infinite ideas machine

Re-posted from archive of infinite ideas machine 2004: [LINKS UNCHECKED]

Steven Mathieson’s article in the Guardian, Knowing me, knowing you, is another of his well-informed pieces on government IT policy. He quotes David Cameron (Conservative MP) who refers to the Govenment’s “excuse culture”: they’ve got a whole bunch of problems – such as illegal immigration, serious crime, terrorism – but no real answers, so they offer a National Identity Register-backed ID card scheme as a “cure-all”.

When a ‘new’ controversy arrives in the media (e.g. the Bichard report, regarding the intelligence failures that contributed to the Soham murders) you can bet your bottom dollar that the Home Secretary or Home Office will try to ‘work in’ a role for ID cards or the NIR – leading to massive ‘feature creep’ before the things are even implemented, and even more worrying erosions of personal privacy and the presumption of innocence. For example, it is now proposed that allegations be attached to people’s records (i.e. stuff that may not even have taken place, let alone been committed by the individual) and that ID cards should in some way be linked to the Criminal Records Bureau.

Are we all, therefore, to be tarred with the same brush as the paedophiles and serious criminals? And do you *really* think that little plastic cards are going to prove a serious impediment to these people?

One of the more worrying aspects of all this is the sheer number of current and upcoming public (and private) sector initiatives designed to track us and our behaviour. Thanks to Steven for the following list:

Citizen Information Project: National Statistics plans a population register of everyone in the UK, providing one place to update details and improving government statistics.National Identity Register: to be built from scratch for the ID card scheme. To include every UK adult, subject to parliamentary vote, it will include reference numbers for databases such as national insurance and NHS numbers, and biometric measurements.

NHS Care Records Service: the national project has started building a patient database to contain summary medical records for all in England.

Coordinated Online Register of Electors: plans are to merge or link the electoral rolls managed by all UK local authorities.

Local databases of all children in England are being trialled.

The Department for Transport will produce a feasibility study on installing tracking devices in all vehicles this summer, allowing road pricing.

Private sector databases include credit reference agencies, loyalty cards and bank databases of card data.

If they are so interested in knowing me and knowing you, why is it they are not so keen on us knowing what they are doing… and why?!

Re-posted from archive of infinite ideas machine 2004: [LINKS UNCHECKED]

ID Data seem to think they are in with a chance of getting the contract for Blunkett’s ID cards:

ID Data has made its first move to be seriously considered as a supplier of choice for the UK’s National ID Card.At Intellect’s high profile conference* attended by leading Home Office personnel and industry leaders, ID Data presented a challenging solution to the Government’s needs for a mass issue of ID cards.

Peter Cox, CEO of ID Data plc, presented the Company’s views on how they could assist the Government’s plans to implement ID Cards within the UK.

*That’ll be the closed industry event that the Home Office attended, the Monday after the Thursday on which they decided not to attend or be represented at the public LSE meeting on ID cards…

I think Atos Origin might have a few things to say about this! After all, it must have cost them quite a pretty penny to take over Schlumberger Sema earlier this year (who themselves had been lobbying hard for the introduction of biometric ID cards, and had by that point been chosen by the Home Office to run the UKPS biometric enrollment trial) and they’ll be looking for a return on their investment.

The pity is that this is one of those situations where you want neither David or Goliath to win. It would be a tragedy of the highest order for us to lose our right to privacy, the presumption of innocence and the ability to assert our own identities in the mere pursuit of shareholder value.

Re-posted from archive of infinite ideas machine 2004: [LINKS UNCHECKED]

An updated list (in reverse order) of the uncorrected transcripts of oral evidence, i.e. neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The most recent two hearings also have links to their Parliament Live webcasts, but these are only stored for 14 days from their original transmission so catch ’em while they’re there:

15th June 2004 – Chris Pounder (Editor, ‘Data Protection and Privacy Practice’) and Claire McNab (Vice-President, Press for Change), Dr Vivienne Nathanson (Director of Professional Activities, British Medical Association), Dr John Chisholm CBE (Chairman, General Practitioners Committee, BMA) and Trevor Phillips OBE (Chair, Commission for Racial Equality).

Read Spy Blog’s comments and/or watch the webcast recorded on 15/6/04.

8th June 2004 – Roger Smith (Director, JUSTICE), Shami Chakrabarti (Director, Liberty), Simon Davies (Director, Privacy International) and Vicki Chapman (Head of Law Reform, the Law Society), and Richard Thomas (Information Commissioner) and Jonathan Bamford (Assistant Commissioner, responsible for data protection).

Webcast recorded on 8/6/04.

4th May 2004 – David Blunkett (Home Secretary), Desmond Browne (Minister of State for Citizenship and Immigration), Katherine Courtney (Director, Identity Cards Programme) and Stephen Harrison (Head, Identity Card Policy Unit, Home Office).

27th April 2004 – Len Cook (Registrar General for England and Wales) and Denis Roberts (Director for Registration Services, General Register Office) then Charles Clarke (Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills), John Hutton (Minister of State for Health) and Chris Pond (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions).

20th April 2004 – John Harrison (Edentity), Andy Jebson (Cubic Transportation Systems), Richard Haddock (LaserCard Systems Corporation) and Neil Fisher (QinetiQ).

24th February 2004 – Nick Kalisperas (Senior Programme Manager, ID Card Working Group, Intellect), Geoff Llewellyn (Member, ID Card Working Group, Intellect), Ross Anderson (Foundation for Information Policy Research) and Martyn Thomas (UK Computing Research Committee).

10th February 2004 – Martin Hall (Director-General, Finance and Leasing Association), Gerald Vernon-Jackson (Local Government Association) and Jan Berry (Chairman, Police Federation).

3rd February 2004 – Shami Chakrabarti (Director, Liberty), Simon Davies (Director, Privacy International) and Vicky Chapman (Head of Law Reform, the Law Society) then Richard Thomas (Information Commissioner) and Jonathan Bamford (Assistant Information Commissioner, Identity Cards).

11th December 2003 – Nicola Roche (Director, Identity Card Policy Unit), Katherine Courtney (Director, Identity Cards Programme), Stephen Harrison (Head, Identity Card Policy Unit, Home Office).

Re-posted from archive of infinite ideas machine 2004: [UNLINKED]

Re-posted from archive of infinite ideas machine 2004: [UNLINKED]

Duncan’s story on out-law.com today, entitled ‘A close encounter with biometrics’ offers a glimpse of what biometric enrollment – for Passports, Drivers’ Licenses and ID cards, to name but three – may involve for us all.

Potentially incorrect readings, an inability to verify or match records due to simple communications failures and technicians who would rather trust a machine than think for themselves – even to assist a willing volunteer!

It is hard to see how this trial (already delayed and shortened because of previous supplier errors) is going to ‘prove’ anything other than the fact that biometrics are highly inconvenient and time-consuming and that the capture and reading technologies are not even close to reliable enough to ensure the levels of ‘infallibility’ touted by Mr. Blunkett and his ID card department.

If you see any future Home Office Press Release hailing the ‘oustanding success’ of the UKPS trial, you’ll know for sure that these people simply don’t care about us citizens, or even the validity of the citizen-held ‘identity tokens’ (e.g. biometric passports, ID cards) which they intend to issue and charge us for – it’s the database that they want.

(im)Pure and simple.

And if this hypothetical Press Release were to mention ‘valuable lessons learned’? How about the fact that, despite the much-touted “80%” public support for ID cards the trial was unable to muster even 7,000 volunteers: the Home Office should learn to ignore polls from companies that have a vested interest in the outcome. [MORI ran both the Detica-commissioned poll and the recruitment process for the UKPS trial]

The only lesson to be learned here, by any truly open-minded individual, is that even state-of-the-art biometric technologies are not up to the job of mass identification. With the 7+% enrolment failure rate currently being experienced on some types of biometric, over 4 million of us would be left without identities through machine error alone. And almost 1 in 10 ‘verifications’ would fail in the real world, with all the attendant consequences…

N.B. those incredibly high ‘positive & negative match’ figures that you may hear bandied about relate only to what goes on in the database – which should bloody well work 100% of the time, seeing as *all* they are doing is matching sets of bits! They have nothing to do with whether the bits that are being checked (against) are actually yours, or are in the right place under the right name, or are even currently available. And no matter how much the technology improves, this will always remain the case.

Get real – ID cards (the way the Home Office wants to do ’em) just won’t work.