The UK Passport Service (UKPS) has launched its
six-month trial of biometric technology involving 10,000
volunteers, and at the same time, the UK government introduced its
draft bill for biometric identity cards and a central database of
all of its citizens.
ID cards will carry biometric identifiers in an embedded chip,
which is then linked to a "secure national database" called the
National Identity Register.
The database is expected to contain such information as name,
address, date of birth, gender, immigration status and a confirmed
biometric feature such as electronic fingerprint, a scan of the
iris of the eye or of a full face.
The UKPS trial will test for all three biometrics traits:
electronic fingerprint, a scan of the iris of the eye and a full
face scan.
"This is the first time that three different biometric
technologies from three different suppliers have been integrated
into one solution," said a spokeswoman for Atos Origin, the company
running the trial for the government.
The technical challenges may also account for why the trial,
launched at Globe House, the London Passport Office, is three
months behind the original launch date.
Atos Origin will be responsible for the delivery and
installation of the equipment and software for the trial, while NEC
is supplying its Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
Identix will provide the fingerprint capture and facial matching
technology and Iridian Technologies is responsible for the iris
recognition technology. The survey research component of the
project will be undertaken by London-based market research company
MORI.
The UKPS has already determined that it will, initially, use
facial recognition biometric chips in passports. The agency is also
considering whether it will include a secondary biometric, either
the image of the bearer's iris or fingers, in a later version of
the passport.
A chip with the biometric facial identifiers will first be
included in passports beginning "sometime" in 2005, which will in
turn "build the base" for the ID card plan.
The primary purpose of the six-month UKPS biometric trial, also
being held in Leicester, Newcastle and Glasgow, is to gauge the
public reaction to the technology, the spokesman said.
"The trial will simulate a potential future biometric collection
process," said Atos Origin's spokeswoman Caroline Crouch. After the
data is collected, the volunteer will be asked to fill out a survey
detailing their opinion of the process. Those surveys will be
anonymous, she added.
"Biometrics as an identification method is certainly picking up
momentum and gaining in popularity as has been seen by the UK
Passport Office and the US Department of Homeland Security," said
Derek McDermott, the Director of ISL Biometrics.
"Once people begin using biometrics, they will never go back to
passwords, because this technology is just too easy and convenient
to use."
"Biometrics is not the be all, end all, but it will drastically
reduce the risk of identity fraud and other misuses of identity,"
McDermott said. One potential problem with the ID card programme,
McDermott conceded, is the vulnerability of the national database,
and the possibility that such a database may become a target of
terrorists or other criminals in and of itself.
"The government would have to make sure the data is held
securely and would have to build a parameter around that type of
environment."
Groups such as the Law Society, the professional body for
lawyers in England and Wales, have expressed concerns that the
programme is too wide-reaching and that the Home Office has been
unable to prove the programme would stop identity fraud.
"The government has failed to show that similar schemes in other
counties have helped to reduce identity fraud. Indeed, in the US,
the universal use of Social Security Numbers - a scheme similar to
the one the UK government is proposing - has led to a huge growth
in identity fraud," the Law Society said.
"Despite a compulsory identity card scheme, France continues to
battle problems such as illegal working, illegal immigration and
identity fraud - the very things the Home Office hopes to address
with identity cards. If an identity card has not eliminated these
challenges in France, what makes the Home Office believe that these
problems can be resolved with an identity card scheme in the
UK?"
Card scheme will thwart identity theft, says Blunkett
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