20 March 2009
The publication of the 2003 and 2004 Office of Government Commerce ‘gateway reviews’ of the ID scheme reveals what it is that the government fought to hide for 5 years [1]. The reviews were RED and AMBER. That is ministers were at the same time promoting a scheme that at that point had not met the basic criteria for any large government project.
Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID [2]said:
The truth is, that though the details are damning, no one but specialists would have noticed anything in these reports but two words. Senior civil servants have spent thousands of hours of their time, and hundreds of thousands of pounds on legal fees, trying to stop the public seeing the words 'red' and 'amber'. The other two words that spring to mind are 'cat' and 'bag'.
-ENDS-
Notes for editors:
1) The reviews were the subject of a Freedom of Information request by security consultant Mark Dziecielewski, that took over 4 years, eventually involving the Court of Appeal and two hearings by the Information Tribunal, to be answered: http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2009/03/ogc-finally-publish-the-two-stage-zero-gateway-reviews-of-the-id-cards-programme.html
2) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing, and http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how it all fits together.
For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166
The NO2ID Campaign
Box 412
19-21 Crawford Street
London W1H 1PJ
enquiries@no2id.net
Tel: 07005 800 651
Press: click here
