Identity cards scrap plan to be outlined by Home Office (UK)

Source: BBC

The Home Office is to reveal later how it will abolish the national identity card programme for UK citizens. The bill, a Queen's Speech pledge, includes scrapping the National Identity Register and the next generation of biometric passports.

The Labour scheme was aimed at tackling fraud and illegal immigration. But it was criticised for being too expensive and an infringement of civil liberties. The cards that are already in circulation will remain legal until Parliament has passed the legislation to abolish them and the register.

The national identity card scheme involved creating the biometric cards to hold personal data which was encrypted on a chip, including name and fingerprints.

The supporting national identity register was designed to hold up to 50 pieces of information. At the same time, there were related proposals to put more biometric information on passports, beyond the standard photograph.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8707355.stm

other than the totally gross cost of implementing it.

I've got one of the new bio passports and when I flew in DC last November I cleared customs at a lightening rate of knots - not even being asked usual question "reason for visit" whatever. Online pre-clearance for permission to fly also seems to help these days when going from UK to USA.

It not only contains all the information on the card, it would also contain a record of each time anyone checked the entry in the database against the card - thus keeping a record of your movements. And while this might have, at first, been rare (eg enrollment at a university), it had the possibility to expand (eg every time you open a savings account, or even use a hospital).

if anyone wanted to track my movements then good luck to them. Not only am I not bothered about that I don't know personally know anyone else who would be and that includes any of my criminal Micky Mouse friends and acquaintances from the past who remain alive. I've always considered that anyone bothered by such an interest in their movements probably had an adverse reason for feeling that way.

I haven't got a problem with the principle of a national ID card, but large UK Govt I.T. projects have a chequered history.

Some very expensive projects have been abandoned over the years for a variety of reasons (whether incompetent system implementation or inadequate system specification). There have also been a number of very public breaches of data, and beyond the initial hand-wringing and apolgies, there has been no real political will to hold enquiries to establish exactly what went wrong, and exactly how such breaches can be avoided in future)

Doesn't seem to make sense to implement the mother-of-all databases, when smaller scale systems don't yet work (The Child Support Agency, for example)

Britain to scrap unpopular ID cards
Biometric cards intended to fight terrorism, identity fraud

By DAVID STRINGER

updated 2 hours, 3 minutes ago
LONDON - Britain's home secretary said Thursday an unpopular national identity card program for U.K. citizens will be scrapped within 100 days — but many foreign nationals will still require one of the credit-card sized documents carrying biometric data.

Both members of the country's new coalition government pledged during this month's national election to ditch the unpopular $7.3 billion plan, which Britain's previous administration said would help combat terrorism and identity fraud.

The ID cards were designed to carry biographical details and biometric data, including fingerprints and a facial image. Information was stored on a national identity database — which will also be dismantled.

Home Secretary Theresa May said the plan to ditch the cards and database will be the first piece of legislation tabled by the new government. She said 15,000 cards already issued to British citizens will be invalidated.

More:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37381437/ns/world_news-europe/