Ian Angell is Professor of Information Systems at the London School of Economics, so we would guess that his opinions about immense national databases etc. ought to be worth hearing. Here he is in The Times this week on the subject of ID cards …
The ID card project is still on track - more or less. Jacqui Smith is just the latest in a long line of Home Office ministers to sell us the benefits of ID cards, while casually informing us of the latest rise in costs or slippage in its implementation schedule. Ms Smith is also yet another Home Secretary who subscribes to the "pixie dust" school of technology: computation is a magic substance to be sprinkled over problems, that, hey presto, then vanish. Little wonder that Britain has an appalling record in government IT projects.
The ID project is one of the biggest computer systems envisaged - far more complex than the failing NHS system. And it's another disaster waiting to happen. Still the politicians naively claim there will be no problems: it will be totally secure because of biometrics. Apparently iris scans, fingerprints, face-recognition software will all work perfectly, be amazingly cheap to implement - and all foolproof. It must be true, as they've been told this by those selling the technology. Baroness Anelay of St Johns, with a group of parliamentarians, was once given a demonstration of a facial recognition system. It failed; indeed the system subsequently crashed, twice. The reason? The baroness was told her face was "too bland".
The only property that all systems have in common is that they fail. And the bigger the system - 60 million entries on a compulsory ID card database - the greater the opportunity of failure. Systems are much like any life form: they degrade over time, they entropy. In the case of databases, the pick up errors and then build data error upon error. The DVLA in Swansea in 2006, for instance, admitted that a third of entries contained at least one error, and that the proportion was getting worse.
We've all had encounters with computer systems that get it wrong. Barclays once refused one of my transactions because they said I was accessing an account owned by a teenage girl named Ian Angell, who lived at my address and was a professor at LSE. I still had to take a morning off work to explain that a 14-year-old couldn't own an account that, according to their own records, had been open for 35 years.
And however scrupulous the managers might be, errors leak and take on a life of their own. They are sampled by other databases, known as "farming": errors, even when corrected in the original database, live on elsewhere.
But the ID project will be different, we are told. According to the rhetoric, an ID card, one central point of reference, will be so much more efficient and beneficial than you having to prove your identity daily, by producing driving licences, gas bills and so on. Its proponents fail to see that if any of these documents is erroneous, then we don't use the one with, say, a mistake in the address to prove our identity. With the ID card, we won't have the choice. Even if the card is not compulsory, all financial systems will converge on it, and anyone without a card faces great cost and inconvenience. Just like Oyster cards on the London Underground, you're not forced, but it's so much more expensive and tiresome without one.
However, the ID card itself isn't the real problem: it's the ID register. There, each entry will eventually take on a legal status. In time, all other proofs of identity will refer back to the one entry. If the register is wrong - and remember fallible human hands will at some stage have to handle your personal information - then all other databases will be wrong too. Given the propensity of officialdom to trust the details on their computer screen, rather than the person in front of them, you will have to conform to your entry in the register - or become a non-person.
In effect, your identity won't reside in the living flesh and blood of you, but in the database. You will be separated from your identity; you will no longer own it. All your property and money will de facto belong to the database entry. You only have access to your property with the permission of the database. Paradoxically, you only agreed to register to protect yourself from "identity theft", and instead you find yourself victim of the ultimate identity theft - the total loss of control over your identity.
Errors won't just happen by accident. It's possible to imagine that workers on the ID database will be corrupted, threatened or blackmailed into creating perfectly legal ID cards for international terrorists and criminals. Then the ID card, far from eliminating problems, will be a one-stop shop for identity fraud; foreign terrorists, illegal immigrants will be waived past all immigration checks.
At a recent Ditchley Park conference on combating organised crime, a persistent warning from the law enforcement authorities was that criminal gangs had placed "sleepers" in financial sector companies, and they were just waiting for the one big hit. The perpetrators of 80 per cent of all computer security lapses are not hackers, but employees. Cryptographic systems don't help if the criminal has been given the keys to the kingdom. Why should the ID centre be immune, especially when there will be nearly 300 government departments logging in. Furthermore, the register will be the No 1 target for every hacker on the planet: the Olympic Games of hacking.
So why is the Goverment so keen to force ID cards on us? Is it because ministers are control freaks who, having read 1984, only saw it as a wishlist? John Lennon may have been right: "Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs." More likely, ministers have been dazzled by the myth of the perfectibility of computers.
As usual, Times readers have a lot of common-sense opinions of their own. These were a few of their responses to this article …
As mentioned, compulsory ID cards exist in Europe. I am English living in Spain where everyone has their "DNI" card, I have the same card but written large at the top is the word "extranjeros" (foreigner). Legally you should not leave your home without it. If required by the police you have to present it to identify yourself. In 20 years here I did not need to yet. However, the argument that the ID card helps prevent terrorism does not stop ETA here, nor did it prevent the Madrid train bombings. The "bad ones" are not affected by the rules - Roy Craven, Barcelona
My fingerprints, iris pattern, DNA or whatever details of my person they intend to record on these 'biometric' cards are my property and my business. They are a part of my freedom and my existence. Nobody has the right to record them or do anything else with them. I have no intention of getting an ID card or even a biometric passport and will resist both as long as I can, but I'm terrified by the fact that I may well be forced into having them. Our freedoms are being taken from us in the name of our safety, but will form another means of control with no real benefit. I would vote to stop this process, and I hope I get the opportunity to do so - Fraser McClennan, Sunderland
The ID card will take what little freedom we have left in this 'open prison' we call England - Steve, Greenwich
I am an IT professional. I would like to know what technology is going to be able to service the thousands of requests per second that will arrive at this central database? If the data will not be held on a central database, but rather on many distributed databases, when and how will they be amalgamated? No technology will be available for 2022, never mind 2010 or even 2012, to answer these requirements. It will never happen, no matter how many times Jaqui Smith or Gordon Brown wish it. It is not an option - Edwin, Bucharest ID cards are an assault on our liberty. Fundamentally they are about the state deciding who we are and what we may do. They are a control freak's dream. But what's worse is that everyone with any experience of large, complex IT systems knows that they will fail. The politicians know they will fail, the civil servants know they will fail, the IT vendors know they will fail. But rather than accept that it's been a colossal mistake and a vast waste of taxpayers money, this failed government struggles on hoping that if they keep throwing money at it them then problems won't surface until it's somebody else's watch - Ian, London
There is an amazing silence from these politicians when they are asked how mistakes will be corrected. Perhaps these mistakes will be deliberate to produce the ultimate stealth tax. If your Identity database entry does not match you completely, then the property you "own" is not yours. Therefore it belongs to the government! House - lost, car - lost, bank account - lost, all due to some simple mistake, and as this mistake is the legal entity there is no appeal! Simple isn't it? Conspiracy yes, but the thing has no other useful purpose we can be told, and certainly none of the fool MPs know how this database will prevent identity theft or terrorism. What other conclusion can there be? - Davezawadi, Belfast
Could there be a better reason to elect another government one who would get rid of this nonsense? I have emailed my mp about it no less than 10 times now and she has yet to write back to me once. Obviously MPs no longer give a damn what we think - W.Jones, Wirral
Sorry, but I don't think saying you have, 'nothing to hide' is the issue or a good enough reason to go ahead with ID cards. Most people don't have anything to hide - its about ownership and control of our identity and personal details. If you trust the government to control access to your personal information as they see fit, if you think they will do a good job managing your identity on your behalf well then you can rest easy. I want to be in control of my identity - I do not want to hand responsibility over to the government. I am more proficient at managing my identity than they are, therefore I will be more vulnerable to crime with government ownership of my identity - Wyn, Liverpool
I already have a right to access healthcare etc., it is called taxation. Or is the government saying we can opt out of paying tax if we do not have an ID card? As for illegal immigrants, it is the job of the Home Office to stop them at the border. Again we pay tax in order that they may do so. As for stopping terrorism, how many terrorists have woken up and thought they would not plant a bomb because they have an ID card? - Anne, Liverpool
This lady's been reading GOS. We made exactly that last point three years ago.
I already have a government issued ID. It includes all the personal detail needed to establish that I am who I say I am, and is accepted worldwide. It is my passport - Mr.H, Taunton
I didn't vote for a government that wants to implement ID cards. In fact, statistically, only a small minority of people actually voted for the government we have today. Why then will I be forced to accept this horrible system? Is that the democracy we keep telling other people around the world they have to adopt? If so you can keep it. I and many others will be quite happy to get a criminal record for not having a compulsory ID card in the future (oh, yes they're coming make no mistake). Has anyone factored in the cost of prosecuting us all? It will make criminals of many otherwise innocent people (nothing new there, then - GOS) - Ross Woodhouse, Brighton
As I have no doubt that MPs will decline to have to use ID cards, to go with all the other inconveniences of life they don't like, it'll not worry them if the system were to be introduced - David Leslie, Perth
If it's such a good idea, how come nobody wants it? As a hard-working law-abiding citizen, like most people in Britain, I simply have no need to give my details to the Labour government, and therefore will just refuse to do so. If you've got nothing to hide, then they've got nothing to gain by having your information - Adam Wilde, Hastings
If a criminal steals your credit card number, you can get a new one. If your biometric details are stolen, you are screwed for life! - James, London
"I have nothing to hide". As an IT professional please let me assure you - you do. These cards are going to contain a lot of information that you wouldn't want other people having unauthorised access to...and that will, without a shadow of a doubt - happen. "The government will secure my data". No, they can't. It's not possible. I appreciate it might be hard to believe NO computer system is safe. Look at the money the film, music and computer software people pour into copy right protection...do they secure their data? Do you think the government can do a better job ... have you seen their track record in IT projects? - Iain Dobson, Edinburgh
Of course most of this will not now happen until after the next election. Knowing how inept the Government & Civil Service are at negotiating contracts with consultants, what's the betting they will allow a ruinous penalty clause to be inserted so that, if the Conservatives manage to win the next election and cancel the project, the deep pockets of the taxpayers will once again have to be raided to pay for yet another white elephant. I, like many commenting here, have lived abroad and had a compulsory ID card in Belgium for 3 years. I don't recall having to produce it even once in that period - Bill, Ramsey
The problem isn't the ID card or the database. As several commentators have already pointed out, the only real problem in this country is the government's arrogant belief in its own infallibility. That was called the divine right of kings up until the English Civil War. Just after that it caused severe problems in France. Just under a hundred years ago it got the Czar of all the Russias executed. Parliament was supposed to rid us of government by unqualified arrogance based on might is right. None of the subsequent promises by MPs were kept either - KR, Stockport
"Just slide your ID card in here, sir & type your PIN. Oh dear, for some reason your ID card has been declined. I'm afraid you're not allowed to withdraw money from your account today. No, I'm afraid I've no idea why. Yes, I know it's your money. No, there's nothing I can do about it - the Home Office computer says 'No'. Well, I'm sorry, but it's nothing to do with the bank, and there's nothing I can do about it. Look, if you don't mind, sir, I do have other people to attend to. Next!" - Andrew Watson, Cambridge
Such distinguished company our Home Secretary finds herself in - the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB - d cheesman, purbeck
Ms.Smith wants to require me to surrender control of my Identity to her database. I have helped roll out databases and software which now deal with 15 Million Mobile Telephone subscribers. We were a small team, who knew what we were doing. Ms Smith does not. We overran costs for phase 1 by a factor of 7. I live and work in Germany where the possession of a Passport or ID is compulsory (As a Brit, I use my Passport) I do not have to produce ID more than an average 3 times per year. (and I have started 2 Businesses here!) I do not see the added convenience of the NIR for me as a 'user' of government 'Services', Despite compulsory IDs someone still managed to plant a bomb on the train I commute on! I only see the certainty of cost overrun, data loss, identity theft and the skin-of-teeth distance between Freedom and Tyranny which the system 'provides' - Andrew Miller, Aachen
I am sure that MPs are perfectly aware of all the counter objections to this scheme, the blunders of the HMRC are too recent to be swept under the carpet, but in keeping with all people of a psychopathic nature they think that we are all imbeciles. They have nothing but contempt for us although they recognise that they need our peaceful consent to all these measures being taken else there will be a bloody revolution. It's only the general population that will have to suffer the errors, corruptibility and injustice of this system, the elite have no such restraints imposed upon them. They should introduce this scheme first to cover only MPs and see how it makes their lives 'easier' - Mitch, Saumur
Why is it that no one seems to be able to answer the question of how we can hold the government to account for a criminal waste of tax payers resources? Never before has a government deceived and abused the tax paying public so obviously with bare faced lies. Some of these politicians should be criminally liable for the ineptitude they display - ash, London
This system will be being developed by the same people who have failed to manage the most basic of all IT applications - delivering a replacement payroll system that works flawlessly from day one. We are now in year two of errors and omissions in that system that pays our servicemen and women!! Also, politicians forget, if they ever knew, that the reason the Nazis were able to round up Jews in Denmark more quickly and more thoroughly than in any other country was the existence of what was then the most accurate, if paper based, set of personal records in the world. Once the records were captured that was the end for those poor people - Philip C, Wallingford
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