information is protected by personal biometric information. The problem at present is that, because we do not have that protection, information is much more vulnerable than it should be." ... Tsutomu Matsumoto is a Japanese mathematician, a cryptographer who works on security, and he decided to see if he could fool the machines which identify you by your fingerprint. ... it fools fingerprint detectors about 80% of the time.
2007-11-23 - The Financial Times - Crisis of identity
Summary: Gordon Brown has told us a national identity card scheme would make people feel safer. The reverse is true... the gross mishandling of child-benefit data should be the final nail in the coffin of this deeply flawed scheme. Even before this week, the case against ID cards was strong. Civil liberties campaigners argue, with force, that Britain is at risk of becoming a “surveillance society”...ID cards will be yet another infringement of personal freedom
2007-11-23 - The Times - Poll tracks anger over data loss
Author: Peter Riddell and Francis Elliott
Summary: Public anger over the loss by Revenue & Customs of 25 million sets of personal details and deepening gloom over the economy has led to a dramatic collapse of confidence in Gordon Brown’s competence. The number of voters who think that the Prime Minister and Alistair Darling, his Chancellor, can be trusted to handle economic problems has more than halved in a little over two months, according to a poll for The Times.
2007-11-22 - Kable - Cameron calls for ID card re-think
Summary: The Conservative leader has warned of the dangers to data security posed by the national identity card scheme. David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, called on prime minister Gordon Brown to re-think his plans for a national identity register, following the "appalling blunder" which led to the huge loss of child benefit data from HM Revenue and Customs. He said that the public "will find it truly bizarre - they will find it weird - that the prime minister does not stop and think about the dangers of a National Identity Register".
2007-11-21 - The Guardian - Home Office insists biometric data is secure
Author: Alan Travis
Summary: The Home Office last night sought to shore up public trust in its £5.6bn identity card project, as the failure over child benefit records fed into anxieties over so-called "Big Brother" databases. Critics of the "surveillance society" claimed the ID cards project could not now go ahead without a review of its privacy safeguards to see if they worked. They also raised concern about leaks from other databases, including NHS personal records and the new children's register.
2007-11-19 - Computerworld UK - Government policies threaten data privacy, warns information commissioner
Author: Tash Shifrin
Summary: Information commissioner Richard Thomas has listed a string of government policies that he feels threaten data protection rights. The data protection watchdog provided the list to the House of Lords constitution committee as part of its inquiry into the impact of surveillance and data collection. He highlighted policies including the national identity database that will underpin the controversial ID cards scheme – “an area of particular concern” – the e-borders passenger checking policy, the full electronic health records being rolled out as part of the NHS’s £12.4bn computer overhaul.
2007-11-19 - IT Week - Biometric ID cards planned
Author: Kim Thomas
Summary: Biometric ID cards could be adopted throughout the European Union (EU) by 2010 if a proposed regulation goes ahead. The regulation, scheduled for adoption before the end of this year, will introduce a standard version of the resident permit that all 27 member states issue to nationals from outside the EU. The aim is to make it easier to verify that someone is entitled to residence.
2007-11-12 - ZDNet - ID cards to cost over £5.6bn
Author: Gemma Simpson
Summary: The UK's ID cards scheme will cost more than £5.6bn to set up and run over the next 10 years, according to the latest Home Office figures.
2007-11-10 - BBC - Peer 'ready to defy ID card law'
Summary: The Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Williams has said she would rather go to prison than carry an identity card. Baroness Williams said the cards would seriously undermine individual liberty so people were entitled to refuse their co-operation, using non-violent means.
2007-11-09 - The Independent - Cost of biometric passport 'over £100'
Author: Sadie Gray
Summary: The cost of a biometric passport and identity card has risen above the £100 barrier after the Government announced that the scheme would cost more than £5.6bn over the next 10 years. Campaigners against ID cards said the bill could rise further after the Home Office's Identity and Passport Service (IPS) admitted there were "uncertainties" over the cost of the scheme and there was a "significant probability" that its estimates would change. ... Applicants for identity cards in 2009 may end up having their fingerprints taken in post offices or travel agencies, as negotiations have begun to find private outlets to supplement the national network of 70 new ID card offices, IPS chief executive James Hall said.
2007-11-09 - The Guardian - Cost of ID card and passport rises to £100
Author: Alan Travis
Summary: The cost of providing an identity card combined with a new-generation biometric passport has now passed the £100 mark as the latest official estimate yesterday put the total price tag of the scheme at £5.6bn over the next 10 years. James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, yesterday indicated that people applying for identity cards from 2009 might have to give their fingerprints in post offices and travel agents, on top of the network of 70 new ID card offices. He disclosed that negotiations were starting to find private outlets to supplement the national network of ID card and passport offices being built across the country.
2007-11-09 - The Register - Synergy gone mad - travel agents to enrol for £100 ID card?
Author: Lewis Page
Summary: The estimated cost of the UK national ID card scheme continues to climb, with the combined card-&-biometric-passport price now passing £100. And IPS chief executive James Hall suggests that Post Offices and travel agents may be recruited to enrol people to the scheme.
2007-11-08 - BBC - ID card scheme 'to cost £5.6bn'
Summary: The projected cost of the identity card scheme will be £5.612bn over the next 10 years, the Home Office says. ... Lib Dem spokesman Nick Clegg said it was a "vast waste of taxpayers' money" which should be spent on more police. The Conservatives also oppose ID cards and say they would scrap the scheme in favour of a dedicated border police force. ... Phil Booth, of the anti-identity card group No2ID, said the Home Office was "keeping billions off the true cost of the scheme". He said: "The conveniently sliding budget looks only to the rosiest future, and fails to acknowledge the biggest black hole of all, compulsory interrogation of the entire adult population."
2007-11-05 - The Guardian - ID cards could be delayed as PM calls for review into technology
Author: David Hencke
Summary: Gordon Brown has demanded a review of the technology behind the proposed new ID cards, the Guardian has learned. The prime minister is understood to have expressed concern that the huge new project - the biggest since the introduction of a computerised national patients system - does not prove to be another IT fiasco. Ministers have fought in the courts and in information tribunals any move to disclose existing assessments by Whitehall of the viability of ID cards in the Gateway Reviews by the Treasury's Office of Government Commerce. The reviews, thought to have been highly critical, were never published.
2007-11-05 - The Independent - ID cards plan behind schedule and soaring in cost, say critics
Author: Andrew Grice
Summary: The Government's plan to bring in identity cards is running behind schedule and the cost is soaring, according to critics. Ministers have revealed they have spent £69m on opening 59 passport interview centres that will form the core of the ID registration network. Opponents have warned that the £5.3bn ID cards scheme could be hit by the same problems that engulfed other Government IT projects, including the NHS computer system. ... Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, said: "The Government has made a total mess of introducing interviews for first-time passport applicants. The project has gone over-time, over-budget and still isn’t working properly." He asked: "How can we possibly believe it will be able to introduce the infinitely more complicated identity cards scheme, which will be based on the same infrastructure, when it can’t even deliver this basic system? It is time to pull the plug on the ID cards proposals before we waste any more taxpayers’ money on this expensive white elephant."
2007-11-04 - BBC News - ID cards 'not being scrapped'
Summary: Ministers have played down reports that compulsory ID cards for all Britons are to be scrapped, in favour of other measures in next week's Queen's Speech. Cabinet minister Peter Hain told the BBC it was "not true" that the scheme was being put on the backburner. The Sunday Mirror reported that Gordon Brown will shelve plans for compulsory ID cards for Britons "indefinitely". ... Asked whether the scheme had been put on the backburner, Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain told the BBC: "That's not true." He emphasised that Immigration Minister Liam Byrne was recently discussing requirements for foreign nationals to have biometric ID cards "which means we will be absolutely certain they are who they say they are." And Home Office minister Tony McNulty told Sky News: "As far as I am aware universal ID cards remain on the agend
2007-11-04 - The Sunday Mirror - Brown scraps ID card plans
Author: Vincent Moss
Summary: Gordon Brown is to abandon controversial plans to introduce compulsory ID cards for all. Instead, the Prime Minister will focus on tightening up existing anti-terror laws and on new measures to be unveiled in Tuesday's Queen's Speech. The cards are already compulsory for asylum-seekers and their introduction next year for foreign nationals will go ahead as planned. But the proposed roll-out to force all Britons to carry them will be shelved indefinitely, according to Whitehall sources.
2007-11-04 - The Guardian - So, Mr Cameron, what would you do with our liberties?
Author: Henry Porter and David Cameron MP
Summary: The philosopher AC Grayling wrote that the litmus test of liberty is the ID card. The shadow home secretary, David Davis, agrees and has made a welcome stand against the scheme, explaining that not only will it be vastly expensive but that it is unlikely to make us any safer from terrorism or identity theft. People are coming round to his view. Nick Clegg, a candidate in the Lib Dem leadership contest, says that he would rather face court proceedings than register for an ID card. Battling Boris Johnson has said something similar. Would you go as far as Mr Clegg and your London mayoral candidate?
2007-11-01 - ZDNet - Catching up with a famous fraudster
Author: Tom Espiner
Summary: Played by Leonardo DeCaprio in the Steven Spielberg-directed film Catch Me If You Can, one-time fraudster Frank Abagnale knows a thing or two about security systems. ... The UK government seems to claim that the National Identity Register won't be breached. Are you in favour of identity cards? I'm not big on ID cards — you're giving the government information that someone else can access. ID cards make it 100 times easier to steal that information, because it's concentrated in one place. That the ID Cards scheme was passed into law was not a good idea. Nothing is really secure; if the money is right, you can forge a passport to back fraudulent activities — you can forge ID cards. You can replicate holograms, dyes in paper, and give terrorists access to Britain. With the ID cards scheme, all it takes is one weak civil servant to be bought off, and one weak link can [compromise the system].
2007-10-29 - The Guardian - Brown's bona fides
Author: AC Grayling
Summary: The real test of whether the prime minister is a sincere defender of civil liberties remains ID cards.
2007-10-25 - ZDNet - Famous fraudster hits out at ID cards
Author: Tom Espiner
Summary: At the RSA Conference, subject of the Hollywood film Catch Me If You Can Frank Abagnale claimed the security of the ID cards scheme could be easily compromised.
2007-10-25 - Silicon.com - ID cards will be secure, insists Home Office
Author: Gemma Simpson
Summary: The Home Office has defended the UK ID cards scheme after security expert Frank Abagnale - a one-time confidence trickster made famous by the Steven Spielberg film, Catch Me If You Can - said the scheme should be scrapped if the government cannot ensure it is secure. Abagnale, now a security consultant, criticised the ID cards scheme and said: "You can develop all of the best security systems in the world, the most sophisticated software in the world [yet] all it takes is one weak link that is one person in the system to screw the entire system up."
2007-10-21 - The Times - You’re better safe than free - the mantra of the Whitehall Taliban
Author: Simon Jenkins
Summary: The only real defence of Blair’s “liberty, democracy and freedom” is to demand, constantly and tediously, that each extension of state power be justified as proportionate, cost-effective and consonant with these values. The onus should be on the executive to justify intrusion and repression, not on individuals to resist it. There is no way that ID cards pass this test.
2007-10-06 - Sunday Herald - The watchers’ watchdog
Summary: The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), is the UK's independent authority set up to promote access to personal information held by officialdom, and to protect the public against the exploitation of this data. In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Dr Ken Macdonald, the assistant information commissioner for Scotland, said: "We need to ensure that the collection of personal data isn't excessive, that there are appropriate safeguards and access to information, and that data isn't held any longer than is necessary. ... Macdonald said the commission was "concerned about the breadth of proposals for ID cards". He also added that European nations, which had experience of Nazism and communism, were finely attuned to the need to make sure the most sensitive personal information - such as sexual orientation, political affiliation, trade union membership and religion - were closely protected from scrutiny. "Should we be scared? Very glibly, some people say if you've nothing to hide, you have nothing to be scared of', but you will have something to fear if mistakes are made," said Macdonald.
2007-10-09 - BBC News - MPs question new passport costs
Summary: MPs have questioned why British citizens will have to pay out for both an identity card and an ePassport - when both contain similar information. Similarities in production "should be reflected in the combined fee", the Commons public accounts committee said.
2007-09-16 - BBC News - Labour 'tramples on human rights'
Author: Justin Parkinson
Summary: Sir Menzies Campbell has kicked off the Liberal Democrat annual conference with an attack on the government's human rights record. ... The Lib Dems are promoting their opposition to government policies including introducing identity cards and increasing the length of detention without trial for some terror suspects.
2007-08-21 - The Independent - Liberal Democrats launch attack on Brown's 'surveillance society'
Author: Colin Brown
Summary: Liberal Democrat leaders are to mount an attack on Britain's "surveillance society" that threatens to wreck Gordon Brown's hopes of a cross-party consensus on measures to tackle the threat of terrorism. In a strategic break with the Prime Minister, Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, and his home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg will launch their offensive at their party conference next month. ... Liberal Democrat leaders say Britain is one of the most spied-on nations in the world and will use the conference to launch a campaign to roll back legislation they claim has gone too far. It includes the Identity Cards Act 2006, the creation of a national identity register and proposals for wide ranging data-sharing powers across Whitehall departments.
2007-08-20 - Kable - Paper calls for local ID cards
Summary: A think tank has argued that local authority 'entitlement cards' could be more practical than the National Identity Card. New Local Government Network (NLGN) published a pamphlet on the subject, Local Identity: The role of local entitlement cards in public service delivery, on 17 August 2007. It says that local cards could prove to be cheaper, quicker and provide a better safeguard of identity than the national scheme. It would also be more relevant to most needs as local government provides about 80% of public services.
2007-08-10 - eGov monitor - ID announcement "more spin than substance"
Summary: Responding to the Home Office's announcement that it is "inviting expressions of interest from potential suppliers" for the National Identity Scheme, Phil Booth - NO2ID National Coordinator - said:"Today's announcement is more spin than substance. The Home Office still hasn't released any specifications, so its figures are pie in the sky." "If you bother to read the notice, it's clear that the only projects up for grabs are for passports and visas. We've heard this all before."
2007-08-10 - Bloomberg - U.K. Churches, Scouts May Fingerprint Leaders, IDs Chief Says
Author: Kitty Donaldson and Robert Hutton
Summary: James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, said "While people are still nervous about fingerprints and still have a concern that fingerprints are associated with criminality, we're gradually moving away from that," Hall said. "It's amazing how many schools are starting to use fingerprints just as a simple mechanism for checking kids in and out."
2007-07-09 - The Guardian - ID card contracts put out to tender
Author: Tom Shipp
Summary: Lucrative contracts worth up to £500m each have been put out to tender today for the government's controversial identity card scheme.
2007-08-09 - Computing - ID cards marked for fast rollout
Author: Sarah Arnott
Summary: Identity cards should be rolled out to citizens as quickly as possible, an influential Treasury-backed report will recommend to ministers this month. Sir James Crosby's review of private sector uses of the proposed biometric ID scheme was due to be published with the Budget in March. According to insiders, the former HBOS chief executive's report will be circulated internally in the coming weeks and is to be published when Parliament reconvenes in early October. 'Probably the strongest theme will be a recommendation to establish a critical mass of cardholders very fast, to enable both public and private sectors to get the benefits of the scheme and start building ID checks into business models,' said a senior source.
2007-07-26 - Computing - ID card consultancy hits £50m
Author: Sarah Arnott
Summary: Frustration builds as technology procurement still has not begun. The government has spent £53m on consultants for the national biometric identity card scheme, and continues to use 83 external contractors at a cost of nearly £50,000 per day. The figures are more than double the value of the original £19m pre-procurement consultancy contract signed in 2004, according to data released to Computing by the Home Office under the Freedom of Information Act. The ID scheme has been substantially re-shaped in the past 18 months – changing from a standalone card system using entirely new IT systems to a broader identity management programme that will reuse existing government databases and is closely allied with international requirements for biometric passports. ...
2007-07-13 - Computer Weekly - Government outlines ID-card security measures
Author: Antony Savvas
Summary: The government outlined measures it will take to ensure the privacy of ID-card holders at a Westminster eForum seminar on Thursday. Stephen Harrison, director of policy, identity and the passport service, said biographical and biometric data would be stored on two separate IT systems to ensure maximum security.
2007-07-12 - ZDNet - ID card scrutiny under threat
Author: David Meyer
Summary: Parliamentary scrutiny of ID cards and other technological and scientific issues could be seriously undermined by the new administration's reorganisation of governmental departments, according to members of a crucial committee. Brian Iddon, MP for Bolton South East and a member of the House of Commons Science and Technology select committee, said on Thursday that proper oversight of scientific and technological issues could be threatened by the abolition of both the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES).
2007-07-10 - Kable - Privacy core to ID success, ICO warns
Summary: Government needs to make privacy and data protection principles a core component of its IT specifications, according to the assistant information commissioner. Speaking at a Kable conference on identity management infrastructures, held on 9 July 2007, Jonathan Bamford said that designing in these principles would make ID management more effective and enhance society's confidence in the systems. "Public confidence is like personal privacy," explained Bamford. "Once you've lost it, it's virtually impossible to retrieve it."
2007-07-05 - The Guardian - Stand by for the Orwellian metaphors about ID cards
Author: Michael Cross
Summary: Over the next few months, opponents of identity cards will be deploying a full set of Orwellian metaphors to try to persuade the new prime minister and home secretary to have second thoughts about this apparently Big Brother scheme. They are not quite whistling in the wind. On the card itself, the government has some room to manoeuvre without losing political face or going back on international agreements. For a clue to Gordon Brown's thinking, look at Sir David Varney's review of government services, published by the Treasury last December. Although near-obsessive on the subject of rationalising the means through which the state identifies its citizens, the review makes no mention of the ID card. As it is supposed to inform policy decisions until 2011, this looks like good news for the No2ID-ers opposing it. But don't get too excited. Even if the government turns down the heat under the card (except where issued as a biometric passport), two further national identity schemes are coming to the boil.
2007-07-04 - BBC - Brown and Cameron clash over ID
Summary: Gordon Brown and David Cameron have clashed over plans to introduce identity cards in their first prime minister's questions encounter. Mr Cameron, whose Conservatives oppose the cards, said they would "cause more problems than they solve" and had not stopped terror attacks abroad. But Mr Brown, who raised the issue, said they were needed as they were "complementary" to other policies. ... Mr Cameron quoted Mr Brown's new chancellor, Alistair Darling, as having said in the past: "Identity cards are unnecessary and will create more difficulties than they will solve. I don't want my whole life to be reduced to a magnetic strip on a plastic card."
2007-06-30 - eGov monitor - NO2ID: ID scheme "could cripple Brown premiership"
Summary: Campaign group NO2ID argue today that premier-in-waiting Gordon Brown should save the Exchequer billions of pounds in a time of tightened public spending by scrapping the abortive identity cards scheme. But a national newspaper article today suggests that Mr Brown will back the identity cards scheme set in motion by his predecessor, despite speculation that he, as Chancellor, might have been convinced the project would be prohibitively expensive.
2007-06-24 - The Guardian Comment Is Free - Only when he restores liberty can we praise him
Author: Henry Porter
Summary: I may be wrong about Brown. When the ID card scheme is abandoned, the Inquiries Act redrafted to return scrutiny and power to Parliament, when elements of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act are repealed to allow demonstrations within a kilometre of Parliament and a distinction is made between arrestable and non-arrestable offences, when the Tribunals, Court and Enforcement Bill is stopped in its tracks and an Englis