The Home Office was quick to deny a u-turn when it
published its new Strategic Action Plan just before
Christmas.
But it is clear that the national identity cards project will
now be radically different, and simpler, than originally envisaged.
In the words of one industry commentator, “It is a u-turn of giant
proportions.”
Out go plans for a purpose-built population database and
proposals to record the iris patterns of 60 million people. And the
timetable for the mass roll out of ID cards has been quietly moved
from 2008 to 2010.
The result, said James Hall, who took over as chief executive of
the Identity and Passport Service last autumn, is a project that is
far less risky and yet will still meet demands for security and
confidentiality. And it will run on existing government computer
systems.
The long-standing objectives to reduce crime, terrorism and
identity theft remain. But now government officials are talking
much more about using ID cards as an ¬“index” to ensure that every
Whitehall database is kept up-to-date.
The importance of this task to government was trumpeted by the
prime minister Tony Blair last week when he highlighted the
advantages to the citizen of government departments sharing records
of individuals. “This is about data sharing in a sensible way so
that the customer gets a better public service,” he said.
The rethink follows concerns raised behind the scenes by civil
servants over the complexity of the scheme, and widespread
scepticism among system suppliers.
Add to this pressure from the Treasury to rein in the costs of
ID cards and tackle benefit fraud by improving the accuracy of
government data, and the scene was set for a u-turn.
By last summer, the Home Office had ordered a “root and branch”
review of the project. What has resulted – the National Identity
Scheme, as the project has been rebranded – is much simpler and
less risky, Hall told Computer Weekly.
“The key is to make sure we first reduce all the risks and
challenges of timescale. And, secondly, we should to some extent
swallow some of our own medicine and make sure we are using
existing assets where we possibly can,” he said.
The new plan calls for the biometric and biographical details of
the 60 million ID card-holders to be held on existing government
databases, rather than the purpose-built National Identity Register
originally planned.
Biometric fingerprints and photographs will, at least initially,
be stored on Immigration Service computers. These will be linked to
biographical details held on the Department for Work and Pensions’
national insurance number database, known as the Customer
Information System.
Separating the data in this way will make it more secure,
allowing biometric data to be held “discretely in a very secure
way”, said Hall.
He stressed that there were no plans to use existing, often
inaccurate, data on government systems, but to gather the ID cards
data anew.
“We are re-using the technology and the operational capability,
but we are not reusing the data. We will continue, as we enrol
people into the scheme, to enrol the data afresh,” he said.
The second big change is that the government has greatly
simplified its plans for storing biometric data. Iris prints, which
have proved complicated and difficult to record, have been dropped
from the scheme. Individuals will still have all 10 fingerprints
taken but it is likely that only two fingerprints will be recorded
on the ID card itself.
“We believe that, for what we want to launch in 2009, the two
biometrics, the facial biometrics and the fingerprint, both of
which we would want to capture anyway for passports in that same
timeframe, are going to meet our requirements,” said Hall.
“We would undoubtedly procure the biometric storages in a
sufficiently practical way so that if at some future stage we
wanted to add iris scans or any other biometric, we could do so.
The plans for if and when we would do it are not precise yet.”
So, despite the years of planning that have gone into the ID
cards scheme, the details of the programme still need to be fleshed
out. Some of the possible steps are dependent on feasibility
studies, and there will need to be a new round of consultation with
IT suppliers before the project is put out to tender in the
spring.
The business case for ID cards has also been updated, and it
will be subject to independent scrutiny through the Office of
Government Commerce Gateway review process in the early part of
this year.
“What we want to do is to take the architecture, which is
alluded to in the document but not set out in any detail, and to
flesh that out. This is work that is currently under way,” said
Hall.
“But we still need to finalise exactly how we are going to
procure the biometric storage. We would like to give the
marketplace some flexibility to come back with what it believes is
the best solution, subject to the architectural model we are
considering.”
Hall said there were likely to be between five and 10 different
procurements over the course of the project. These will begin in
the spring with a contract for biomet¬ric matching and storing and
a con¬-tract for the ID card application process.
The Treasury’s Crosby Review of identity management,
commissioned last year, will also influence the final shape of the
programme. Hall said it would provide valuable insight into the
demand by businesses for identity checking services.
“In many ways, I see the Identity and Passport Service as an
identity utility. And what Crosby is doing will start to help us
get a sense of the size of demand, the capability within the
private sector, and the characteristics we are going to have to
meet to fulfil that demand,” he said.
Hall would not be drawn on whether the ID cards programme, as
originally developed by the Home Office, would have met the tough
targets expected for it.
“We never destruction-tested it. An alternative was emerging
which was lower risk, probably lower cost, and I have not gone back
and done a full option analysis of the two alternatives. I think
this is a sensible, lower risk way to go,” he said.
Government moves the ID goalposts
The government’s Identity and Passport Service has rebranded the
ID cards programme as the “National Identity Scheme”.
The project is wider than the original ID cards programme,
drawing in a range of biometric projects under a single banner.
These include biometric visas, residence permits, and passports,
and the Home Office’s Project Iris trial, which is designed to
allow frequent fliers to fast-track security checks at
airports.
The decision to widen the scope of the ID cards project to
include previously separate but related projects, means that
ministers can also claim that it remains on track, since some parts
of the wider programme will go live in 2008. This is in line with
the original ID cards programme schedule.
However, mass roll out of ID cards to the UK population will not
happen until 2010 under the latest plans – some two years later
than originally planned.
More information
Reid puts brake on ID cards
The troubled ID card project
Identity and Passport Service
The Crosby Review
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