By Nick Heath, 25 November 2008 17:12
NEWS
The first UK ID cards will be of limited use for full biometric ID checks on foreign workers, with the government yet to reveal a timetable for the deployment of scanners capable of reading the cards.
The first UK ID cards were issued to people from outside the European Economic Area today.
But the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has revealed that for the foreseeable future employers will not have scanners that can verify a worker's ID against the fingerprint and facial scans held on the card's chip.
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Employers instead will have to rely on visual checks on the card and calls to a UK Border Agency (UKBA) hotline if they have any concerns the card might not be genuine.
The admission by the IPS bolsters recent concerns that the ID verification scheme has been relegated to relying on "flash and go" cards, after Home Office documents revealed this month that the cards' biometric details will only be cross-referenced with the central National Identity Register in a minority of cases.
An IPS spokesman said: "There are currently no scanners that will be available to employers.
"Over time there will be a number of ways of authenticating and verifying identity, depending on the importance of the check ranging from a visual check to a biometric check.
"These are the first cards to be rolled out and the scheme will be developed over the next couple of years."
Phil Booth, national co-ordinator for ID cards pressure group NO2ID, said: "It makes a lie of all these grandiose claims about biometrics if there is not the infrastructure to back it up.
"It will be a bit of plastic that will be eminently copyable."
According to Booth, employers who doubted the authenticity of the card had been told to flick it to check for a distinctive sound.
"This is the mechanism by which employers are supposed to be checking a worker's identity - it is farcical," he said.
The cards will contain a person's name; place and date of issue of the card; the type of permit; how long it is valid and whether or not they can work; and a chip containing their fingerprint and facial scans. Biometric details will be collected from all foreign nationals over the age of six.
Cards are being introduced for foreign students, at a cost of between £295 and £500 and for people seeking marriage visas at a cost between £395 and £595. Other categories of foreign nationals will be required to take up the cards at a later date.
Fingerprints and facial scans will be captured at seven UKBA centres, starting with Croydon today before rolling it out to other centres in Armagh, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool and Sheffield, with all centres taking biometrics by mid-December.
The Home Office says it will issue 50,000 cards to foreign nationals between now and April 2009 and that it expects to be issuing more than one million such ID cards per year within three years.
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
haha, what a joke, as much as I laugh I also hang my head in shame at our government.
Numpties, numpties everywhere.
Time for the Public to rise up against this project and cripple it with FOI's on the cost.
2. Richard Davies
What a load of watered down rubbish.
In what instances will this database be accessed then?
How can the cost rise so much, yet what we actually get goes down and down and down, until we're paying an awful lot of money for a flash and go card!
Its a disgrace is what it is and the people involved should be banned from ever being involved in such projects ever again.
Why have the other parties let it get this far with so much money being wasted in a time where you need as much of it as possible.
3. Guy Reynolds
So I have two prospective employees I flick their ID cards and they have distictive but different sounds which one is the real one and which one the forgery. Have the Home Office released an MP3 that I can play and check the sound against?
Oh and by the way how much are these scanners going to cost me when the government do role them out, and am I going to be prosecuted if I don't have one and it is dicovered that I am employing someone illegally on a forged ID card?
4. anonymous
When you 'flick' the cards, the one that loses it's chip will be the real one.
The fakers will not be able to get cards of a similar quality to the ones the government will purchase.
Similarly, when you do get a reader, the card that wrecks the reader will be the 'good' one.
Subsequently, having 'acquired' an 'authorised' reader you will be subject to the fine for employing anybody who does not have a card considered to be 'valid' by the authorities.
Gotta reduce the government debt (incurred for the system) somehow!
5. Radical Meldrew
Prospective Employer: Hello, hello I see you have one of the new ID cards. Eva, telephone accounts and ask 'Herr Flick' to come up to my office.
The whole ID card thing is one big joke.
6. Karen Challinor
ok so we've just flushed democracy down the toilet for an id card thats no better and is in fact probably worse at identifying the holder than a provisional driving license
after all anyone who can have an ID card can have a provisional driving license they both have your photo on they both have signatures and DOB's on the police can be contacted to verify the license is genuine yadda yadda
but no we have to lose our democratic rights because .... well .... we just have to ok
and this
"According to Booth, employers who doubted the authenticity of the card had been told to flick it to check for a distinctive sound"
is laughable
you flick the card and the distinctive sound is identified as "MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA you're mine! you'll do what I say when I say" probably in Jacqui Smiths voice?
7. Pogle
April 1st get earlier every year
8. Ask Jacky - she
Based on previous performance, shouldn't they be saying that they'll issue 50,000 cards to people IF THEY CAN FIND THEM?
As ever, with this bunch of clowns in govt it's another 'p*** up in a brewery' moment.