THE STENCH of death is rising from the Government’s identity card Bill. Informed opinion has moved swiftly to question the very basis of the legislation. Trade unions are opposed, civil liberties groups are on the warpath and an increasing number of local authorities have declared that they will not co-operate with the scheme. The London Assembly voted against it. Both the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament are opposed.
The Prime Minister has one remaining window of opportunity to create an exit strategy. That window will open briefly at 10.30 this morning when a Commons standing committee begins its two-week scrutiny of the Bill. The window will close five minutes later, once the two sides of the committee have entrenched their positions. A hundred and fifty opposition amendments will then be hotly debated and roundly ignored by the Government. The report stage and third reading will end up in a bruising tussle. The Lords will maul the Bill and thus present the Government with an opportunity to condemn interference by an unelected House.
All of this is great political theatre, but it ignores one inescapable fact: no ID card scheme can be made to work if the public does not trust it. Trust in this scheme is now dead, and it is doubtful that it can be resurrected. Even if the Government succeeds in ramming the legislation on to the statute book, there will be a fatally significant number of refuseniks who will not co-operate.
Little wonder. The Government’s proposals are too costly, too complex, technically unsafe, over-prescriptive and lack a foundation of public trust. The Bill would create one of the most far-reaching systems in the world. Its ID card will contain dozens of pieces of personal information on each individual, accessible from tens or hundreds of thousands of locations. All ten fingerprints, both irises and digital face mapping will be required; a unique ID number will be used as a means of joining together government systems. And central to the system will be an electronic audit trail detailing every transaction and movement in our life — addresses, healthcare contacts, employment and so on.
There is a way through this mess. The London School of Economics has rigorously assessed the ID card proposals. Our message to the Government can be summed up in Sir Humphrey’s advice: “If you must do this damned silly thing, please don’t do it in this damned silly way.”
Our report concluded that it was possible to create an ID system that would be safe, cost-effective and useful. It could permit a wide range of practical applications for day-to-day dealings with businesses, using technology that would give individuals control over the personal information stored on the card. By offering direct consumer benefits as well as better access to government services, it could help to win public support.
To discover the best system for the UK we trawled identity schemes throughout the world. What we ended up with is a system that could be the best in the world. It does not involve a vast intrusive database. It requires no onerous penalties for non-compliance. It is driven and controlled by the citizen, not by the police. And it is inexpensive — possibly a quarter the cost of the Government’s proposal.
Registering for an ID card could be simple and unbureaucratic, borrowing from the Swedish system. Professionals such as solicitors, doctors, teachers and civil servants could form the first phase of ID registration. Two such referees, once registered, could then authenticate new applicants. This is a tried and tested model because few professionals will risk their career by falsely accrediting an applicant; it worked successfully for many years for UK passport applications.
To obtain the card, applicants could visit, for instance, a Jobcentre or a post office. There they enter an electronic kiosk that takes a digital photograph, accepts basic identifying data, and embeds these into a secure coded application form that is dispensed at the point of contact. A temporary electronic file is created containing this data with the national insurance number used for verification. All this occurs electronically, instantly and requires no face-to-face interview. Once endorsed by the referees, the form is handed in at a post office or some other facility. The form is sent for processing with random online checks made on the referees.
When the card is ready, the holder takes it to a “trusted third party” (TTP) — a local bank or post office, for example. The card is then connected to the Government’s temporary file. If the codes match, the card is validated and all data is deleted from the government file apart from the name, code and card number. A copy of the data is stored securely at the TTP.
At this point the card can be used for a range of purposes. Cardholders can choose what information to put on to the system. So a person in poor health may wish to place medical data on to the card, but may then choose to limit access to this information to A&E and paramedic personnel. Someone attending an STD clinic may decide to block all identifying data other than a reference number or first name.
Another cardholder with, say, a complex financial profile may wish to create on the card a substantial amount of information that can be firewalled for the exclusive use of a bank or financial adviser. Meanwhile, someone needing government benefits may choose to place on the card information that could be used exclusively by the Department for Work and Pensions. In each case the data is securely partitioned so only the authorised organisation can read only the authorised amount of data.
The LSE model is not perfect, but no national identification system is totally secure, nor can any system ever be immune to the risk of accepting false or multiple identities. Furthermore, biometrics can be spoofed and registration data falsified.
The best we can do is develop a system in genuine co-operation with the public. If new Labour is indeed a listening government, it will heed this advice and save us all a mountain of turmoil and expense.
Simon Davies is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Information Systems at the LSE
