Existing proposals are "too complex, technically unsafe, overly
prescriptive and lack a foundation of public trust and confidence",
says the report – the work of more than 100 academics and outside
experts in the fields of law, technology, information systems,
government policy, business, economics and security.
While the report supports the concept of a national identity
system for the
UK
, it recommends that the current
legislation should be replaced with a different model. The
consequences of the current proposals might include "failure of
systems, unforeseen financial costs, increased security threats and
unacceptable imposition on citizens."
According to the report's authors:
"The success of a national identity system depends on a
sensitive, cautious and cooperative approach involving all key
stakeholder groups including an independent and rolling risk
assessment and a regular review of management practices.
"We are not confident that these conditions have been satisfied
in the development of the Identity Cards Bill. The risk of failure
in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where
the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public
interest and to the legal rights of individuals."
The report goes on to warn that, rather than increasing
UK
security, the bill may create greater security
dangers than before by creating new levels of bureaucratic and
technological infrastructure.
"A fully integrated national system of this complexity and
importance will be technologically precarious and could itself
become a target for attacks by terrorists or others," says the
report.
The technology itself, the authors explain, is largely "untested
and unreliable", and the problems already encountered by the
Government in implementing smaller
IT
projects are
likely to be amplified in such a large-scale scheme.
Private sector costs relating to the verification of
individuals, the cost of biometric readers, and the cost of
registration will all cost substantially more than currently
anticipated – with registration alone "costing more than the
projected overall cost of the identity system".
In addition, say the report's authors, the proposed oversight
measures envisaged for the scheme are inadequate, while the
legislation may arguably contravene the European Convention on
Human Rights, the right of free movement for
EU
citizens, the Disability Discrimination Act and the Data Protection
Act.
Of particular concern is the audit trail that, under Government
proposals, will be created every time an individual's identity is
checked – when he visits an out-patient's clinic for the first time
or applies for a new job, for example. This permanent record raises
serious privacy questions, says the report:
"The Home Office has even attributed their decision to create
such extensive data trails to 'representations from the information
commissioner'. If true, this amounts to an own-goal for the
national regulator of information privacy, because the consequence
of creating a dense and perhaps ubiquitous audit trail are a much
worse outcome for privacy than the potential abuses against which
it is purported to act as a safeguard."
Finally, the report criticises the Government's assertion that
it needs to use biometric identifiers for the scheme in order to be
consistent with international obligations in connection with the
new biometric passport.
"There is no evidence to support this assertion," it says.
"We conclude that the Government is unnecessarily binding the
identity card scheme to internationally recognised requirements on
passport documents. By doing so, the Government has failed to
correctly interpret international standards, generating unnecessary
costs, using untested technologies and going well beyond the
measures adopted in any other country that seeks to meet
international obligations," it adds.
The report's authors suggest that the planned new French system
may be a preferable alternative.
This is much more user-friendly than the UK proposals, allowing
individuals to use multiple identifiers, and specifically rejecting
the centralisation of data into one single database.
This means that the French government cannot make the link
between, say, the driving license identifier and the health system
identifier belonging to any one individual. Accordingly there is
greater privacy and data protection built into the system, and more
control given to the citizen.
The Government should seriously consider such a scheme, says the
report.
Background
The Government published its proposals for the national ID card
scheme in April 2004, including draft legislation that would allow
for a database to be kept containing detailed personal information
on cardholders, and which could potentially create an electronic
fingerprint of everyone who uses a service, such as the
NHS, that
requires an
ID
card check.
Experts and civil liberties groups are outraged by the
proposals, which they see as rushed, over-reaching and damaging to
human rights.
Nevertheless, legislation to create the scheme was passed at
second reading by the House of Commons in December. The bill
receives its second reading in the House of Lords today.
Commentators suggest however, that the bill may shortly be
dropped from the Government's legislative agenda.
With an election date looming – possibly as early as 5th May –
the Government is running out of time in which to push the
controversial legislation through. The Tories have vowed to reject
any attempt to speed the process.
Speaking to Times Online, the Shadow Leader of the Commons,
Oliver Heald, said: "If the Prime Minister decides to have a
general election a third of the way into the parliamentary year he
cannot expect to get many bills through. We cannot pass bad laws
just because he decides to go to the country."
