WRITTEN ON November 10th, 2008 BY Ruth Kennedy AND STORED IN Uncategorized
Just a few days after the Prime Minister quite rightly acknowledged that ministers can never guarantee the safety of sensitive data,
“I think it’s important to recognize that we can’t promise that every single item of information will always be safe, because mistakes are made by human beings.”
the Home Secretary herself has made the silly error of leaving her own fingerprints in a public place.
As reported by the Register, The Home Secretary’s fingerprints are missing, and being held by No2ID at an undisclosed location.
Earlier today, No2ID General Secretary Guy Herbert told The Register, a water glass thought to have Jacqui Smith’s fingerprints on it was ‘borrowed’ from a Social Market Foundation event where Smith was speaking.
The campaign organisation’s plans for the prints are not yet clear, although presumably the Home Office is preparing for a re-run of what happened to her German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Minister for the Interior whose prints were captured, published and made available on film to fool fingerprint readers earlier this year.
What this stunt (taken alongside the recent data nitwittery) demonstrates really powerfully is that we should be wary of any belief in biometric silver bullets.
The PM’s admission and Ms Smith’s unfortunate loss, taken together with cross-partisan comments as reflected here, here, and here, surely create an excellent platform for a new conversations full of wibbis. The government has issues it is concerned about, for which it believes large-scale databases offer the solution. There are claims that there are better ways than mass data-retention to address those concerns. Let’s get to it!
“Do Jacqui’s fingerprints save the day?”, asks Ruth Kennedy. No.
But why did she ask?
Because the government have made repeated promises since David Blunkett’s July 2002 consultation paper on entitlement cards that biometrics can deliver three benefits:
1. Identification – proof of unique identity. Those are Jacqui Smith’s fingerprints and no-one else’s. Jacqui Smith has one identity and one identity only. She cannot have multiple identities and neither can criminals and terrorists. Thanks to biometrics, each person can be “locked” to one single identity. That will deter criminals and terrorists who currently rely for their success on maintaining multiple identities.
2. Identification – watchlists. Where the police and other agencies have the fingerprints of suspects, these can be entered on watchlists and disseminated to every location in the world where there are fingerprint readers. No criminal or terrorist will be safe, they will have to avoid these locations and their activities will be thus circumscribed, crime and terrorism will be reduced.
3. Verification – entitlement. Jacqui Smith will have no trouble proving that she is Jacqui Smith. Thanks to biometrics, she and every other legitimate resident of the UK will be able to prove their entitlement to work in the UK, for example, and to have non-emergency state healthcare and to have state education for their children.
These claims, 1-3 above, sound like facts. “Biometrics”, “computer”, “algorithm”, “mathematical”, “certainty”, “scientific”, “certainty”, “inter-quartile range”, “white coat”, …
In fact, they’re not facts.
They’re not “silver bullets”.
They’re WIBBIs.
They’re wishful thinking.
IPS’s NIS and the Cabinet Office’s transformational government and eBorders and Intellect’s proposals to the government are based on wishful thinking.
It would be jolly nice, they think, if mass consumer biometrics worked because then we could reduce crime, or at least improve the clear-up rate, and we could deter terrorism, and we could deliver government services efficiently which, of course, we don’t at the moment, because all front line public servants are currently useless and irresponsible, they think.
Problem is, mass consumer biometrics don’t work. These initiatives of IPS and the Cabinet Office are destined to remain, for the foreseeable future, wishful thinking.
Thank goodness for that. And thank goodness that not all front line public servants are currently useless and irresponsible. Otherwise Jacqui Smith and the rest of us really would have a problem.
WIBBI IPS and the Cabinet Office stopped saying WIBBI and instead confronted reality?
Take away the biometrics, and the proposed databases such as the NIR are no different from the databases we already have. There is no reason to expect them to support more ideal government than the existing databases, with all their errors and omissions. IPS ID cards will just make life harder. There will be no benefits.
Whereas Jacqui Smith is playing charades, Ruth Kennedy is being genuinely scientific.