WRITTEN ON December 10th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized

Funnily enough, just as Sir Bonar embarks on his Stake Holder research programme, I had an email from the eminent molehunter Sir David Normington about a similar exercise in the Home Office. The Ts&Cs weren’t as dire as Sir Bonar’s; this was a confidential exercise (though we are asked to supply our answers via a unique URL).

It’s good to be asked…. When I think about it the Home Office has a difficult job. I’m very fond of the people I know there personally and work with. Corporately they have an annoying, arrogant manner, and they’re doing some supremely dumb and highly damaging things.

So I filled out the endless forms trying to be true to what I really felt (tho I didnt really know what they meant by “my organisation”: there are several to choose from).

Here are some extracts of my replies:

And from your perspective, how – if at all – has the Home Office changed the way it engages with your organisation in the last two years? Please choose one option only

Got better
Stayed the same
x Got worse
Don’t know/No opinion

And why do you say that?

Arrogant.
Misleading.
Suffering from groupthink.
Wilfully ignores evidence (eg on drugs policy, ID management)

Which of these phrases best describes the way you would speak of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS)?
Please choose one option only

I would speak highly of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) without being asked
I would speak highly of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) if I were asked
I would be neutral towards the Identity and Passport Service (IPS)
I would be critical of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) if I were asked
x I would be critical of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) without being asked
Don’t know/No opinion

They’re dishonest in the science of what they’re doing.
They’re wasting colossal sums of taxpayers money.
They don’t “get it” about the contempory Internet and the fact that the most pressing identity issues we face are online.
They’re arrogant, and their Ministers are insulting in how they treat those who should be critical friends.
They’re enthusiastically pursuing a path which is not merely ill-advised, but will aid & abet great evil.
They treat people who understand a great deal about the issues involved as idiots.

And what are your main concerns, if any, about the scheme? Please tick all that apply

Lack of information about the scheme
x Data Loss
x Cost
x Privacy
x Other/anything else (PLEASE WRITE IN): Discrimination; centralisation of power and control; loss of user responsibility; ineffectual online where we need solutions urgently; intrusive and undignified; penalises the vague, forgetful and confused; false sense of security; displacement activity; stealth tax; hard to rectify knock-on effects of errors; honeypot for corrupt officials; illegal under ECHR; never designed as best solution to the various problems for which it has been presented as cure

What do you see as the main benefits, if any, of the scheme? Please tick all that apply

Easy and convenient way of proving identity
National Security
Enables travel to Europe
Protection against identity crime
Convenience
Proof of Age
x Other/anything else (PLEASE WRITE IN) – – Scraping ice off the car windscreen

I know that last answer looks facetious. But on Sunday as I went to Meeting (preoccupied by the awful IPS NDA I had just read) there was a hard frost, and I found myself wishing I had an ID Card, or card or similar shape and resilience, to scrape the ice of the windscreen. That’s how much the Benighted Scheme preys on my mind, which should be full of happier and more edifying thoughts). As the song might have gone: ID Scheme (dramatic pause) get out of my mind! Your overweening ambitions are way out of line etc (to the tune of that 60s classic “Young Girl”).

Anyway, my feedback will probably get ignored on the basis anyone as cross as me must be an outlier whose views are not valid. They’ll present some internal memo saying 99% of Stake Holders are satisfied with the Home Office’s diversity policy (which given the immigration status of their security guards is indeed commendably diverse). Then the IWF will pull the plug on my blog because it has a reference to a 60s song whose lyrics, now I think about it, might be deemed inappropriate (tho in an innocent pop sort of way, and not a confused 1970s German heavy metal sort of way). *Sigh*