Home secretary Jacqui Smith on Thursday will invite high-street businesses to tender to be biometrics enrolment centres for the National Identity Scheme, which the government will use to issue ID cards.
The Home Office wants to use the tender process to gauge whether businesses such as post offices and banks would be interested in participating in taking fingerprints from people for the scheme, ZDNet UK understands. It also hopes to formulate a document, called the Frontline Services Prospectus, outlining how biometric enrolment would be carried out by businesses.
ZDNet UK also understands that the Post Office has not been approached directly by the Home Office to submit a tender.
Anti-ID cards campaigner Phil Booth told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that the government was trying to sell high-street firms an idea that would not work. "The Home Office is selling businesses a pig in a poke," Booth said. "What company would want to invest millions in a service that will be scrapped at the first opportunity?"
Booth added that the Home Office proposal "absolutely undermines security".
"If they're taking fingerprints on the high street, they simply cannot guarantee locking prints to details," he said. "The only way they could have done that is in an interrogation centre, with some official scrutinising documentation, then walking you over to the scanner to take your prints."
Booth suggested that a high-street-based system would be open to fraud and systems error, and could lead to chaos.
The Home Office declined to comment on the scheme.
Talkback
How desperate is that!!
I have sat here for a couple of minutes now trying to sort down the snowstorm of reasons why this is a monumentally stupid idea into something short and snappy, suited to a comment page. I can't. It's just so far beyond bone-headed it really just beggars belief.
Come on Jaqubooti, it's all over now. Just come quietly honey. See those nice big men over there with the hypodermics. They are your friends. They'll make all the those fears go away for you, no need to imprison the entire population of the country just to know your paranoia down a notch.
Yet again we have a ridiculous plan from the Home Office which would be wide open to fraud and misuse - and, surprise, surprise, (think they'd never learn?) data available for loss and theft.
Want a new identity? Then go to M&S Store or Thomas Cook or wherever to be finger printed and photographed and make an ID.
Resident non UK nationals should certainly have ID cards and other EU residents who have their own ID cards should have them swiped on entry and exit. Visitors would have their valid passports.
But to be of real use, ID cards must be secure in production and use.
While agreeing completely with the commentator in most of what he says, I do wonder about this bit:
: Resident non UK nationals should certainly have
: ID cards
Why? What actual good would it do?
They are presumably natives of another nation and so have passports from that nation in their possession; with the relevant leave to remain and work permit stamps therein.
They wouldn't be required by the act or any other current legislation to carry their shiny new ID cards with them, so a street stop/check would be useless in discriminating legal and illegal aliens. If asked to produce documentation at the local cop shop, the legals would today be able to show their passports etc and the illegals would be in the wind. No difference.
The Home Office are continually looking for sections of the population that are "Obvious" candidates for ID cards so they can divide us up and pick us off group by group. Remember, the ones who already have to have these things aren't going to be howling in protest as each new group is subsumed. It is an old old tactic replayed in budding totalitarian states down through time. Don't let a media inspired subcurrent of resentment against foreigners working here blind-side you. Just go back to the simple practicalities.
It is and will be a rether woolly subject until we know what the Government detailed plans are. But if the intention is to ensure that those non nationals among us have been granted an entitlement to reside here, then it would certainly be in their interest to carry an identity card to both identify themselves and their residential entitlement without the aggravation of temporary arrest. While a passport would identify an individual it does not provide any further information such as NI number or address or even entitlement to be here. It would also help prove entitlement to publicly funded services such as NHS facilities.
The need to have identity cards is a sad thing but the influx of many unsavoury penniless economic illegal immigants and the increased terror threat makes such ID cards a necessity.
: It is and will be a rether woolly subject until
: we know what the Government detailed
: plans are.
There's a couple of minor problems with that last point. Firstly the thought that any plans the government might have on this general subject might be in any way "detailed"; and the second being the idea they might deem us plebs worthy of hearing them.
: But if the intention is to ensure that those
: non nationals among us have been granted an
: entitlement to reside here, then it would
: certainly be in their interest to carry an identity
: card to both identify themselves and their
: residential entitlement without the aggravation
: of temporary arrest.
How will this actually work on the street:
PC: Excuse me sir, you look like a foreigner, papieren bitte .. sorry .. papers please.
Innocent bystander: But I'm British. I was born in Warrington. I don't have any papers on me.
PC: You are under arrest for looking like a foreigner and not having any way of proving that you're not.
This is what the likes of no2id mean when they, and the stack of security experts say the only effect will be to increase tensions, with no effect on the core situation.
: While a passport would identify an individual it
: does not provide any further information such
: as NI number or address or even entitlement
: to be here.
I don't know how it works with foreigners over here, but I would expect the leave to remain and work permit and such would be stamped in their passport. Even if it doesn't, there would be some kind of paperwork to wave at people who really insist on knowing.
: It would also help prove entitlement to publicly
: funded services such as NHS facilities.
I would assume that the relevant NHS formage would do this just as well.
There is already paperwork that covers all of these things now. Putting them into one easy to steal/lose card does absolutely nothing of benefit to anyone.
: The need to have identity cards is a sad thing
: but the influx of many unsavoury penniless
: economic illegal immigants and the increased
: terror threat makes such ID cards a necessity.
I recognise that argument as the kind of stuff trotted out by the Home Office preying on fears they have themselves pumped up.
The bulk of the penniless economic immigrants, unsavoury or otherwise, have been coming from the newly expanded EU and the recent crop of terrorists were home grown.
We are quite used to the thought that our great leaders spin and lie about pretty much everything else, why do you assume they aren't doing the same thing here?
The whole conception is a mess and a badly thought out one. The purpose for it's being has not been well justified or explained and it seems like the proverbial sledgehamer to crack a walnut.
But - unless the undesirable ability for arrest and detention pending identification and right to reside is permitted by law - it seems that we are going to get ID cards like the rest of the EU. The get out is the (unlikely) affirmation from David Cameron that the whole concept, other than for airport and similar vulnerable point staff, will be scrapped when the Conservatives hit power.
Must admit that for very many years I carried an ID card and it didn't bother or grossly inconvenience me and that, at my age now, it doesn't really bother me personally as I have no intention of registering for an ID card.
But certainly expect non citizens that, shall we say do not appear on the electoral roll, to have ID documents.
Oh yes it is a mess all right.
: The whole conception is a mess and a badly
: thought out one. The purpose for it's being
: has not been well justified or explained and
: it seems like the proverbial sledgehamer
: to crack a walnut.
Absolutely right. The system has not been created yet, so there is still time to stop it all stone dead in it's tracks, sit back and have another think about how these problems can be solved without spending the GDP of a fairly large African state on the plan.
: But
Damn .. you just had to go and do a "but" there didn't you :-)
: unless the undesirable ability for arrest and
: detention pending identification and right
: to reside is permitted by law
That is not the sort of "Freedom" that my grand-relatives fought for .. in fact it is exactly the sort of behaviour they fought to defeat.
: it seems that we are going to get ID cards like
: the rest of the EU.
Actually I'm pretty much assuming that we won't. There is no way on this Earth that NuLabor will be getting back in again and all of the other parties have said, flat out, they will take the whole thing down.
: The get out is the (unlikely) affirmation from
: David Cameron that the whole concept, other
: than for airport and similar vulnerable point staff,
: will be scrapped when the Conservatives hit power.
I'm quite possibly out of date here, but I thought he had just said that he would take it down. There is already a purpose built, closed cell scheme designed explicitly for the purpose. Why kick it out in favour of a generic "open to all and sundry" scheme like this. This would be a major step backwards, just to appease. Madness. No thanks.
: Must admit that for very many years I carried
: an ID card and it didn't bother or grossly
: inconvenience me and that, at my age now,
: it doesn't really bother me personally as I have
: no intention of registering for an ID card.
Ahhhh .. Common problem .. The ID card has diverted your attention from the actual issue .. the database.
If you carried a military or Police ID card, you did so for a very specific purpose. That purpose was to prove to the gate guards that you should be allowed through and not shot at. Not surprised you didn't mind holding it if that is the case ;-) Military and Police hold a special position in society and need those ID cards to prove that special position. In neither of those cases was there a monster database with all your private information, open to virtually every public employee in the country and heaven knows who across the channel.
It is the database, the National Identity Register that is the main problem for most of us. It WILL leak, President Brown actually said the other day that he could not guarantee the security of government held data. We all already knew that of course, but even the PM has now put that assertion on the public record. That database is ID theft on the hoof and that's only one point against it. There's so many more.
: But certainly expect non citizens that, shall we
: say do not appear on the electoral roll, to have
: ID documents.
They already do, or they wouldn't get an ID card in the first place. Don't let the spin masters smoke screen that fact. The card is granted based on other documentation .. THIS documentation. The card is no better than the documents it is based on. It is basically a monstrously expensive receipt for a bunch of other documents. That money could be spent on actual security improvements.
They are using people's fears to try and chip away at the edges of the constituency. It is a cynical underhanded technique that has been used before. Compare and contrast the people who did this in history with the current mob. They are in some really nasty company.
I'll remind you:
"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
Same strategy. Pick off the ones "we" don't care too much about and work your way inwards. By the time it gets to you, it's a done deal, too late to yell about it any more.
Papieren Bitte.
The only Biometric ID that could possibly be absolute is a DNA scan of sufficient resolution that your genetic markers would not match anyone else except your clone's or your twin. Of course if I managed to nip a bit of your skin or a live hair follicle, I could incubate it and keep feeding it and I'd have enough tissue to fool the DNA scanner in a week or so.
Gummy bears can be used to pass lifted finger prints on most fingerprint scanners. Boy that's real secure!
It would seem that retina scanners could possibly be fooled with a projection. What happens to people with macular degeneration? Or a detached retina? They get immediately arrested for NOT matching their retina print taken X number of months or years before. In any case I'm not that willing to expose my eyes to a laser scanner that might malfunction. And before you say "get real!" Are you willing to trust your government (or mine) enough to expose your eyes to a potential damaging event when they award the contract to the lowest bidder for all that wonderful security equipment?
Some of the other scanner technologies IR, terahertz radio waves, MRI, CT scans and whatever the heck they use on Star Trek might work! Ha! The government busy-bodies seem to have watched Ar-nuld the Govenator in Total Recall a few too many times!
Thanks to the "shoe-bomber" we get to walk around in our socks on filthy airport terminal floors! Now they want us to stick our fingers on scanners that thousands of others have touched? Its bad enough when they isolate back surgery patients who have metal rods in their backs or pain-pump patients and pat them down like they're drug dealers. I've watched them (TSA) take apart a man's wheelchair looking for explosives!
I like visiting places but if it becomes such a freaking hassle to go to the UK , the EU or the US, its likely that ONLY the terrorists and illegals will go through the hassle of getting an ID card and traveling to those places that require all your personal details down to a urine sample, presumably. So obviously the guys with the ID cards are the ones to arrest!
The whole system stinks of unknowledgeable inefficiency. Politicians are being guided by biased civil servants that they have the perfect system - if it's not perfect it should be rejected out of hand - so the unknowledgeable politician who just happens to be that minister in the latest shuffle agrees with his civil servants, a cheap and nasty contractor gets the job. Before you know it, at great cost, everyone's lifestory is recorded on a couple of hard drives and connected to every airport and port in the land - all ready to be copied onto a flash drive or disk and lost.
The winners? Civil servants who all got promoted because they suceeded in getting another white elephant off the ground, the contractors raking in a great profit for doing what our Customs and Immigration Border Control should do and the Policician who is promoted in the cabinet for succeeding to spend a fortune.
The losers? Us people and then the poor guys who copy and lose the secure (LOL) data and no longer have a job.