By Andy McCue, 7 March 2008 12:50
COMMENT
If you wondered what the loud screeching of brakes was in Whitehall this week it was the sound of the government attempting to halt the ID cards juggernaut and execute an almighty handbrake u-turn as the wheels started to come off and it threatened to career wildly out of control.
Of course the government is bravely attempting to position this revised timetable for the controversial £5.6bn (that's the government's own cost estimate) national ID card project as anything but a retreat or u-turn - but make no mistake, this is the beginning of the end for this dog's dinner of a scheme. Politically, ID cards are dead.
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A is for Accuracy
B is for Behavioural biometric
C is for Cash machine
D is for Database
E is for Ear
F is for Facial recognition
G is for Gummi bears
H is for Hand geometry
I is for Iris
J is for Juan Vucetich
K is for Keystroke dynamics
L is for Liveness testing
M is for Mobile phones
N is for Network security
O is for Oxford
P is for Palm
Q is for Queues
R is for Registration
S is for Signature verification
T is for Twins
U is for Universality
V is for Voice verification
W is for Walk
X is for X-ray
Y is for Young
Z is for Zurich Airport
The mass population won't now be required to register their biometrics on the national identity register when renewing or applying for a new passport until 2012 now (the original timetable was to do this by 2010).
But the big shift in the government's plans is the subtle sidelining of the physical biometric ID card itself. Although passport applicants will have to give up their biometric scans for the national register they won't be required to pay £30 (again that's the government's estimate - critics put the cost much higher) for an ID card to go with their £70 biometric passport. That will be voluntary.
Instead they can opt to just use their existing forms of ID - passport and driving licence.
In an astonishing and brazen display of flawed Whitehall logic the government claims this will actually help speed up the rollout of ID cards in the UK.
At £30 a pop? Unlikely. Especially when a government commissioned report into the whole "identity assurance" issue, led by former HBoS banking chief James Crosby, was published this week saying ID cards will only be accepted by the public if they are free.
The other part of the grand master plan is to start 'em young - that is to make ID cards available to students and young people from next year. Again they will be voluntary - though it's hard to see how paying £30 for a card that offers very little benefit will appeal to today's debt-ridden and cash-strapped students over the traditional fare of beer and skinny jeans.
The tactic there will be to try and force adoption by making various student and youth-related public services and benefits dependant on having an ID card.
But no, ID cards are not dead, maintains the government - and even better, the revised timetable will slash £1bn off the cost of the scheme. Bravo!
The genius in that plan is to make the private sector pay for the biometric enrolment centres where people will have to queue up to have their fingerprints and irises scanned for the national identity register. The flaw in that, of course, is that if the government can't make the figures stack up then why on earth would the private sector want to foot the bill?
One of the proposed uses - and revenue streams - from ID cards is that employers can use them to vet staff and new recruits. But employers will be forced to stump up for the physical hardware and associated IT costs of installing equipment to do the biometric checks, as well as a fee for each check.
I can see the conversation when the folks from the Identity and Passport Service go into businesses to try and sell that idea being a very short one indeed.
So essentially the 'new' ID card scheme will consist of ID cards for foreign nationals and people working in high security risk areas or occupations - airport workers being the first to be targeted. That's a massive scaling down of the original ID card ambitions and one that is very likely to face further scaling back in the future.
The new plan also puts back a vote on making ID cards compulsory until at least 2015 - that's potentially two general elections away. Gordon Brown has distanced himself from all of this, and for good reason - he doesn't want to be lumbered with this costly and unpopular white elephant when he goes to the electorate.
It is worth pointing out that while the physical ID card may be all but dead, the national identity register - a biometric database of the nation - is still all systems go, and this is something critics claim is potentially more sinister from a privacy and civil liberties perspective, especially in light of the government's recent lax approach to securing personal data.
But make no mistake, this is the beginning of the end for the crackpot ID card scheme.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. Karen Challinor
it's strategy, there is no u-turn just a slight redirection to derail the opposition and spread confusion, they've changed the form slightly but not the content
we are all complaining about the ID card and the associated NIR so they've removed the ID card bit for the moment but kept the NIR, and it's the NIR that does all the invasion of privacy
meanwhile it's full steam ahead to enrol as many as possible in the scheme so that when it does rear it's ugly head again in a few years time HMG can point to a significant enrolment already and use that as a stick to beat the rest of us into line
the scheme isn't dead until the NIR dies along with any other crackpot scheme that requires the population to submit it's biometrics to the government for safe keeping
it may be the beginning of the end but there's a hell of a long road still to travel and HMG is going to resist every step of the way
2. Adrian Carey
As Karen says. The ID cards issue is a red herring.
T5 Heathrow - all passengers will have to give biometric data (- for security reasons). The it will be the other terminals, Gatwick, Stanstead....
Then the Channel Tunnel, then the Ferries - the ...oops we've all been biometriced. Then your data can be controlled.
Is anyone watching 'The Last Enemy' (BBC 1 , Sunday evening). This is too close for comfort.
So next time you step up for a flight, lowly train journey, try to get on the tube, and your biometrics don't register:
"Sorry mate - you can't travel- you don't exist!!"
But it will be OK if you have nothing to hide. Won't it???
3. anonymous
The king is dead. Long live the king.
As you point the scheme is not dead until the database dies. And the NIR is the really dangerous part.
I can just hear GB now - "we have re-assed our plans and mindful of the public's wishes we have abolished ID Cards". Right... what he won’t be saying of course is “but we will be tracking your every move from cradle to grave thanks to the NIR”.
4. anonymous
Karen is so right! Like HMG those opposed to this have to morph their tactics to counter the government's slippery moves. Now is the time to start pre-emptive attacks of the form "now you (Name your Labour minister here) have tacitly accepted that ID cards are dead can you reassure your constituents that the far more intrusive NIR will be subjected to delay until parliamentary scrutiny has examined it in much greater detail?" and to Tory/Liberal "can I have your reassurance that, if in government, you will cancel the NIR and make no compensatory payments to any contractors involved in it?"
The louder and more often these questions are asked, the less likely both ID cards and NIR.
5. anonymous
“but we will be tracking your every move from cradle to grave thanks to the NIR”.
Not if we all stand firm & refuse to provide the data in the first place!
Yes, I too thought of Gormless Gordon as I watched The Last Enemy. I bet he was salivating at the thought of a system like TIA & wondering where he could buy one.
6. Karen Challinor
... and here we are five months down the line and students along with airport workers are being targetted for the first ID cards plus Thales have been offered the contract for the prototype NIR
"ID cards are dead" and "beginning of the end" ware not only premature statements, they may have made the roll out easier by causing some people to relax their opposition to the scheme thinking the battle was won.