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International Law

: Spy Blog

ID Cards - significant criticism even from the Government 's own Independent Scheme Assurance Panel

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Every time that any group of independent experts with any real academic knowledge or practical business experience take a look at the Labour Government's disastrous ID Cards and centralised biometric database National Identity Register scheme, their conclusion is the same - yes, safeguarding people's individual identities from abuse by criminals etc. is important, but the Government's scheme will not do what they are claiming, and there is a significant risk that it will make things worse, at vast public expense.

The latest such group, who are Government appointed and funded, have had their report published, grudgingly and without any Government publicity:

Independent Scheme Assurance Panel Annual Report for 2007 (.pdf)

The Panel consists of:

John Clarke	John F Clarke is currently CIO for Nokia, having previously been Director of Group Technology & Architecture for Tesco.
Brian Collins	Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Transport. Chair of the Biometrics Assurance Group. Professor of Information Systems at Cranfield University.
Alan Hughes	Alan Hughes is a non-Executive director of IPS. He was Chief Executive of First Direct Bank and in charge of Marketing for HSBC in the UK and Europe. He is currently a member of the Advisory Board of Leeds University Business School and a visiting lecturer at Warwick University.
Malcolm Mitchell	Malcolm Mitchell has served as IT Director and Director of IT Technology Strategy for Vodafone and IT Director for Research and Development at Glaxo. He currently is IT Investment and Service Management Director at BAA.
Peter Simpson	Peter Simpson is an independent marketing consultant, a member of the Institute of Direct Marketing Education Council and served as Commercial Director for First Direct Bank.
Fergie Williams	Fergie Williams has been CIO of Travelex, HSBC Europe, and Merrill Lynch HSBC.

These are people with real experience of technically sophisticated and large scale public facing IT projects. They are of an entirely different, much higher calibre, than the inexperienced civil servants, the hand waving management consultants and unproven technology salesmen and the political apparatchiki who seem to be the proponents of the current National Identity Scheme.

This Panel does appear to have read the Top Secret Business Case for the scheme, and have also been briefed on the latest Ultra Secret Office of Government Commerce Gateway Stage 0 Review report of the Identity Cards programme, which the Home Office and the Treasury have been wasting so much public money on legal fees to delay the publication of, thereby making a mockery of the Freedom of Information Act promise of "open government".

13 February: The meeting focussed on the usage and benefits of the Scheme and the Panel discussed the Business Case and the potential infrastructure of the Scheme.

5 March: The Panel reviewed the second version of the Business Case in detail, received an overview of the Gateway 0 process and discussed the issues they were likely to raise with reviewers.

The IASP's most striking recommendation, is one which implies that despite the years of footling about and the tens of millions of pounds spent on Consultants and Civil Servants working on the scheme, fundamental issues have still not been adequately planned for.

Why would the IASP have to bother making any recommendations about Integrity and citizen protection, at this late stage, unless the current plan is totally evil or entirely absent, in this regard ?

Full post as published by Spy Blog on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).