The Passport Service has begun a huge IT investment programme,
worth 20m a year over the next three years.
A series of major projects will pave the way for the introduction
of biometric passports and ID cards, computerised background checks
on passport applicants, and sophisticated anti-terrorism
checks.
The work represents a significant change in priorities for the
agency, which has been focusing on improving its customer service,
said its chief executive, Bernard Herdan.
"We are being asked by government to toughen up the
identity-authentication process and deal with the serious issue of
fraud," he said.
Herdan's priority is to ensure that the IT systems are in place to
issue the public with biometric passports from January next
year.
The new-style passports will record a full-sized digital image of
the passport holder. The chip will be protected with a digital
signature that will certify the passport as genuine and ensure that
images cannot be changed or tampered with. An inbuilt antenna will
allow the passport to be read from a distance.
"The chip will make the document much more resilient and make it
much more difficult to change details - be it data or a photograph.
It will also potentially enable border posts to use
facial-recognition technology," said Herdan.
The agency is investing 60m in production lines in Japan to produce
the biometric passports. The work will also mean upgrades to the
Passport Service's Passport Application Support System (PASS),
which is managed by Siemens Business Services under a 10-year PFI
contract.
Regional offices, the Foreign Office, and overseas embassies and
high commissions will be issued with equipment to add biometrics to
the passports.
Identity footprint
Herdan plans to roll out automated background checks for new
passport applicants in parallel with the introduction of biometric
passports. The service is working with the credit reference agency,
Experian, on developing the system. Dubbed the Personal Identity
Project (PIP), it will allow passport officials to check the
"identity footprint" of passport applicants by comparing the
details they give on application forms with details held on public
and private sector databases.
The Identity Card Bill contains legislation that will enable
further background checks against government databases held by the
Office of National Statistics, the Driving Vehicle Licence
Authority, the Department of Work and Pensions, and the Immigration
and Nationality Directorate.
"It will be used to make it more difficult for people to hijack
identity. It is about 'social footprint' checking. We are checking
that someone who says they live in the UK has an identity," said
Herdan.
The Passport Service plans to phase the checks in from autumn this
year, following a two-year trial in Glasgow. The challenge, he
said, is to develop a "decision engine" that gives a fast response
time while not giving spurious red warning signals with genuine
applicants.
PIP will work in tandem with another database, Omnibase, which will
allow the Passport Service to share passport data with other
government departments. They will be able to check the authenticity
of passports during fraud or criminal investigations. Terminals at
airports will allow passports to be checked against lists of lost
and stolen passports.
These background checks will be accompanied by a new system of
interviews for first-time passport applicants from October 2006.
The interviews are designed both to deter and detect fraudulent
passport applications.
The Passport Service estimates that 0.18% of all passport
applications are fraudulent - equivalent to 10,000 cases a year.
Most of these, about 75%, are from first-time applicants. "That's
intolerable. It can't go on," said Herdan.
"We will ask them reasonable questions about themselves. If they
fail to answer them, or they can't speak English, or they can't
come because they are not in the country - this is intended to both
deter and to uncover people who come to us with a story that does
not stack up."
Paperless service
The service is tendering for a network of 69 interview offices
across the UK. The offices will be linked electronically to the
Passports Service's main computer system, PASS, to provide a
paperless service. Siemens has been contracted to modify PASS, to
link the new offices and to integrate the background checking
system. Atos Origin will provide the desktop infrastructure.
"There is a fantastic amount to do," said Herdan. "We are tendering
at the moment for the physical office infrastructure for the
offices and the telecoms network. We are also out to recruit
staff."
Biometric fingerprints will be added to passports from 2008.
Similar biometric passports will be rolled out across the European
Union as part of a Europe-wide agreement, for which the UK claims
credit.
The passports will form the keystone of the Home Office's e-borders
project, enabling immigration officials to check the identities of
people arriving or leaving the UK, and to record their visits.
Passport applicants will be asked to provide iris and facial scans
for biometric ID cards along with the passport biometrics. The data
will be held on the central ID population register, along with
other basic personal details. Government departments will have
access to the register. This will give them the ability to issue
documents, such as driving licences, without having to carry out
further identity checks or demand further proof of identity, said
Herdan.
These developments will mean significant changes to the Passport
Service's underlying IT systems. The service refreshed and upgraded
its technology last year, but expects to make further significant
changes when its contract with Siemens expires in 2008. The service
has already increased bandwidth on the networks and added
storage.
"We are working on what other changes have to be made to the
current system in order to decide what exactly will be the state of
the system that we want to be the basis of a tender action," said
Herdan.
"The tender will require whoever wins the job to continue running
the existing system and then to evolve it. We are not going to have
a 'big bang'."