By Nick Heath, 8 July 2009 17:48
NEWS
Plans to cut £1bn from the cost of the ID cards project by making people enrol on the high street could be unworkable, after a government report warned the process could be vulnerable to fraud.
The Home Office had hoped biometric enrolment for cards would take place in Post Offices, but this could be thrown into doubt by a report by the Business and Enterprise Committee that found "many or even most identity services may well be too sophisticated to provide across the [post office] network".
This is the latest blow to hit the ID card project - the government has already announced it does not plan to make the cards compulsory and has recently dropped plans which require airside workers and pilots to have the cards. Retailers were also hoping to benefit from up to £6bn in extra business because of the increased footfall from being involved in enrolment.
The Department for Transport (DfT) advised the committee that it was becoming increasingly difficult for Post Office staff to spot high quality fake passports that were being used for over the counter checks when applying for driving licences. Passports would also be used as one of the ways of verifying identity when enrolling for ID cards.
The DfT told the committee that the "ability to identify increasingly sophisticated counterfeits and forgeries has become a specialist skill which Post Office staff, who handle a very wide range of business and general transactions, cannot be expected to have".
The cost of providing ID cards and biometric passports over the next 10 years has been reduced to £5bn on the basis that people would scan their fingerprints and facial photographs in high street outlets, which also included pharmacies and photographic shops, rather than at government offices.
Dr Edgar Whitley, reader in information systems at the London School of Economics and co-author of two LSE reports on the ID cards scheme, said the argument that high street biometric enrolment could be both secure and cheap had fallen apart.
"I would assume that the Post Office would have been one of the more secure locations, as they are handling money and passport applications," he said.
"If Post Office staff do not have those kinds of skills then the staff on the tills at pharmacies and photo shops are not going to be able to do that.
"If you have people who have to be trained for biometric enrolment they are then going to be overqualified to also sell stamps and cold cures.
"It will be unprofitable to do [the training] and the move to the private market becomes very difficult to implement.
"It means that the £1bn saving by moving into the private sector has to be moved back into the cost of the scheme again."
Chairman of the Business and Enterprise Committee, Conservative MP Peter Luff, said he believes enrolment services would be able to take place at larger Post Offices - but only at a cost.
"Most of the small sub post offices would probably not be suitable but the larger more sophisticated post offices probably would be," he said.
"Not every post office could carry out the service and there will be cost implications but if there is a service that citizens have a right to access then you cannot just run it on a cost model."
A Home Office spokeswoman said the department had yet to consider the cost of training post office and private sector staff.
She added that the government had still not committed itself to high street biometric enrolment for the public, who will be able to get ID cards from 2012.
A Home Office spokesman added that the decision on whether to issue a card will not lie with Post Office or shop staff: "Decisions on who is eligible to receive one will remain with the relevant organisation and only after appropriate checks have been made on an individual's application."
People living in Manchester, who will be able to apply for ID cards from the end of 2009, would enrol in facilities in Identity and Passport Service offices.
The report also reveals that the UK Border Agency plans to run a six- to 12-month pilot where foreign nationals will be able to enrol for ID cards in one of 20 post offices across the UK.
The Home Office said it is on track to meet its commitment of issuing 75,000 cards to foreign nationals by November 2009.
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. karen challinor
well if mp's will insist on making sound good, knee jerk responses to questions like" how can we make this scheme cheaper to roll out" by saying "oh we'll do it in post offices and chemists in the high street"
without actually thinking through the completely new raft of problems this will bring
then mp's shouldn't be surprised when the problems come back and bite them in their gluteus maximus should they
and while they are at it they can think long and hard about a scheme which will never be compulsory, according to the home secretary, but still has draconian clauses for issuing fines if you fail to keep your information up to date
because I've been thinking about it and the conclusion I've come up with is that the right honourable gentleman concerned is perhaps bending the truth a little
voluntary schemes which are unlikely to have universal application do not need big sticks to beat said volunteers with to keep them in line
however voluntary schemes which are intended to eventually become compulsory and universal could find a big stick very useful
2. Jeremy Wickins
Is this s surprise to anyone?? This was always a concern. There is sufficient evidence from the USA that workers that issue identity documents (driving licences) make mistakes very easily. A high level of training is required, as well as a high level of motivation, neither of which would be easy in dedicated staff, let alone those with other roles, which may well be regarded as a priority by the employer.
3. Michael Dixon
Why can the card not replace my passport? Replace for all travel, everywhere.
It works in other countries - doesn't it?
4. David Moss
You refer to "plans to cut £1bn from the cost of the ID cards project by making people enrol on the high street". There are no such plans. The £1bn may no longer go through the Home Office's books. That wouldn't cut the cost of the scheme. Real people would still have to pay real money to get an ID card. It's just that they would pay some of the money to high street outlets rather than to the Home Office.
5. David Moss
"... the government has already announced it does not plan to make the cards compulsory" -- true.
That announcement was made by Alan Johnson, the day after a new paper was released by his department, Safeguarding Identity.
That paper states that:
"3.32. The vision for the NIS is that it will become an essential part of everyday life; underpinning interactions and transactions between individuals, public services and businesses and supporting people to protect their identity".
And Alan Johnson says in the Foreword that:
"I fully endorse the actions set out in this strategy and look forward to supporting their delivery".
Unless he is saying that everyday life is optional, it is hard to see how he reconciles Safeguarding Identity with ID cards being optional.
There is a good chance that Alan Johnson is talking nonsense when he says that ID cards will never be compulsory.
6. David Moss
"The Department for Transport (DfT) advised the committee that it was becoming increasingly difficult for Post Office staff to spot high quality fake passports that were being used for over the counter checks when applying for driving licences."
That may be the case. But the solution is trivial. This is precisely what public key cryptography is for and the world has 40 years experience of it -- 40 years experience of which the Committee appears to be ignorant. How do they think credit cards are authenticated? How do they think subscriber cards in TV decoders are authenticated? How do they think mobile phones are authenticated?
Ascertaining whether a passport is authentic and whether it has been reported as lost or stolen is simple. That isn't the problem.
Ascertaining whether the person in front of you is the legitimate bearer of the passport -- that's the problem. That is a verification problem. And the mass consumer biometrics proposed as the solution are hopelessly inadequate to deliver. That is why post offices and private sector retailers will be wasting their money if they allow themselves to be lured into this Home Office scheme. Not only their money, they will also lose their reputation.
7. Doomsayer
Pissup/brewery=UK govt/ID cards.