By Andrew Donoghue, 13 January 2006 14:20
NEWS
A senior manager in the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has come up with a unique alternative to the government's ID Card scheme - give everyone in the country a free iPod installed with a digital certificate.
Patrick Cooper, head of applications and data services at the DTI, floated the idea - albeit with his tongue firmly in cheek - at a event on Tuesday, hosted by Adobe, to discuss technology predictions for 2006.
Cooper said that two of the main issues facing the IT industry are network authentication and security - particularly when using government services online. He claimed the ubiquity of ADSL networks has come at a price - and that price is security. ISDN was an inherently more secure medium than ADSL but was too expensive to meet the needs of most consumers or small businesses.
But a mobile phone or an iPod equipped with a digital signature or digital certificate which consumers or business users plugged into their home machines would be an efficient way to solve online authentication and identity management problems, Cooper argued.
He said: "If you had a mobile phone with a digital certificate you could dock it into your PC - an iPod with a digital certificate would also work. My boss would give everyone in the UK an iPod - that would also mean there would be no reason for anyone to steal one because everyone would have one."
Cooper quipped that the iPod scheme would be a more cost-efficient alternative to other government plans to combat online fraud, such as equipping the proposed national ID card with a PIN or password system to enable it to work as an online authentication device.
The government has been facing mounting pressure to combat online fraud after it emerged in December last year that the tax credit website had been hit by more than £30m of fraudulent claims.
The cost per ID card could rise to almost £500 due to the cost of integrating the IT infrastructure with other government departments and public sector bodies, according to recent figures from the London School of Economics (LSE).
Cooper said an iPod with a digital certificate "would be cheaper than the ID card scheme because everyone at the [LSE] has told us how expensive ID cards are going to be".
Under Cooper's plan, giving everyone in the UK an iPod nano would work out at roughly £139 - even before factoring in the kind of discount that Apple may offer for a bulk purchase of 60 million units.
The LSE has also calculated that integrating the ID card IT infrastructure with all the government departments and public bodies expected to use the national identity register will cost an extra £5bn to £10bn - bringing the total cost of the scheme nearer to £30bn.
According to Apple, the company sold 14 million iPods in the final quarter of 2005 and 32 million for the year in total.
silicon.com's Andy McCue contributed to this report
Andrew Donoghue writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
There are 15 comments. Join the discussion
1. Mike Poole
...and then he would also give PCs and ADSL to millions of people who don't have those...and then he would provide the training for them to use it...and the malware...and it would still be cheaper than ID cards perhaps.
2. Bradley
Under Cooper's plan, giving everyone in the UK an iPod nano would work out at roughly £139 per person, or £8.4bn in total - even before factoring in the kind of discount that Apple may offer for a bulk purchase of 60 million units.
3. Ken Munn
Tougue in cheek suggestion, surely!
Nick my iPod, nick my iDentity.
4. Roy Corneloues
Why an iPod? What about all the other brands out there such as Creative or iRiver who provide equivalent or even better quality proucts than the iPod...
The word "iPod" now has reached the same status as "Hoover". A brand name that describes an activity.
Just think of the anti-competetive court cases that would arise from all the other manufacturers if this sort of deal was allowed to go ahead.
Anyway, putting the iPod" issue, surely the government should be liasing with the banks as the last thing consumers want is a raft of USB devices cluttering up their desktop at home.
USB Chip & PIN readers or tokens are being considered amongst others. Why is someone not co-ordinating this...
5. kevin inskip
The major elements in the total cost of supplying secure identity tokens (which leads to the estimated cost per citizen) is not the physical cards, but the integration with all participating agencies and stakeholder partners.
Using iPods (or any other MP3Player or even smart memory sticks) as the storage device for the identity tokens does not dramatically reduce these integration costs. Nor the does the form of the identity token (smart cards use digital signatures and certificates as well.
True, if everyone has an iPod, the desire to steal them as an entertainment device will reduce here in the UK, but theft for resale overseas would be very tempting, that is after the "stolen identities" have first been stripped out and sold to the highest bidder.
6. anonymous
Could you get from home to post office before the battery ran out?
7. Simon
Roy Corneloues asked "USB Chip & PIN readers or tokens are being considered amongst others. Why is someone not co-ordinating this..."
Because no-one wants standardisation - except on their own terms ? The government don't want standardised anything, they only want their own pet project. Though I rather think the bank probably are talking amongst themselves (privately at least) for the simple reason that they all share a desire to do it as cheaply as possible.
8. Richard
Great, stereo identity!
That would match my new dual identity, created by my bank to overcome a software fault:
They "cloned" me: I now have a joint account ... with myself.
(Or would I need a special "quad" iPod?)
9. Richard
Great, stereo identity!
That would match my new dual identity, created by my bank to overcome a software fault:
They "cloned" me: I now have a joint account ... with myself.
(Or would I need a special "quad" iPod?)
10. Karen Challinor
tongue in cheek certainly, but the idea of a digital certificate is interesting, it costs very little to generate and can be put in a multitude of devices, distribution cost is minimal and verification is widely available already
and if the people don't want one or don't have such a device to put it in, well it's not actually compulsory to produce the certificate on demand is it
well not according to the government anyway
at least not until the bill has been passed that is
11. anonymous
OK, this was a joke, but it betrays a rich, educated and (relatively) young perspective. What about all the older people, of which our population is increasingly comprised? My mum can manage an audio cassette player, but that's about it. I can't use iPods because I have hearing aids in each ear.
No, the bottom-up answer is best, whereby credit or bank cards, say, gradually converge in function with NHS cards to provide the necessary cross-checking, to a standard evolved by the large service providers. We need to start from what we've got, even if it doesn't provide massive pickings for the IT industry.
12. Neill Tinlin
If I remember correctly the Belgian govt. introduced very basic ID cards non-biometric but including a digital cert. for accessing govt. services and transaction security.
13. Richard
Great, stereo identity!
That would match my new dual identity, created by my bank to overcome a software fault:
They "cloned" me: I now have a joint account ... with myself.
(Or would I need a special "quad" iPod?)
14. David Moss
Forget the iPod suggestion, concentrate on the mobile phone alternative. 80% of us in the UK already have mobile phones. They are ID cards: they identify us; they identify our associates; they locate us. They have already been paid for so there is no need to spend billions on new smart cards. We already have five mobile phone networks up and running so there is no need to spend billions on a new national network of ID card terminals -- the handset is the terminal. We already have them so there is no need to wait eight years to use them as ID cards. We already use them despite knowing perfectly well that the police use them to track suspects so the privacy issues have already been resolved, arguably. Biometrics don't work yet but if and when they do they could be transmitted to and stored on mobile phones in digital certificates. Any problems which apply to mobile phones (e.g. theft, forgery, ...) apply also to separately carried smart cards. Mobile phones aren't universal but then neither will ID cards be universal. It is better for survival to have multiple intersecting independent schemes anyway. If and only if anyone still wants an ID card scheme, it can be implemented more quickly and more effectively at less cost if it is based on mobile phones and not on new smart cards. This is what I call "dematerialised ID" and I think I have just saved the UK taxpayer several billion pounds. Please see for a bit more detail: http://si.vse.cz/archiv/clanky/2004/07_moss.pdf.
15. anonymous
An iPod IS an ID!
Cool true iPod story - son phones up to say he's borken down and hasn't got his wallet - just cash, mobile phone and the iPod. I text number of breakdown company who arrive and ask for ID. Hmm - no wallet, no driving licence - but wait ... produces iPod with name laser engraved on the back. Breakdown employee duly provides service.