By Munir Kotadia, 7 May 2004 09:05
NEWS The UK's ID card proposals are technically years behind the systems being implemented in at least six European countries, including Estonia and Austria.
The UK government last week launched a trial of biometric ID cards; the fear of terrorism seems to have pushed the prime minister to fast-track the project for a national scheme as soon as possible. However, unlike Italy, Belgium, Finland, Estonia, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, the UK's ID cards will not include facilities for holding a digital signature.
This omission could damage the growth of ecommerce and egovernment services in Britain, say critics.
A Home Office spokesperson acknowledged that other EU countries are introducing digital signatures, but he said that the UK's ID cards are designed to be used for traditional uses and not ecommerce
"Ecommerce is not what ID cards are all about. They are there to tackle serious and organised crime and false identities, not for accessing ecommerce functions," he said.
But this is a huge opportunity missed and it could mean that countries like Estonia will leap over the UK in terms of online services and ecommerce, according to Simon Perry, vice president of security at Computer Associates, who said he is not surprised that the UK is falling behind.
Perry said that because UK does not have a history of carrying ID cards this is just a first step - unlike Estonia where they are looking at an upgrade of their ID card system. "In these countries, the cultural issues associated with ID cards were dealt with 50 or 60 years ago."
Perry believes that in addition to cultural differences, many of the upcoming countries have less legacy technology than more developed nations, so at first they have a real advantage. He points to India and China as examples, where wired telephones have largely been leapfrogged by cheaper wireless technology. "Installing a wired telephone costs $80. A wireless phone costs $8," he said.
Munir Kotadia writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
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1. anonymous
what is a digital signature?
2. Richard Percival
Very Good Question. Simply put - read this explanation: http://www.youdzone.com/signature.html
More importantly, the UK government (office of the e-envoy) can explain it here: http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/gateway_partnerlink/resources/authentication.ppt
Even more importantly, the UK government has signed up to implement European legislation to introduce digital signatures for "e-Government", because this is European Law, since 2001 - see this BBC news report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1446426.stm
So in a nutshell digital signatures exist, and work, and are legally equivalent to handwritten signatures. They can be stored and exchanged via computers, PDAs, and Smart Cards. And they are being included in the citizen entitlement cards of a number of nations. Just not in the UK, where "joined-up-government" is progressing well behind schedule.
3. anonymous
In the UK you are not only afraid of criminals, if you have any sense you are also afraid of the police. Have a word with any one of the 3,000 (reliable estimate) innocent people wrongly imprisoned. So we sure as hell don't want ID cards to give authority more information about us. When the police and the criminals both have your worst interests at heart, it's time to emigrate. Just because he's paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get him.