By Nick Heath, 30 July 2009 17:03
This is the first glimpse at what the British ID card will look like.
The design for the British cards was unveiled by Home Secretary Alan Johnson at events in London and Manchester today.
People living in Manchester will be the first UK nationals to be able to apply for one of the cards from Autumn of this year, with cards being offered to people living in the North West soon after.
ID cards will be able to be used to verify a person's identity via the cards' embedded microchip, which will store the cardholder's biographic information, their photograph and a scan of two of their fingerprints. These details can then be checked against copies of that information held in a central database called the National Identity Register (NIR).
But the scheme faces an uncertain future, as the Conservatives have pledged to scrap ID cards if the party is elected next year.
There is also doubt among MPs and academics over how many people will be willing to pay £60 to have an ID card, after Johnson announced it would never be compulsory for UK citizens to carry a card.
However critics of the scheme claim that legislation under the Identity Cards Act 2006 will allow the government to collect personal details for ID cards by the back door. Part of the act allows the government to designate an official document, such as a driving licence, so that anyone applying for the document would have their details entered onto the NIR.
The cost of providing the cards and biometric passports for UK citizens over the next 10 years will be £5bn.
Photo credit: Home Office
Comments
There are 17 comments. Join the discussion
1. karen challinor
so still no readers
still no means of spotting counterfeits beyond the sound they make when flicked with a finger
still expensive and intrusive
and finally
still no solid reason why we need to enrol in the first place beyond the government saying "because"
I did say just because the home secretary has recognised the difference between the words "voluntary" and "compulsory" that the scheme is not dead, dying or even slightly wounded
that it is in fact still full steam ahead for the scheme
2. Andie
I still can't understand what the big deal is... Are there so many people in the UK who have something to hide?
We -that is, the rest of EU citizens- get thrown an ID card the minute we turn 14 and are obliged to carry it on us all the time.
We us it to travel, to open and access bank accounts, to confirm our identities when we issue cheques or use a credit card, to collect mail parcels. it gets checked, photocopied, verified (by phone), and generally used for day to day necessities...
.. it's not intrusive, it's a proof of identity, makes live so much easier.
The only part I don't agree with is the £50 'tax' to get one.. I believe we get it for free.. does a chip really cost £50?? :-\
3. Captain Mainwaring
Still don't see the point of them. It is said that 85% of people in the UK already have a passport, a driving licence or both. These are both widely accepted throughout society as official proof of ID. Why do we need to spend additional billions of pounds on producing yet another card, yet another government database, yet another sey of beurocracy? The UK is in enough debt already without wasting more money on this Nu Labour vanity project. Still, not to worry, I expect it will all be scrapped by this time next year. Good bye Mr Johnson.
4. Dave Brown
What a total waste of our money - the next government will scrap it, no-one (but civil service people lent on by their bosses) will pay £60 for one and I've just got an ID card with my picture on it - its called a bus pass, its FREE (and if the government ever tried to make it compulsory I would destroy it).
What a bunch of time (and our money) wasters!
5. karen challinor
Andie - it is just an id card if it were then I'd only object to the cost
in this scheme the card is linked to a database that monitors every use of the card
so every time it is checked would be logged along with time and location giving a log of our movements
the government intend for us to use this to access our banks so giving a log of expenditure
none of which will benefit the person enrolled in the scheme in the slightest
indeed enrolling brings into effect a whole raft of legislation designed to punish the enrolee for not keeping the details up to date
there are many other issues with this sceme, too many to list in the space provided here so I suggest you have a look around the no2id website for more information before you trot out the "nothing to hide nothing to fear" argument again
6. Roy Corneloues
Andie,
In principle I agree with your comments. If you are a law abiding citizen, with nothing to hide, what's the problem???
Apart from the 'tax' as you describe it, it is the complete lack of trust in our government to look after our personal details.
With so many 'losses of information' under the current administration, I would never put any details, other than the ones I currently have to, in their posession.
Like other comments here, we already have a number of ID cards (passports, driving licences, etc) that we can already use as identification for all the scenarios you describe. Adding another card for which we have to pay for is a complete waste.
Add to that ever increasing costs of a UK passport which also contains biomentric data leaves you asking yourself what's the point???
Now the only potential way this scheme could be saved is if this £60 card replaced the need for a passport and driving licence and saved the average UK citizen £62 (£50 driving + £72 passport = £122 - £60 ID card).
But that would mean a huge drop in income for the government and will never happen...
7. Charles Smith
The National Id card is a great idea for proving the identity of those people claiming State Benefits, National Health treatments and subsidised housing.
Apart from that it serves no useful purpose other than to inflate the ego of the Home Office Mandarins. It certainly has no security benefits.
The technology solution should be a whole lot cheaper per head.
8. GALLEYSLAVE
Very pretty! but I still don't want one!
9. Martin Anderson
So if I take a snapshot of someone else's card (really easy) I already have a lot of the data I need to steal their ID. Good idea Gordon!
10. Mark Hendriksen
...and why no secure 2D code? Less expensive, more secure, less obtrusive
11. Dreaming Daemon
The govt has proven, over and over, it cannot be trusted with any information. It has too much already, for no good purpose other than, as a previous commenter said, "BECAUSE".
I'm a foreign national, and I don't / won't have one.
12. Andrew Meredith CEng CITP
Hi Andie,
: I still can't understand what
: the big deal is... Are there
: so many people in the UK
: who have something to hide?
Yes there are actually.
We all want to hide our private details and movements from people who have no right to see them. We all want privacy. Privacy is hiding something from someone else, not out of fear as you suggest, but simply out of a desire to keep our own business to ourselves. Maybe over there in the "Real" EU you have given up that right, but we haven't.
: We -that is, the rest of EU
: citizens- get thrown an ID
: card the minute we turn
: 14 and are obliged to carry
: it on us all the time.
.. on pain of ?? For this scheme to have any chance of actually aiding security, there must be a swingeing punishment for non carriers. So you forget to put the card in your pants, and get the book thrown at you. This is a victimless crime created by the state to further their own ends. it is, in short, a political crime. Not for me thanks.
: We us it to travel,
Passport .. got one.
: to open and access bank
: accounts,
Passport again, or driving license or ...
: to confirm our identities
: when we issue cheques
Cheque card ...
: or use a credit card
The card stands on it's own merits with chip and pin.
: to collect mail parcels.
Over here the post office leave a little card. As you have to be inside the building to pick the card up, this is deemed sufficient.
: it gets checked, photocopied,
: verified (by phone), and
: generally used for day to
: day necessities...
As above .. this function is quite adequately covered by existing documents.
: .. it's not intrusive, it's a
: proof of identity, makes
: live so much easier.
It is intrusive when your every move is to be stored on a database available to virtually every drone on the government purse .. plus we now find out, a bunch of UK and overseas commercial enterprises as well!
It would be VERY intrusive to have it demanded on the street and locked up if I failed to produce it .. and seeing as if they ever do send me one, I'll be burning it in front of the town hall, I will not be able to produce it.
: The only part I don't agree
: with is the £50 'tax' to get
: one.. I believe we get it for
: free.. does a chip really
: cost £50?? :-\
ROFL :-) you get it free do you?
Then who pays for it. You do, of course! Nothing the government gives you is for free. They can only get money from borrowing or taxing. Either way you are the one paying for it.
By the way, you are either a genuine non-UK citizen who doesn't actually understand the difference between the glorified "Proof of age" cards they use as ID cards on the continent and the billion pound monstrosity they are trying to build here .. in which case, please read up on what which you are commenting about before saying anything. As you have been advised to do by a previous commentator, go have a look at www.no2id.net
13. anonymous
In order to get an ID card, you not only have to sump up the money, you alos have to ahev a "fixed address". So, how are the Homeless going to get their "benefit"/medical aid without the card?
14. anonymous
Suppose the card is stolen, then data in a chip can be accessed, and a simple search in a database will tell where the person lives or more details in other databases, this is more prone to ID theft than it can secure.
15. Radical Meldrew
According to one of today's papers it took an expert precisely 12 mins to reprogramme an ID card chip which could pass as the real thing. They were able to modify details and even added a warning 'Terrorist - shoot on sight'
If it’s that easy to hack into and clone a card then the whole scheme has immediately gone down the pan - where it truly belongs!
I wonder what supportive drivel the government will try and issue as a response to this?
16. karen challinor
Anonymous of Dover
I believe the data on the chip is encrypted
hopefully with a unique key encryption system where the individual's private key is retrieved from the central database in order to view the details, so each card is encrypted in a unique manner to foil just such an attack
however I suspect there will be one key to rule them all because it's cheaper
which will eventually be compromised and the undetectable fakes will start to roll off the presses leaving the database as the only means of detecting them, until that too is compromised and we all start needing eye, finger and face transplants because our identity has been stolen
17. karen challinor
assuming that the cards for UK nationals are identical to those already issued to foreign nationals residing in the UK
then the Daily Mail has announced that they have managed to clone a card and alter the data held on the card so it would pass every check except comparison with the central register, which will apparently cost £2 a go
now yes, I know it's the Daily Mail, but these cards are being touted as uncrackable, uncloneable and a perfect means of verifying identity by the government
well Mr Johnson, I think you should know that they can be cracked and cloned and how can they verify identity if they can be reprogrammed with a new identity using equipment that is available to the man in the street let alone terrorists and criminals
I always said the cards would be counterfeited, I believe I stated in a previous post that it would be within a week of the roll out
if the crack can be demonstrated by the good guys in a national newspaper then I'm willing to put money on counterfeit ID cards already being in circulation