THE government's controversial ID card plans are 'hugely risky' according to a legal expert.
Manchester will be the first city where citizens will be invited to apply for an ID card from this autumn, ahead of the national roll-out in 2012.
As part of the two-year trial over-16s with a valid UK passport can apply online for a card and then attend a government office for fingerprinting, photographs and a possible interview.
Announcing the pilot scheme yesterday, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith also outlined plans for chemists and post offices to be used as enrolment centres.
But the plans were savaged as unworkable by opposition politicians and a leading data law expert.
ID cards latest
IT law expert Susan Hall, a partner at city law firm Cobbetts, has spent 20 years specialising in keeping large companies and organisations on the right side of data protection laws.
She said the scheme had several pitfalls.
She said: "The main problem is that it is such a huge scheme and government IT projects have a track record of going over budget and having severe problems.
"No database is foolproof. You just have to look at cases where MI5 computers have been left on trains. There is a huge risk because it is so easy to carry large amounts of information on portable media. Fingerprints are not like a pin number - they can't be changed if the information is leaked.
"There is also a risk that people will misuse or sell the information or that other agencies will misuse it. We've already had local authorities going beyond their powers to use surveillance in cases of dog fouling. I think there is great potential for people's personal data being misused."
Ms Hall also said high street stores would have to clear several legal hurdles before being allowed to collect the sensitive information needed for the scheme.
Local Lib Dems, including the leaders of Stockport, Oldham and Rochdale councils, put out statements opposing the trial.
Withington Lib Dem MP John Leech commented: "I wouldn't sign up even if they were free, but at a time when everyone is feeling the pinch, who in their right mind is going to pay to sign up for an ID card?"
People will be charged £30 to get the cards - which will contain fingerprint information and personal details and can be used instead of a passport for travel in Europe.
Legislation clearing the way for identity cards was passed in 2006, but MPs will need to make a further vote for the cards to become compulsory.
The Post Office and a national pharmacy association which represents Boots and Snappy Snaps are in talks with the Home Office to open up 'public-friendly' registration centres in stores - although they would not take part in the Manchester trial.
However, it is understood that preliminary registration trials have already been taking place the Manchester office of the Identity and Passport Office on Portland Street. Estimates of the predicted costs of implementing the scheme have soared to more £5bn.
Thousands of airside workers at Manchester airport were last year told that they must sign up to the ID card scheme as part of their conditions of employment.
Unions and airline pilots are opposing the trial scheme, which is also happening at London's City airport.
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Showing comments 1 to 25 and replies | View All
Peregrine Spanswick (07/05/2009 at 12:59)
Peregrine Spanswick (07/05/2009 at 13:01)
The stinking kipper, pinned under the table (07/05/2009 at 13:09)
"Fingerprints are not like a pin number - they can't be changed if the information is leaked." Correct. Nor can they be replicated if the information falls into the hands of criminals.
I hope your expert wasn't paid for her opinion.
JTC Formerley JimC (07/05/2009 at 13:10)
Mad Welsh Scotsman, Cadishead (07/05/2009 at 13:16)
Mr Manchester (07/05/2009 at 13:19)
ian cognito (07/05/2009 at 13:27)
Actually they can with frightening ease.
Susan Hall is spot on in everything she has said, you'd be well advised to educate yourself in these issues before making such ill-informed comments Mr. Kipper.
Black Flag (07/05/2009 at 13:28)
It depends how the information is being used. Computers only understand numbers, so the fingerprint has to be converted into a number (essentially a long PIN) which is then matched against a number generated by a scanner. If the criminal knows the long pin and is in a situation where he/she can bypass the scanner and input the number directly into the system, then they have access to an unchangeable PIN - not great from a security perspective.
There is also the potential for criminals to create artificial fingerprints. If the technology doesn't exist to do it reliably now, it almost certainly will if there is sufficient incentive because copying someone's fingerprint gives you access to their whole life.
Using fingerprints as a security measure in most cases is a bad idea, because it breaches one of the fundamental rules of electronic security, which is that the thing you are protecting should be more valuable than the thing you are protecting it with. If may cashcard requires a pin and someone robs me of my card at knifepoint to go and use it elsewhere, I'll tend to give up my PIN, because it has no intrinsic value to me, so it is worth less than the money I have. If my cashcard required a fingerprint, then the robber would have to take my card and cut my finger off to get the same result and to me, my money isn't worth risking losing a finger over.
ian cognito (07/05/2009 at 13:29)
Actually they can with frightening ease, just google "fake fingerprints" for hundreds of pages on how to do it.
Susan Hall is spot on in everything she has said, you'd be well advised to educate yourself in these issues before making such ill-informed comments Mr. Kipper.
John Adler, Higher Openshaw (07/05/2009 at 13:39)
BRING THEM IN FOR EVERYONE NOW.
JOHN ADLER(MANCHESTER)
Mr Manchester (07/05/2009 at 13:50)
Black Flag (07/05/2009 at 13:52)
That's because we were at war, you numpty. When we stopped being at war, we scrapped them, because the whole concept is distinctly un-British.
SamV, Manchester (07/05/2009 at 13:59)
People complained about the ID cards, thats why their use was dropped after the war and their useful life had ended
Ron, Gorton (07/05/2009 at 14:11)
I never heard my Grandad complain about rations so shall we bring them back and do away with decent food? I believe Germany had a good public transport system in the Hiter years so should we get a Hitler type in power?
I, for one, will never sign up to one of these cards. All this tosh about 'if you haven't got anything to worry about' is galling. I am a law abiding bloke so don't want to be cast under suspicion at all times. Innocent until proven guilty it used to be but not now.
My mate got pulled up the other week for a 'routine chack' and was encouraged to give his DNA! Why? It is invasive. You drive along at 30mph on the way to see your parents and you get pulled over and a copper wants a swab from your mouth. He didn't have to give it yet the copper asked what he had to hide by not giving it. Meanwhile you get that copper in Preston who refused to sit on a bicycle for health and safety reasons! Halfords donated some bikes to he force, asked a copper to come along for a photo shoot with the local press and a photographer asked if he could sit on the bike (not ride it, just sit on it) but he said that as he hadn't passed his advanced cycling profficiency test he was unable to do so! My wife can't drive but she still sits in my car. What does thiscopper do when chasing a fugitive and said fugitive jumps overa fence? Can't do that, health and safety.
They are all out building up th esingle biggest DNA databse n the work instead.
If you were asked thsi question:
Which country has the most cct'd population, snoops on all emails, phone calls, has the largest DNA databaseof innocent peple, colludes in torture etc you would guess somehwere like China or Burma. Instead it is us here in the UK. Yet some of you embrace it.
Shame on you.
Jay B, oldham (07/05/2009 at 14:11)
but i havent see this anywhere. so its not about making it easier there seems to be something more sinister at hand!
The stinking kipper, pinned under the table (07/05/2009 at 14:19)
caza cs (07/05/2009 at 14:26)
Why, because NOT ALL are here legally!!!! DUH
sammyzue, Manchester (07/05/2009 at 14:32)
Actually, as has rightly been pointed out, they did complain which is why they were dropped. Thney were seen as a neccessary evil in wartime but an infringement of civil liberties when the war was over. In fact the case had to be brought to court when a man was stopped in the street and a policeman demanded to see his ID card without due cause a year or two after the war. The judge ruled the policeman had overstepped his powers (sound familiar?) and noone should be forced to produce a card like that in our free society. The cards were soon abolioshed.
Mark,Radcliffe. (07/05/2009 at 14:33)
Ron, Gorton (07/05/2009 at 14:39)
Shall I explain? Because there are no police on the beat. DNA may catch somebody after the event but by then it is too late. Better to prevent a crime that let some innocent victim suffer at the hands of a thug. Lot's of cctv but the thugs all dress the same and where hoods or balaclava's when doing their crime so cctv is useless, doesn't stop them. As for ID cards do you not think that terrorists capable of hijacking and flying airliners are not capable of cloning an ID card? Besides, we have 470,000 illegal immigrants here that 'don't exist', that are under the radar so tell me, wise guy, how ID cards will prevent one of these doing terrorism?
The stinking kipper, pinned under the table (07/05/2009 at 14:40)
Now we seem to be doing our level best to forget that the Britain of the war ever existed; that so many gave their lives for the benefit of others.
If you don't like Britain - go and live somewhere else.
caza cs (07/05/2009 at 14:48)
Black Flag (07/05/2009 at 14:50)
And that is what many of use who oppose ID cards are doing now; trying to preserve traditional British freedoms.
"If you don't like Britain - go and live somewhere else."
I agree; if you want to live in a nanny-state where you are forced to account to the state for your every move and present your papers on demand, move to one.
ian cognito (07/05/2009 at 14:54)
Actually although the number of people on the DNA database has massively increased the crime clear-up rate is unchanged.
Most people are law-abiding. You should concentrate law enforcement efforts on the criminals, otherwise you're wasting your time and energy as well as overturning all the principles of justice that we fought two world wars to maintain.
ian cognito (07/05/2009 at 14:58)
Indeed.
The sort of Britain where your phone calls are routinely monitored is not a Britain I recognise.
The Britain where everybody should hand over their DNA and fingerprints "just in case" they turn out to be criminals in the future is not one I recognise.
I'd expect this sort of thing from Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, but not in Britain where so many fought and died to preserve such principles.
"If you don't like Britain - go and live somewhere else."
Perhaps you should tell this to Jacqui Smith, she does after all seem to want to convert this country into something alien and ugly.