ID scheme: a solution in search of a problem

Just occasionally, we come across things that 'name' something we have thought but not fully expressed. I have to say that this is one of those times:

It is widely believed the ID scheme is something that was kept in a dusty drawer at the Home Office until opportunities such as a new rabid Home Secretary or a terrorist attrocity made it politically possible to suggest. Is this ID card scheme an object of faith in the government where it doesn’t matter what it is supposed to do, since it is such a fantastic idea in and of itself? It does seem to me that this is how proponents of this scheme view it.

That's exactly how it has looked to me for ages: the fact that the justifications kept changing as soon as significant difficulties have been pointed out. The fact that the reasons my MP gives me just don't really bear scrutiny and evaporate like morning mist as you try to work out what it would mean in practice and how it would actually work. The fact that no answers are forthcoming to significant questions and there is a veil of secrecy about things that really should be in the public domain.

And I have to confess, once upon a time I shared the unreflected enthusiasm: I quite liked the idea of having a bit of plastic that could make access to services a bit easier, or that would let me travel to France, Spain, Hungary without a passport. But then I discovered the devil is really in the detail and the devilish detail in this case is the National Identity Register: a computerised record that is supposed to join up all the data and conduct electronic surveillance of me. Not only that but it carries heinous penalties for forgetting to update it and if there is an error, it's my fault -I'm guilty until proven innocent as far as I can tell. And then, given that it has all this valuable identity data attached to it, what a prize for the data hackers: there's no data source that can forever elude them. Be sure someone will find a way to steal this most lucrative of personal identity validators -there's just enough low-level corruption and incompetance in the systems that would create, maintain or service the NIR to make it likely...

I still like the idea of an ID card, provided it's voluntary, I have more control of it and provided it isn't a honeypot for data fraud using my identity.

ID in the News� Blog Archive � IT companies complain of rushed ID scheme:
Filed in: ID_cards, UK, government, purpose, IT