Parliamentary reporter
A House of Lords committee has urged the Government to consider
creating an electronic national identity card to combat fraud.
The all-party European Union select committee said that if
e-government is to become a reality some secure form of
identification will be required as current forms are
inadequate.
Its report, published on Tuesday, said, "There is a serious risk
that problems such as benefit fraud and tax evasion could be
magnified with the advent of e-government, which would largely
remove face-to-face contact. There are also new opportunities for
computer hackers to distort these activities."
The report also backed other measures to improve Internet access
and establish better trust in IT, including:
- A U-turn by the chancellor Gordon Brown to treat e-commerce
stock options as capital rather than income and free new businesses
from punitive taxes imposed in the last Budget
- The appointment of an e-ombudsman and an EU competitiveness
council of ministers to scrutinise IT issues
- Encouragementof schemes whereby firms allow employees to use
corporate computers to access the Internet.