By Andy McCue, 20 October 2005 16:40
NEWS The Home Office has outlined plans to test the accuracy of its biometric technology on 2,500 citizens just days after MPs voted in favour of the ID cards bill.
The details are contained in 'market-sounding' documents on the ID cards procurement strategy inviting IT suppliers to help the Home Office shape the form of contracts that could be worth between £5bn and £19bn.
Even though the bill has to be approved by the House of Lords before it is given Royal Assent, Home Office minister Tony McNulty said the market-sounding process is "in no way pre-judging the outcome of the parliamentary process" before adding it is necessary so that ID cards can be implemented "without undue delay once Royal Assent is granted".
To test enrolment and verification performance of the biometric systems the Home Office plans to recruit around 2,100 people who are "reasonably representative of the working population of the UK" and another 300 people representative of "persons whose biometrics may be more challenging to record".
The plan is then to test fingerprint matching capabilities using one to two million sets of fingerprint images.
The market-sounding document goes on to detail how the Home Office anticipates the central National Identity Register will be capable of holding more than 100 million records that will be used for an estimated 163 million ID verification transactions each year from 265 government departments and up to 44,000 private sector organisations.
In an accompanying questionnaire IT suppliers are also invited to express their views on the biometric technology proposed for the ID card scheme with the Home Office saying that any criticisms won't affect the supplier's ability to compete when it does go out to tender.
The document states: "This exercise is designed solely to help the [ID Cards] Programme understand the market's reaction to its current thinking on the procurement strategy."
IT industry body Intellect said it supports the market-sounding exercise. Nick Kalisperas, public sector director at Intellect, said in a statement: "Only through a comprehensive understanding of the industry, its capacity and its capabilities will the government be in a position to develop an ID card scheme capable of delivering on its promises to citizens."
But the Home Office also adds an almighty get-out clause at the end of the market-sounding document saying that as the information is preliminary and subject to change "no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by the Home Office or any of its advisors as to the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of such information within this presentation".
Comments
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1. Ruth
Well, I know the response I'll be making if I'm one of the 2.500 people approached!!
Unproven, untested, unreliable, unwanted, unuseable - and we wonder why government IT Projects always turn out to be shambolic - and a licence for the companies involved in them to print money.
2. anonymous
Now that they have been given the green light to identify every one in the country, all the hogwash about security needs to be aired. Now how is this going to work??? Mmm, lets see.... All uk residents are fingerprinted, identified, tracked etc. Now a terrorist attack happens, mmm, Not a UK resident that did it, Mmmm, someone who came in from abroad on a passport, mmmm, what a good idea, lets make loads of money for the coffers by charging our own people £30 to have themselves fingerprinted and stored on a computer, and a further ££60 to have themselves on the National Database and have a bit of plastic with a photo on that can be lost even easier than those large passport paper thingy's, and lets really muck them about by charging them another £90 to replace it every time they lose it, and every 10 years (just like the paper passport), wow, I think the public will really fall for that one. So now the other question is, I am not going to have an ID card, I am happy with my passport, but when it runs out in a few years time, or after this scheme is in place, If I don't apply for a passport, and don't agree to an Identity card, do I become a non citizen?? What about the homeless and vagrants, are the goverment going to force them to have an ID card. And here is the biggy, does this also mean that as soon as you are born, within minutes/hours/days/weeks/months your children/grandchildren/great grandchildren are forced to have their Civil rights compromised by some Brainless wonder in the goverment...
I would suggest everyone thinks about this before your rights are gone....
3. Karen Challinor
not pre judged in the same way as the commons vote was fair
how many labour peers are there now ?
4. mou
ID cards - even though the majority of the UK are sceptical, it gets pushed through anyway. This is starting to become a habit with our Government...
I have to ask - why do they need fingerprints AND retina scans? This may seem obvious, but *apparently* fingerprint testing is so secure they've been throwing people in jail for years on the basis of it. Is this now an admission fingerprinting ISNT that accurate??
Other questions I wish I knew the answers to:
1. Surely compulsory collection of Biometric data is a human right infringement?
2. What if we refuse? I havent commited a crime, so what right do they have to treat me like a criminal?
3. WHY ID CARDS?! Why not exisisting passports? or driving licenses?!?
5. Karen Challinor
To - mou
1. Surely compulsory collection of Biometric data is a human right infringement?
Yes it is, but the government aren't big believers in human rights despite
2. What if we refuse? I havent commited a crime, so what right do they have to treat me like a criminal?
Refusal will become a criminal act subject to a £2500 fine for the first offence and 18 months in jail for refusal to pay the fine, then you get asked again
3. WHY ID CARDS?! Why not exisisting passports? or driving licenses?!?
why not indeed, probably because the government won't make quite so much revenue or gain so much information on the general population of the UK
6. Jeremy Wickins
@ mou.
It is unlikely that retinal scans will be used. If the same set of biometrics is used as in the UK Passport Service trial reported earlier this year, it will be ten fingerprints, both irises, and facilal recognition. All are flawed - the failure rates in the general public are - to me - unacceptably high, but if you fall into certain groups of people, you are likely to be royally stuffed. Black people can't rely on iris scans, manual workers cannot rely on fingerprint scans, people with long hair (especially fringes) can't rely on facial recognition, etc.
As to collection of these things being contrary to Human Rights - well, it is probable that they won't even be classed as personal data (in most countries in Europe, even your genetic data aren't classed as personal data!).
7. Phil Booth
Even less meaningful tests than before
2,500 (actually 2,100 in the Home Office document) is between one fifth and one quarter of the size of the population used in the disastrous UKPS biometric trials held last year. And even that - with 10,000 volunteers - was not a large enough trial to be considered meaningful for mass deployment (43,000,000+) of biometrics. This is about as far from "rigorous" as you can get.
It looks like the first time the Home Office intend to run a proper-sized trial of biometrics is when they foist them on the British public for real. By which time it will be too late, and the poor 'guinea pigs' unfortunate enough to be coerced onto the Register first will be exposed to the full risks of this technology, implemented at the heart of a seriously flawed Government scheme...