Comment on This

So, nine months after forcing the Act onto the statute books, the best the Home Office can up with is a 'plan' of how it 'intends' to go about imposing state ID control. No detailed specifications, no tender documents, no meaningful description of how the system will work *in practice*.

And just in case you weren't certain that they had something to hide, the Home Secretary gets his minions (Byrne, Ryan and Hall) to 'dump' a document that will have a deep and unavoidable impact on the personal and private life of every person in the country - for generations to come - literally hours before Parliament rises for Christmas...

Be afraid. Be *very* afraid. (link)

But hang on- won't most personal identity data be managed by people for themselves? Surely IPS need concern itself only with the minimum necessary for the state to do its job. This sounds ominously universal, therefore overambitious and inappropriate. If its aim were phrased in a more reasonable and restricted way at this stage I'd be less prickly about it. (link)

I'm amazed that they would be so explicit. This is clearly a statement about SOCIAL CONTROL.

'Managing' your personal identity data, not for your own good or because it is the duty of the government to protect its citizens - but because it provides a lever to force people to behave in the ways that the government wishes.

Anyone who has had any doubts about 'ID cards' being a civil liberties issue should read this paragraph and the scales will (hopefully) fall from their eyes. (link)

I think that's fair comment. (link)

One of the current problems with illegal workers is that there appears to be a lack of resources available to combat it.

Also, it seems to me that the focus of the IND changes from illegal immigrants to asylum seekers and vice versa, depending on how outraged the tabloids are about one or the other at the time.

I accept that 'effective identity management' might free up resources to be used elsewhere, but yet again the Government hasn't provided a cost-benefit analysis.

I have some notes on the security of our borders on my blog - I hope you don't mind me linking to it. (link)

Wrong.

If by "effective identity management", the Home Office means constant checking of everyone's ID, for pretty much everything, then it is conceivable that - at huge cost, and with a massive increase in bureaucracy - one *might* be able to spot those who don't have a card (or plausible fake).

But it doesn't mean this. And it won't be "effective".

What it will be is inconvenient for millions of law-abiding citizens - far more than those people who are already trying to keep a low profile – and it will exacerbate discrimination and make life far more unpleasant for anyone who ‘looks foreign’, as well as forcing all public sector staff (and private business, and the voluntary sector) to become de facto immigration officers.

If we're allowed to link from here, I urge you to visit NO2ID's website - http://www.no2id.net - for more information. (link)

The ID will NOT stop terrorism, forget the fakes that will appear most of the 'terrorists' will have legitimate cards, so how is this going to stop them!

ID's were removed after the war following public outcry, now the government are trying to introduce them anyway they can, why? Even now they are compling a data base by the back door, anyone who is involved with the police can have their biometric information taken and they are fingerprinting our children in over 3,500 schools already see www.theregister.co.uk (link)

That statement is so misleading it counts as a deliberate falsehood.

See

"Andy Burnham's "£1.7 billon identity fraud" figure is as false as the previous £1.3 billion one"

http://spyblog.org.uk/2006/02/andy_burnhams_17_billon_identi.html

(link)

How much of a reduction in this mythical £1.7 billion a year figure is the Government claiming will actually be reduced by this scheme ?

It is one of the secrets about the scheme which they have not dared to publish, not even as a guesstimate.

Will they scrap the scheme if this secret target is not achieved ? (link)

For the sake of corroboration... A similar breakdown of this figure is also detailed at silicon.com : http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39156140,00.htm which concludes "When all these non-ID fraud figures are taken out of the Home Office calculations the actual total annual cost of ID fraud to the UK is just £494m, although £372m is an undefined figure given for losses due to ID fraud across the telecoms industry."

As regards the reductions in fraud, an assertion as found in Hansard is "The benefits arising from reduced fraud are estimated to be in the range of £550 million to £980 million per annum", a paltry sum when compared to the overall cost of the scheme once all of the consequential costs are properly accounted for. (link)

Of course there is also the possiblilty of an increase in fraud. It is going to be much more profitable for the criminal when to gain any credence he only has to produce one form of identity and the person who's identity they stole is going to have a very difficult time proving it was not him/her who obtained the service or product. ID cards are not going to enhance peoples safety, just make their lives miserable. (link)

This could equally read:

"become a key weakness exploited by criminals and terrorists: the issue of state identities plays an increasing part in illegal activity, with sometimes devastating and costly results;"

but I don't want to have to wait 5 or 10 years and risk my or my family's personal, private data to find out...

(link)

If the problem is the crime, is there evidence that this is the best and most cost-effective solution? (link)

Does Mrs Jones want to know that this person claiming to be John Smith is in fact John Smith, or that this person claiming to be John Smith isn’t a child abuser? I suspect the latter. Does Blair misapprehend the concern people have about carers and childminders?

It seems to me that here the identity card and National Register isn’t of much use at all - particularly with regard to criminal records, as these are prohibited from being held on the Register. Primary legislation will be required to change this.

If I understand correctly, if the employer wants to know whether or not the applicant has a criminal record, the employer will still need to apply for a CRB disclosure.

Identity doesn’t tell us much at all about intention. (link)

It won't just be your passport...

If you work with children, or volunteer, before too long you'll find that the state requires you not only to have to submit to a 'police check' but to submit to *lifelong* surveillance and cede control of your personal and private data (i.e. be Registered on the ID scheme).

The government will achieve this by 'designating' the CRB check certificate, as it intends to do for driving licenses and other official documents - to force moer and more people on to the National Identity Register (NIR).

Don't belive the hype. The NIR is still there - it'd just built from three 'dirty' old databases, rather than the one big 'clean' one that the government promised when it first introduced the scheme, and was steamrollering it through Parliament.

N.B. Does anyone else think we need a recount? This new plan and official statements about it drop a couple of the fundamental elements on which the scheme was originally 'sold', namely the new, clean database, and iris scans (which were the only plausible candidate for one-to-many checking at enrolment - though it looked like they wouldn't work out). Parliament and the public have been sold a ringer... (link)

Do you really think this 'joining up' by the "wider public sector" will be optional for you? Try buying a TV with cash and no ID today [you can't] and that's what it will be like for everything you buy within a decade.

"How can you object, if you have nothing to hide?" I wish I could wake up now, the tens of millions who will regret saying that in the future. (link)

More misleading numbers? Seventy percent of the combined passport and ID card - out of the total of 93 pounds (or has this now gone up?), 66 (the cost of a passport) is how many percent? Seventy-ish, perhaps? I don't understand what they are trying to tell us here.

(The cost of the scheme is allegedly to be recovered via fees in the same way that passports are done, so working from the unit cost is not an unreasonable approximation.)

My passport is already sufficiently biometric to meet the standards required by the ICAO, even the most basic of which is not expected to be fully deployed until at least 2020.

We must also be wary of the wilfully variable usage of the term 'biometric' here. For passports this currently only means 'processed digital photo', whereas for ID cards the term also includes fingerprints and any other 'biometric' they care to specify. (link)

Henrietta, if I recall correctly the Government has given us the following information:

1. the cost of the scheme is estimated to be £5.4bn over ten years; 2. 80% of the population have passports; 3. the point-of-sale unit cost per passport/id card is to be £93; and, 4. the population of the UK is around 60m.

If 80% of the population purchase the combined passport/ID card, the Government must therefore recoup around £1bn from other sources - including purchasers of the ID card only, users of the identity verification service, and people updating their details on the National Register (or being fined for not doing so).

If it is to charge £35 per ID card, and the rest of the population signs up, it must recover half a billion from those other sources.

A point to add about yours regarding biometrics:

If I understand correctly the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) minimum standard for a biometric passport requires that the passport photo is stored on a chip in the passport (this is also the minimum required by the USA) with the finger and iris being used at the discretion of the issuing State.

Government remarks about biometrics being required by international standards seems a little misleading for that reason.

Furthermore are we to infer from the Government that the UK has little to no influence on international standards? The addition of the fingerprint biometric was proposed by the ‘UK’ during the UK’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union!

I must also add that we have two seats at the ICAO.

My other problem is the leap from passports to a National Register and Identity Card Scheme - the argument seems to be, well we might as well do it as it's only going to cost another £1.6bn. (link)

I think IPS will find it extremely difficult to come through this process with its good customer service reputation intact. I think in hindsight this aim will appear overoptimistic. (link)

It would help we to understad what they're tring to say if we had some examples. Eg do they mean

Bad choices: - to enter the UK illegaly - to work here when youre meant to be a tourist - to refuse to register or pay for an ID card - to commit GBH or rape, or to let off bombs - to only eat four portions of veg a day, and to smoke fags, or dope?

Good choices: - to vote in elections - to live a crime-free life - to have a healthy diet and take exercise - to be meticulous about bureaucratic procedures to do with travel, tax, welfare etc - to live n a more environmentally friendly way eg use public transport better

What do they actually mean? (link)

".... making it possible for you to use it if you want to prove your identity."

Sounds almost as though it will be optional and without compunction doesn't it. I get by without 'proving' my identity now and would like to continue doing so.

(link)

Do not overook social acceptability. If it fails at that level (as I suspect it will) then it is a total failure. (link)

I'm just SO FAR from believing that these are the words we will end up using. If I could "sell futures" based on some measure of the waste of money and the dreadful customer experience, I would. And this whole venture seems to me to have been an integrity-free zone since the day it was mooted.

I'll force myslef to keep an open mind and if ever I'm persuaded or mollified, I may look back on this post and see how far I've come.

But I think it's far more likely that the Scheme will fail, or if it goes through I'll look back and see we were right to be sceptical and should have done more, more constructively and earlier. (link)

Having been born and lived in this 'FREE' society for six decades (and counting) and having found that this 'so-called' "Peoples Democracy" has become more and more intrusive, oppressive and basically 'FASCIST' I feel it is about time that I added my name to the list of "Free Born" who feel that enough is much more than enough. 'Things' have already gone way too far as it is. I therefore place on record that I will take no part in this I-D card bullshit, don't need it won't have it. So how is this increasingly FACIST state going to obtain the 'Stuff' needed from me to 'conscript' me into this "Big Brother" obscenity (?). Perhaps Putin, the generals of burma the talaban or decendents of Adolf and Stalin could offer suggestions.

We shall have to "wait-and-see" how our 'Free and Democratic' state responds. Perhaps we shall find out just how 'Cowardly and Gutless' the Great (?) British Nation has now become (link)

"Defraud" seems an odd word to use here. Doesnt it mean get money or something valuable from someone by trickery? But we're not getting anything of value here, we're just being forced through an unwelcome and intrusive bureaucratic process.

Should I be thinking in terms of how desirable green cards are? Or is the idea that life will be made so miserable for non-ID-cardholders that we'll desperately want one, and do anything to get one including defraud the system? (link)

It will be absolutely nothing like the way passports are renewed every 10 years. What complete and utter bullsh*t. Sure they will change passport processes to make them more like the ID interrogation process, but there is NO (international) requirement that this be done - and no other good reason*, other than to soften people up for ID cards.

To renew my passport, I send it off in the post with a form and a cheque, and I get my new passport back a couple of weeks later.

To "re-enrol", I will have to take another day off work, and travel at my own expense up to 80 miles (round trip) to be interrogated, fingerprinted and scanned AGAIN.

And you may actually have to be issued with (and pay for?) a new card every five years, not 10 - if they use Chip & PIN chips on 'em, than no-one's managed to make those last 10 years...

--

*IPS will claim 'anti-fraud', but to force everyone to attend in person is ridiculously disproportionate, when it could target those applications most likely to be fraudulent and call in any applicants that fit the criteria and a random sample of others.

I bet IPS could reduce fraud (which surely can't be running that high in any case - unless it's completely lost control, which wouldn't bode well for any new system...) by 75% or more, pulling in no more than 200,000 people per year. One big upside: the price of your passport wouldn't keep skyrocketing.

Either we are seeing incompetence on a monumental level, or a 'hidden' agenda. You decide - but universal interviews have nothing to do with "efficiency" or "international obligations", and very little to do with "anti-fraud measures". (link)

Man, what a drag this sounds. And I fear Phil is right. (link)

No, the Commissioner reports to the Home Secretary - and only after the SoS has taken out the embarrassing bits will the Commissioner's report be presented to Parliament.

Read the Act.

This 'plan' seems to be making it up as it goes along... (link)

Or is this a change? I suppose it cant be because this is just a policy paper and the Act is a law. (link)

As Phil noted above, there's all the difference in the world between how we'llapply for a passport now and what's planned for the future. (link)

Has anyone calculated the 'carbon footprint' that the registration process will incur by requiring visits to widely spaced centres, and related it to the Government's statements on reducing the country's carbon footprint? (link)

Here's where the credit-referencing agencies (which are already way ahead of where government is) come in, as well as the statistical specialists. There's so much that can be done here - this is why we need good intentions, transparency and informed consent. (link)

If IPS tries to call me a customer for its ID Scheme they may get an irate response.

Customers have a choice. It was a such a pleasure this week to cancel all payments to Sky. They delay, procrastinate, wriggle and squirm, try to sell you broadband and telephony. But no,I just dont want to give them more money, and I wont. That's what it feels like to e a customer.

Nor do I want to be summonsed to interview, fingerprinted, iris scanned (or have they dropped that?) charged money for some tool to let differerent bits of government link up my life in ways I dont desire. But am I a customer here? I doubt it. (link)

I suppose this means DVLA inter alia. I wonder why they dont just say so? (link)

I wish they'd acknowledge that there are perfectly valid uses for multiple identities. It would give me a sense of dealing with people who understand there is more to life than terrorism and paedophilia. (link)

...so this sounds like starting a new database on the CIS which is run by EDS. (link)

These are run by Siemens and seem to have been doing OK after a rocky start. I dont understand why our passports have to ost so much more than everyone else's. Are they better in some way, or is it just rip-off Britain?

I dont understand: what are the implications of using a PKI? (link)

This point of view is so ID-Scheme-centric! And ID management should be user-centric or citizen-centric in design. That's government policy. If ID managment were thus designed, then I suspct the Scheme would not be a part of daily life at all. Daily life would be more efficient and hass-free, and most identity management activity would happen in the background without user intervention and aggravation. People, you are coming from a Bad Place, and have much to learn before you are enlightened. (link)

The Scots are going to love this. Particularly if the wee pretendy parliament highlights the uselessness of the loathsome token by giving it no role in access to public services. (link)

This wouldn't stop fraudsters using stolen ID cards, since people are surprisingly bad at checking photos. In a 1995 study University of Westminster researchers issued 44 students with four picture ID cards each. The cards carried a variety of photos, including a simulated "old" photo of the holder (with a different hairstyle, or addition or removal or glasses or a beard, as one might have on a five-year-old ID card) and one chosen to look like the holder from a hundred random photos of different people (as a criminal would choose from a stack of stolen ID cards). Experienced supermarket cashiers couldn't reliably tell whether students were using an "old" card or a "stolen" card. This experiment was done under optimum conditions, with experienced staff, plenty of time, and no threat of embarrassment if a card was rejected; shop assistants' real-life performance would be worse. As a result of this study, no UK credit card company now puts the holder's photo on credit cards.

R. Kemp, N. Towell, G. Pike, "When seeing should not be believing: Photographs, credit cards and fraud" Applied Cognitive Psychology Vol 11(3) (1997) pp 211-222 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/11942/ABSTRACT (link)

This would merely show that the card is not forged. It would not detect someone using a stolen card as their own - and there would be plenty of lost and stolen ID cards about. Even though most people guard their passports carefully, in 2004 over 300,000 UK passports were lost or stolen [1]. Ministers say they want their Identity Scheme to become the "Gold Standard" for personal identity [2], and that people should use ID cards to prove "who you are, day in, day out",[3] offering many more opportunities to lose them than occasionally-used passports.

[1] Des Browne, Home Office questions, 21 February 2005, http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2005-02-21.204447.h [2] Des Browne, Home Office questions, 20 December 2004, http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2004-12-20a.1900.0

[3] Andy Burnham, Radio 4 Today Programme, 28 March 2006, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today1_0630_20060328.ram (link)

The Action Plan talks of making ID cards compatible with Chip-and-PIN credit card terminals to make this check available in all shops. However, in May 2006 Shell garages temporarily suspended Chip-and-PIN payments after a £1 million fraud used modified credit card terminals which recorded customers' PINs.[1] UEA criminologist Emily Finch has found that criminals have already adapted to PIN technology, and that increasing reliance on such technology makes users less vigilant, thus making fraud easier, not harder; she thinks reliance on ID cards will therefore increase fraud rates.[2]

[1] Paul Hales, "Chip and pin hack exposed", The Inquirer, 8 May 2006, http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=31547

[2] Jonathan Amos, "Criminals to 'adapt to ID cards'", BBC, 4 September 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4213848.stm (link)

Most identity fraud isn't conducted face-to-face, but over the 'phone or Internet, with no possibility of checking ID card photos. Internet Bank Smile told The Guardian in January 2003 that "When it comes to internet banking, I don't think identity cards could help".[1] The Home Office says you could "prove your identity to someone on the telephone or over the Internet ... by supplying your card details and possibly some 'shared secret' information, like banking services use today". This seems to be an open invitation to use stolen or forged ID cards for telephone-based identity fraud, and completely misrepresents how "shared secrets" work. The whole point is that the secret is shared only between you and one organisation (such as a bank), not given to every shop, hospital or government department you 'phone, from where it could be used to impersonate you.

[1] S.A. Mathieson, "A born identity", The Guardian, 30 January 2003, http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,,884668,00.html (link)

Since the necessary electronic fingerprint readers would be expensive, they would only be used for high-value transactions. Although it would take criminals some effort to outwit them, it would be worth their while because of the greater benefits of forging this "higher level" of proof, and studies have shown that it's certainly possible to fool fingerprint readers. In 2002 a Japanese research team produced fake gelatine "fingers" from fingerprints left on glass that fooled all 11 sensors they tested 80% of the time.[1] In August 2006 Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman of the TV programme "Mythbusters" used similar techniques to completely defeat high-security fingerprint door locks.[2]

[1] T. Matsumoto, H. Matsumoto, K. Yamada, S. Hoshino, "Impact of Artificial Gummy Fingers on Fingerprint Systems", Proceedings of SPIE Vol. #4677, Optical Security and Counterfeit Deterrence Techniques IV, 2002, http://www.cryptome.org/gummy.htm

[2] Mythbusters, Episode 59 "Crimes and Myth-Demeanors 2", originally aired 23rd August 2006, Discovery Channel, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZncdgwjQxm0 (link)

So how does this square with the 3rd Principle of data protection, laid down in the Data Protection Act 1998 Schedule 1 ?

3. Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation does not require the whole world to have all 10 fingerprints taken, only 1 ! Even that is currently a "future option", as the chosen biometric for the new style passports is just a Digitised Facial Photograph.

(link)

Data Protection Act 1998 Schedule 1

(link)

Data Protection Act 1998 Schedule 1

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1998/80029--l.htm#sch1ptI (link)

It looks as if URLs are being filtered out. (link)

"ever evolving set of identity checking services??" These start to sound like the ravings of an identity fetishist. We want efficient state services. We want to transact safely online. We dont want the state to do any more than it has to. I am surprised by the depth of cultural alientation I feel from the authors of this work. Yet we live in the same country and probably mostly want the same things... (link)

Well bully for you. Should we buy shares in PVS? Sounds like a nice little monopoly.

I dont sense any grown-up communication about the level of fraudulent applications for driver licences, bank accounts etc. I feel this statement is just self-serving and smug. Wouldnt it be less patronising and more effective to share the problem?

I wish I didnt feel this negative and supicious about this public service but...I do. (link)

Is this assertion based on evidence?

I'd think public confidence will require a belief that the information is minimal and proportionate for the purposes envisaged. (link)

My guess, based on hearsay only, is that these are two of the the least accurate databases you could find. If you want accuracy they'd do far better to head over to Experian and Equifax. But dont expect to learn much from them about how a government can earn public trust. (link)

Important for you maybe. "Customers" wont give a damn, and the only way you'll incentivise them is with the draconian penalities. (link)

NO 'member of staff' should have the ability to see the whole of my record!

That there is any role within the system which can access complete records is a fundamental design flaw - and it *will* be exploited. As is access to the PNC, DVLA, and every other government-run database. They have learnt nothing :(

Assume just for a minute that I *can* prove who I am to a sufficiently high level of assurance. It should be ME who 'unlocks' each field for view and/or adjustment by a member of staff, not vice versa.

That some low-paid spod at UK IPS has total control over your personal data, when you won't, should send chills down your spine...

Criminal penalties after the fact (assuming they even catch people) is of no use to the victim, whose whole life could have been compromised. (link)

I think Phil is again right.

Who are these officials who can see the whole record - what sort of job title in what sort of organisation?

Also I'd start to feel better about these people if there was a degree of honesty about the extent to which there have already been "corrupt insider" problems, and how this is going to be differernt in future. (link)

I need independent expert help here, to guide me as to whether this makes sense. (link)

Oh come on.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this means field- (not record-) level access control, also managed at some roles-based level across multiple linked (legacy) databases and agencies, delivering a real-time service. The implied increase in complexity over the "single, new, clean database" is staggering.

There is no evidence to suggest that the Home Office has the capacity to even commission such a system, let alone implement or manage it. It can't even successfully pass legal records between Magistrates Courts, or protect the Police National Computer from illegal access.

Are we are expected to just take it on trust that the LEAST organised Department of the whole government (which can't even keep track of its own staff, let alone 1,000 prisoners) will be able to pull off this fantasy system?

The consequences of failure are going to be *much* worse, with all your personal data being mixed in with data from the various other agencies. HO seems to be claiming it will not only be able to 'supercharge' several legacy sytems, but perfectly segregate AND secure data as well.

Ministers are either delusional, monumentally arrogant and stupid - or lying.

Take your pick. (link)

...which we promised we'd have sorted y 2005 and failed to.

This whole initiative would seem a lot less sinister if it were a government name & address service - a multi-channel customer helpdesk which listened to your circumstances and undertook to keep informed every part of govenment that needed to know. Yes sir, I'll make sure the doctor, the health visitor etc are all informed and I'll have your TV licence transferred." (link)

In Parliament they have really cool coppers who can recognise all the MPs. And in my village post office they know who I am. That works really well. (link)

....thus makiong the world a better place even tho the prisons will be even more overcrowded. How big is this sort of problem now - why not tell us here? It's our money, and our society. We're not the enemy, you know. (link)

As Bob Blakley put it:

"The motivation for putting biometrics into passports is that better identification will help in "the war on terror". If the problem in the war on terror were preventing known terrorists from crossing national borders at official checkpoints using genuine passports issued in their own names, biometric passports might help........How much taxpayer money are you willing to spend on biometric passports before you know whether you believe this or not?"

(from Ceci n'est pas un Bob- http://notabob.blogspot.com/2005/08/identity-is-story.html) (link)

"SIX MONTHS" = policy change alert!

Parliament was told "three months" throughout the progress of the Bill. And 3 months is the period mentioned in the Explanatory Notes to the Act.

Of course, HO could argue that it is just doing this 'for an initial period' - but never actually get round to doing what it said it would... (link)

Why did you drop the iris business? I mean, I'm glad that you did (unlike Prof Daugman who must have been disapointed) but did you ever share your thinking as to why it was not such a good idea? (link)

I can't believe that I'm going to have to submit to a humiliating fingerprinting process - makes me feel like criminal already!! (link)

Well I expect the private sector to

1. take a pretty sceptical and self-serving view as to the cost-effectiveness of your service and

2. to outmanoeuvre you pretty nimbly, especially in anything to do with online ID management services

Somehow I dont foresee the taxpayer making a terrific return out of this one. (link)

Sounds like a suitable role for a former Accenture partner perhaps...suit-wearing, confident, ready to listen (a bit) but perhaps fatally weak on technology (link)

Who pays whom? Does IPS contract with DWP? And most of the work will be outsourced; what is the role of the private sector? There's something mealymouthed about this report....it feels like a damage-limitation report because IPS said it'd do one, rather than a helpful and frank assessment of what we're trying to do here and what the challenges are. I wonder who the intended audience is? (link)

My guess it wont help members of the public spot phoney officials. (link)

It's still all about The Scheme isnt it. It ought to be about the best and most pragmatic way to acheve The Objectives or The Benefits. In order to help The Citizen, and save the burden on The Taxpayer, who would quite like to get A Pension one day please. (link)

Is this based on any evidence about how people want to deal with government in an e-enabled world? Or is it wishful thinking by a group of people with a certain view of the world and a reluctance to engage with others who might not share their view? Until we prove the former, I suspect the latter. (link)

Retailers will now more easily be able to track what people buy. Cash tells them nothing. Cash plus ID tells them what, when and who.

Watch for function creep in retail to cover the web too, but for everyone; "You wouldn't want to stop us protecting your children, now would you?".

(link)

It's been said many times before but let's say it again. If you have to prove anything to buy fags, it's just that you're over 16. It's not who you are. It's not even your date of birth. A green light that says "OK" and tells the retailer nothing else would suffice. (link)

But hang on, that's the ONLY half-worthwhile thing you claim The Scheme will do. So if the Gateway does it, what's the point? (Anyway, I thought Government Connent did it. So what's the point of that?) (link)

I think that "shared interests" masks a serious fallacy. I think its naive and dangerous, rather than Machiavellian. Business wants to know more about its customers, yes, but it's a VERY DIFFERENT INTEREST from the legitimate regulatory interest government has. When govenment treats me as a customer eg promoting sports and leisure facilities to me this is very different from what I'm prepared for the doctor or the welfare services to know about me. (link)