By Andy McCue, 27 June 2005 15:30
NEWS The government's national ID card proposals are a "dog's dinner" that will end up costing taxpayers more than £19bn, according to leading academics and economists.
The London School of Economics (LSE) report, The Identity Project, is the result of an in-depth six-month investigation by more than 100 academics and many private-sector IT companies into the cost and feasibility of the ID card plans, and comes the day before MPs are due to vote on the bill in parliament.
The report claims the government has seriously underestimated the cost of the project and capability of the technology and that the whole ID card scheme will cost up to £19.2bn over 10 years compared to the government's current estimate of £5.8bn.
Even in its "best case scenario" the LSE predicts the project will still be double government figures at a cost of at least £10.6bn. Based on the LSE's calculations the unit cost of each ID card would be £230, compared to the government's estimate of £93.
However the government has already been forced to revise this cost upwards after internal Home Office estimates found that subsidising the cards for the elderly and people on benefits would force the cost of the cards to £110 each for everyone else.
Ian Angell, professor of information systems at the LSE, said the current government proposals are not feasible because they are too complex, technically unsafe and suffer from a lack of public trust and confidence.
"It's a dog's dinner and it's not going to work. I believe it is going to fail catastrophically. I can't believe anyone is foolhardy enough to try and implement it," he said.
Among the costs the LSE claims the government has underestimated are the biometric card readers and supporting infrastructure, which could cost up to £4,000 each instead of the £250 to £750 each in the Home Office's ID cards regulatory impact assessment.
Billions of pounds of additional costs have been ignored by the government for the re-scanning of biometrics every few years to keep them up-to-date, the administrative burden for enrolling people onto the national identity register, the integration costs of linking up local and central government IT systems to work with the ID database, and the cost of replacing the worn out or damaged cards.
The LSE report said: "No scheme on this scale has been undertaken anywhere in the world. Smaller and less ambitious systems have encountered substantial technological and operational problems that are likely to be amplified in a large-scale national system. The use of biometrics gives rise to particular concern because this technology has never been used at such a scale."
Doubts about the legality of the ID card proposals are also aired in the report and Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner, said in the foreword: "I have expressed my unease that the current proposal to establish a national identification system is founded on an extensive central register of personal information controlled by government and is disproportionate to the stated objectives behind the introduction of ID cards."
A separate report from public sector research group Kable also claims the government has massively underestimated the cost of the ID card proposals and that the real cost will be closer to £15bn.
But Prime Minister Tony Blair hit back at the LSE figures in his monthly news conference today. "No government is going to start introducing something that's going to cost hundreds of pounds to people. That would be ridiculous," he said.
A full copy of the LSE report can be downloaded here
Comments
There are 16 comments. Join the discussion
1. ßodincus
Awesome bulls**t. UK will have ID cards, as every other civilized world country already have since decades.
Don't you see how ridiculous you are?
Every company, institution, public or private body looking for a proof of ID now can/must accept:
- Photo driving licence
- College or University booklet/card
- Passport
- Birth certificate
- Marriage certificate
- Decrees nisi/absolute
- and on and on with funny items.
Not to be forgotten, even a proof of address is involved in this funny game. To prove your address you can provide:
- Utility bills
- Council tax bill
- Bank statements
- Medical cards
- and on and on with other jokes.
C'mon, this is ridiculous, but not funny.
Throw yourself in the 21st century, Homo Neanderthaliensis!
Stop bothering everyone with your stupid opposition to ID cards in this country. Every other world country citizen is looking at you, rolling on the floor laughing!!!
2. Peter Goddard
Yes I too am getting fed up with this petty opposition to bringing England into the 21st century.
If civilised countries across Europe (if not the world) are able to run ID cards (for the well being of all honest citizens) then why do you imagine for one moment that England will fail.
What a sad position to take!
3. anonymous
Which part of "biometric" does the above reader not understand?
Other countries have ID cards - true.
None of them have a biometric card system of the complexity proposed by the UK govt.
THAT is what we are opposed to, you idiot, a technological cock up that will cost way more than it's worth, most likely fail, and possibly ruin the reputation of the UK IT industry.
Got it yrt?
4. Duane Phillips
Bodincus' previous post just give a fantastic reason not to implement an ID card system. We already have lots of forms of ID so why should we pay for something we dont need.
This isn't about terrorism, it's all about control. If you value your freedom sign up here: http://www.pledgebank.com/refuse or if you're undecided visit here: www.no2id.co.uk
Don't be a bunch of sheep - refuse.
5. anonymous
I am not opposed to ID Cards in principal. We already have to carry driving licences, rail photo cards, cards to get into buildings and the list goes on.
Why not one ID card that will do the lot?
My only serious concern is the spiralling cost of card.
His Holiness god king emperor master iof the universe blair and his viscious side kick one eyed mc brown will be using it as another fund raising excercise for gordons coffers, as well as putting more money into the likes of Capita, who have proved very sucessful at milking the state with all their other work so far.
Still on the bright side with the cost of the card rising daily it will be another poll tax and hopefully will be lamblasted by the press which in turn will be the downfall of our trusted government
6. anonymous
To the Bodincus. Quite frankly if you're not British then it's none of your business. We don't want to carry a little bit plastic before we can get treated in hospital. We don't want everything we've done tracked and information about it accessible through a central computer. It's of no benefit to the average man in the street.
7. Peter Goddard
Yes I too am getting fed up with this petty opposition to bringing England into the 21st century.
If civilised countries across Europe (if not the world) are able to run ID cards (for the well being of all honest citizens) then why do you imagine for one moment that England will fail.
What a sad position to take!
8. anonymous
?dincus is obviously a moron.
If he read the artical he would see the main problem with the ID cards is the cost and the way it is planned to be setup and the fact that the government has mucked up practically all big IT projects they've undertaken.
There is nothing there about civil liberties and privacy which all the old plans used to get called up on.
There is no proof that ID cards solve anything, infact there is a strong argument that they will make things worse. If a criminal hacks one who will stop them? they could get away with even more fraud than they do now.
9. D Butler
If you care to read this series of articles properly '?dincus' you will see that it is not the ID card itself we are opposing, but the way the ID card system is being implemented.
In fact we had ID cards in the UK before (many years ago) so can hardly be averse to the idea in principle!
p.s. AFAIK Neanderthals were a strong, robust species, civilised (in comparison with their peers at the time) and well travelled. Hardly a derogatory comparison really!
10. anonymous
This ID card initiative is worrying. The complexity and cost are so poorly understood that even launching such an IT-rich project should be ringing alarm bells full-on.
Most alarming is the project’s “creep”. I’m used to scope creep as light bulbs go on after a modelling phase. And a little mission creep is not unusual as management adjusts to “possibilities” during execution. But “The Card” project suffers from “vision creep” before it gets fully underway. Did it start as a check on terrorist insurgents? At points since then it’s been cited for tackling benefit fraud, preventing aliens from working illegally, curing identity theft and, I’m sure, lots more. Is it one, all or some of these?
If it’s all or some of these and I suspect it is, then the list of specifications will grow exponentially and quite probably conversely. How many branches of government will be pushing their own agendas in the background? It is entirely unachievable with this mix of purposes. And that’s without the technical obstacles.
It looks like New Labour’s Star Wars project, twenty years on. It’s an enchanting business case – a magic bullet to shoot down all evildoers’ intent to undermine our society. The Card will cost as much as Star Wars, in relative terms, and will achieve exactly as much in twenty years time.
11. anonymous
Another turkey voting for Christmas, I think.
12. John Dady
If the ID card project fails the mob will doubtless bay for the blood of polticians. If it turns out to be a useful boon to the way we live our ordinary lives, who do we rip into then?
13. Roger Huffadine
Strangely it seems that the supporters of the ID card scheme on these postings all have some form of understanding deficiency.
I always understood that Sophia-Antipolis
was not a country but a part of France ;)
Anyway I oppose the ID cards because it is just going to waste taxpayers [my] money.
There are hundreds of reasons why the scheme will fail, technological, social, economic, ergonomic and political. All opposition is exceptionally well documented whilst the case 'for' has not yet been given more than an outing in the press and a few sides of A4 as a badly drafted Bill - I say that because unlike many I have read the thing and it really is worrying :(
14. anonymous
Do You Need an ID Card to Protect yourself against ID Theft when the following is available:
See:
Taking Identity Fraud in Hand:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/3574779.stm
No central database.
Use your biometric to protect yourself.
Render personal information and documents worthless.
Finger fraudsters.
No need to carry any form of ID card:
System cannot be compromised.
No need to remember Passwords or PINs/
15. Richard Sarson
Bodincus is 100% right. Having such an identity mess as we have is like warm beer, mushy peas, fish'nchips, football hooligans; a bad joke to any civilised country.
21 out of 25 EU countries (over 400 million people) have them, and most of them are upgrading to e-ID cards right now. Why don't the goons waving their hands round at Westminster and in these columns take some time off to ask these 400 million what they think?
Insular arrogance, that's why. If they did bother to ask, they might possibly find out what ID cards are useful for and what they are not. The continent has been rolling out Smart cards, the raw material of e-ID, nationally for health, social security and transport for quarter of a century, whereas we have never, never, never done a public-sector Smart Card roll out across the whole country.
In the UK we are just bone ignorant across the board. It would help if pros and antis would show a bit of humility and admit their ignorance, and ask some of our neighbours who have both the experience and expertise.
16. Mark Lawes
The government is displaying the sort of arrogance displayed by Margaret Thatcher over the Poll Tax which was to ignore the facts, public opinion and any other input that suggested that this was a bad idea.
The idea that ID cards could have helped in preventing the London bombings was totally discredited when we learned that all the bombers were known to the security forces beforehand but had been dropped from surveillance because they were not considered to be a serious threat.
The government is buying a blunderbus to kill a mouse and the British people look like being the innocent bystander.