Government encouraging future use of national ID cards
in everyday business
The government is working with private sector organisations to
encourage them to use ID cards for verifying the identities of
their staff and customers.
A working group of 50 organisations and individuals, including
major banks, pharmaceutical companies and the Royal Mail, have over
the past 12 months been investigating how the cards can be used in
business.
David Lacey, director of security at the Post Office and
chairman of the working group, said ID cards could be used to
verify the identity of people opening accounts, reducing the
potential for fraud.
"We have to deal with a lot of customers to make sure people are
who they say they are," he said. "There are different levels of
check. In the simplest terms it might be a visual check, others
might be a Pin, others you might want to use a biometric."
Employers are likely to use ID cards to check the identity of
new employees against the central population register to ensure
they are entitled to work, the Home Office said.
One of the first applications will be to use ID cards to
automate checks against the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), reducing
the turnaround time from four months to 72 hours.
"Over 500 people last year appealed their disclosure and 500
people were given the wrong record," said Katherine Courtney, ID
cards programme director at the Home Office. "The CRB has worked
with us on a complete redesign."
The Home Office is working with the Association of Payment
Clearing Services to make later generations of ID cards compatible
with chip and Pin, which will allow people to use their Pin to
verify their identity.
People will not be expected to use their ID cards to make simple
purchases but they might be asked to produce them when hiring a car
or for other high-value transactions, Courtney said.
Government departments would be earlier adopters of ID card
applications - for example, for secure entry, or authentication to
computer systems.
The Home Office plans to set up an accreditation system to vet
which organisations have access to the central database. The scheme
will regulate the level of verification that organisations are
allowed use.
Slow introduction for ID cards >>
Biometrics need further testing in one-to-many
matches
Further trials will be needed to ensure biometric technology is
robust enough to match people's identities with records stored on
the central population register, the Home Office has
acknowledged.
Although biometrics work well in performing one-to-one matches,
further testing will be needed to demonstrate how well they perform
in matching biometrics against a large database of records, said ID
card programme director Katherine Courtney. Biometrics are not a
silver bullet but they would make it very difficult for people to
use false identities, she said.
"What we have seen from other countries is that they perform
well to confirm one-to-one matches. Where we do need further
testing is in one-to-many matches. We need further testing on how
likely it is that we will get a false match."
The experience of the FBI and UK police forces showed that
finger print matching has a very high standard of performance but
there is less real-world experience with iris biometrics, Courtney
said.