WRITTEN ON July 8th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Identity
Oh look – the Home Office has produced a paper on benefits of the ID system.* That helps clarify how its mind is working.
You need 100% sign up to get the full benefits, it says, which is why it wants to do it faster. Half the benefits come from fraud prevention, it says, around a third from efficiencies, a bit from reduced cost of crime and a bit from immigration control.
We could accept this as gospel. But I would welcome reasoned comment offered in an exemplary manner. I ask only that nobody dismiss this paper as “mad”, “fabricated” or “incompetent” because that’s no way to conduct a civilised discussion.
***Two hours later*** Now Ive read it, here are my immediate thoughts below:
– the “benefits curve” shows that a voluntary scheme is pointless
– the “detection of crime scene evidence” point underlines that they intend to use the ID register for matching police evidence, so there will indeed be a new burden of proof and new risks for innocent parties whose fingerprints may be at a crime scene (as Dr Gladman has pointed out)
– they say the scheme will enhance peoples privacy when what they mean is that one aspect of it will be less invasive than people fear
– it shows some signs of haste, eg not properly proofread.
– I dont understand how the scheme helps e-commerce and online trading….I may be being slow about this and need expert advice, but my understanding is the scheme as proposed does nothing to help us online (unless we’re proposing iris scanners attached to every home PC, which nobody has costed and which introduces a new risk of spoofing I’d have thought)
– the CRB example argues for accurate identification of anyone with a criminal record. It does not require triple biometrics of the entire population to achieve this.
– the “reassurance your children are in safe hands” point applies only to cases where a person who is a known risk uses a false identity. I wonder how frequent that is. Nothing protects against the first-time perpetrator or the one who was not acted upon (eg recent Catholic priest who died…better ID would have made not a jot of difference). So it might help a tiny bit but the point gives a false sense of security.
– I think it is a conspiracy of optimism (in the NAO’s lovely phrase) to suggest the scheme will foster greater social cohesion (unless it produces cohesive solidarity among objectors)
– it’s not necessary to have this triple biometric database shceme to have an efficient government change of address service
– the example of the motorist showing an ID card to the police and being saved the inconvenience of producing a drivers licence within 7 days is a bit desperate. There wont be a requirement to carry or produce ID cards on the spot. The driver could equally well save the inconvenience by producing driving documents on the spot.
– some resources may be freed up, but more resources will be tied up registering people and pursuing the unwillingOverall, I think the Home Secretary’s criticisms of the LSE report apply to this document. The Home Office is right to set out it’s case, and it helps to see how it’s thinking.
But the piece does not feel balanced – it feels like something…well (I said I wouldnt use the word, but) …fabricated to support a previously held position. It doesn’t explore the risks in a balanced way. It’s phoney to claim for this ID scheme benefits which more sensible and effective e-government would deliver. This scheme is not the cornerstone for good e-government; that’s something different which we shall also need!
*Thanks Tim
I very much agree with your initial comments.
It is odd to claim gross rather than net benefits, especially in the private sector, since it seems inevitable that there will be considerable costs associated with securing these benefits.
Publishing a benefits overview without also publishing the detailed analysis on which the overview has been built is of limited value since it is important to understand how the cost figures have been obtained and important to know what assumptions have been made about how the scheme will be used.
However, taking the claimed benefits on trust, the fact that the majority of the overall cost benefit is evidently secured in the private sector shows that there is a strong argument for letting the private sector take the lead in introducing biometrics for identity verification.
Government interests could then be promoted by paying for the standardisation and the R&D work necessary to ensure a uniform and consistent approach emerges in a form suitable for later public sector use when it is mature.
This would provide the following advantages:
1. the costs and the benefits would be subject to the constaints imposed by market forces;
2. The cost to taxpayers would be much reduced since the technology would be funded primarily by the private sector and not by the taxpayer (as it should be since this is where the majority of the cost benefit lies);
3. At the point at which the government takes up the technoogy for public sector use, it would be mature and this would protect taxpayers from the huge costs involved in high risk government IT investments;
4. It is highly likely that the data privacy requirements that the private sector will have to meet will provide a scheme focussed precisely on high quality identity verfication and not on the use of a central database such as the National Identity Register with its serious safety, security and civil liberties problems.
Such an approach would be close in form to that advocated in the LSE report.
In overall terms therefore this benefits overview provides ‘government accredited’ evidence which supports an approach to identity verification similar to that set out in the LSE report rather than that being promoted by the Home Office.
It also suggests that the private sector and not taxpayers should take the lead in investing in biometric identity verfication.
Brian Gladman