28 January 2008
*** NO2ID ADVISORY NOTE ***
Ministerial statements about the security of the planned National Identity
Scheme are now revealed as a charade. Recently leaked Identity and Passport
Service (IPS) documents were so dense that press and political commentators
have missed a vital point: they prove recent Government statements about
biometric security are worthless.
The leaked documents [1] [2] reveal that the IPS does not intend to collect
fingerprints for every group to which it issues ID cards. That it has even
considered issuing an ID card without taking fingerprints, clearly
demonstrates two things:
1. Fingerprinting cannot prevent multiple enrolment as ministers have
claimed from the start that it will [3] – nor can it prevent identity fraud
using the ID scheme itself – if fingerprints are not actually used, every
time, and all the time.
2. Leaving aside that it is "a fairy-tale view of the technology" [4],
biometrics cannot be the essential solution to data insecurity that
ministers and the Prime Minister [5] have painted them to be over the weeks
since the HMRC benefits records debacle.
If the IPS is even considering issuing an ID card without taking
fingerprints then biometric identification is clearly not the purpose of the
scheme. The goal is to build a National Identity Register for official
convenience [6]. The leaked documents drop the pretence of security and
concentrate on identifying who can be targeted for inclusion first, and how
readily they can be "coerced" into taking the irreversible step of joining
the Register.
Phil Booth, NO2ID's [7] National Coordinator, said:
"The whole biometric charade is over. That reveals what was intended all
along – the creation of the database state. While ministers try to bamboozle
the public with fairytales about fingerprints, officials are plotting how to
dupe and bully the population into surrendering control of their own
identities.
"Biometric ID cards are a sham; a magician's flourish to cover the biggest
identity fraud there has ever been."
-ENDS-
Notes for editors
1) http://observer.guardian.co.uk
document leaked to the Observer, 27/1/08, says: "We should test for each
group we enrol whether the cost of fingerprints is justified by the use to
which they will be put."
2) The document leaked to the Sunday People, 27/1/08, says: "Enrolment of
fingerprints on the Inclusion product would depend on the availability of an
affordable and convenient (ideally market-based) enrolment solution. This
might be in later phases, with the initial inclusion product using
biographic data."
3) Launching the scheme on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, 11/11/03, as Home
Secretary, David Blunkett said biometric identifiers on ID "will make
identity theft and multiple identity impossible... not nearly impossible,
impossible."
On 19/2/07, Tony Blair responded to e-Petitioners calling for the scheme to
be scrapped that: "...I think it would be foolish to ignore the opportunity
to use biometrics such as fingerprints to secure our identities." –
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output
4) See the security experts' letter to the Joint Committee on Human Rights
(26/11/07) reproduced in full by one of its authors here:
http://dooooooom.blogspot.com
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5) Following the HMRC Child Benefit data breach, both the Chancellor and
Prime Minister (falsely) claimed that biometrics were needed to protect
personal information:
"The key thing about identity cards is, of course, that information is
protected by personal biometric information. The problem at present is that,
because we do not have that protection, information is much more vulnerable
than it should be." - Alistair Darling, Hansard Column 1106, 20 Nov 2007
"What we must ensure is that identity fraud is avoided, and the way to avoid
identity fraud is to say that for passport information we will have the
biometric support that is necessary, so that people can feel confident that
their identity is protected." - Gordon Brown, Hansard Column 1181, 21 Nov
2007
6) The central position of the National Identity Register in the long-term
"Transformational Government" strategy for the database state is available
in public documents, though they are often written in impenetrable
management jargon.
"If you want to know the potential for the amount of information that could
be collated and cross-referenced with the use of the national identity
register and your unique ID number, it is necessary to fit together the
pieces of a complex jigsaw puzzle found in documents published by the
Treasury, the Home Office, the Office for National Statistics, the Cabinet
Office, the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the DWP." – Steve
Boggan, The Guardian 27/2/07
http://politics.guardian.co.uk
7) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the
database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate
state' initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.
8) Please, please, please: If you seek a quote from the Home Office or
government make sure you don't fall for the line that they "aren't
collecting that much more information than is gathered for a passport". The
50 *categories* of information that will be held on each person can be found
in Schedule 1 of the Identity Cards Act 2006:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts
For more information or interview, please contact Phil Booth (National
Coordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839 or Michael
Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166.
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544
308, is available for interview in Central London from 6:00 am.
The NO2ID Campaign
Box 412
19-21 Crawford Street
London W1H 1PJ
enquiries@no2id.net
Tel: 07005 800 651
Press: click here
