Posted on March 9th, 2011 by Stewart Mitchell (PC Pro)
When the previous Government wanted us to carry ID cards — and remember this was at the height of the anti-terror campaigns — the UK shrank from the idea as a form of totalitarian nightmare.
It was seen as too Big Brother, too expensive, and ultimately pointless, largely because it wouldn’t be obligatory. After spending billions (£10bn-£20bn according to the London School of Economics) on the idea, the cards were scrapped.
Good riddance, many said at the time, but there’s a danger that in the hullabaloo over the problems of establishing initial ID and how ID cards wouldn’t stop terrorism, the baby was thrown out with the bath water.
According to new research from analyst firm Frost and Sullivan, universal multi-application cards are the next big thing in the electronic identification world and they could bring real benefits to users. At least as advertised, the next wave of cards isn’t about Checkpoint Charlie-style “show me your papers” security — it’s about access to services.
Russia (which admittedly doesn’t have the best track record on human rights and may not be the best example of state benevolence) is working on one of the most ambitious such projects, the Universal Electronic Card.
When it goes live next year, the card is expected to be adopted by 1,000 national and regional services and 10,000 commercial enterprises. Trebles all round.
With contact and contactless access, the card is designed to prove identity, act as a digital signature, carry medical insurance and pension information. All very useful for accessing state-run services, but if a card can perform half a dozen tricks, why not teach it a few more, too?
The UEC will also provide Oyster card-like access to public transport, act as a credit card to pay utility bills and buy goods online, and make appointments for the doctors. Oh and it’ll work for contactless payments, too.
“The UEC project in Russia is the first one in Europe including all these verticals,” said Jean-Noel Georges, a researcher for Frost and Sullivan. “Except for the fact that this is not yet an electronic vote card, UEC is the most interesting and full-scale project undertaken in Europe at the moment.”
Obviously there are a thousand problems that would need to be sorted. What happens when you lose this “one card to rule them all”? How do you guarantee that someone applying for a card in the first place is who they say they are, and could all the disparate systems all talk to one card?
Would the public really believe that the Government, and corporate partners, could be trusted not to abuse their access so versatile a source of information? How long until the first epic data breach?
Real potential
Nonetheless, as someone who hates carrying around a bundle of ID and payments cards, and somehow never has the right one in my back pocket, I see the potential.
For a start, it would end the ridiculous kerfuffle of taking a utility bill, a passport and a stool sample from the next door neighbour’s cat to the library just to get a new card. And as more services go online it will become critical to be able to identify and verify visitors to secure websites, both commercial and administrative.
There is an argument that some sort of access verifier is inevitable. “Eventually, the UK will have to have some form of online identifier in order to access government services,” said Georges. “It might be a password generator or USB security pass, but there will have to be something to let UK citizens access these services securely. In Europe, everyone was really surprised when the ID card scheme was scrapped in Britain.”
But will we ever get a scheme that works in the UK – a real widespread, joined-up, bullet-proof system that grants access to everything from our front doors to a dentist’s appointment’s book? Of course not.
Before you can say “biometrics”, the conspiracy theorists will be up in arms over government snoops and “function creep”, Guardian readers will be burning their muesli bars over the size of the contract offered to a big outsourcing company for the project and privacy campaigners will be running from forum to forum explaining how civil liberties will never be the same again.
Instead of a full ID system, we’ll probably end up with a half-way house solution that gives access to DirectGov and nothing else, yet still costs the same as a system that could simplify transactions in every walk of life.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/03/09 ... -id-cards/My first reaction is '
', but could you ever see a time when this would be a good idea, or do you think we missed out first time round?
In my lifetime I've never seen a British government that wouldn't turn the whole scheme into a nice (read totally dangerous) little earner for their friends and backers, so...
