PA Consulting

[Incognito]

I dont need to get residency status, I have a genuine, British Citizen only, government approved ID card. I used forged documents to get the card in the first place. It doesnt take inside help to get a fake passport or birth certificate, just a few hundred quid in cash.

You will not get an ID card with forged documents. This isn't Albania.

Have you ever used biometric reader technology? I have and unless it's incredibly expensive, very well calibrated and maintained it's pretty cack with sizable margins of error. The rubbish you see on films where people get fingerprint matches in seconds from a reader is pure fantasy.

To be realistic it would need every ID card holder to attend a collection centre for at least a few hours, multiply that time by 40 million adults just to be conservative and you have a cost for data collection in the multiple billions let alone the cost of the equipment and an insane time lag between starting to collect the data and finishing just for the current population.

I have and I very much doubt they're going to be using crappy little USB fingerprint readers. I believe they will be using TAMMIS which has only been certified to meet FIPS 201 standards of identification, but hey, you know what those NSA boys are like, always cutting corners.

As for data collection, taken from the IPS website:

Once we have checked your identity, we will record your biometric data.

So you are correct in assuming everyone needs to go to a central collection site, but I believe the fee is being introduced to pay for that.

[Incognito]

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this SAS instead of the poll. Why do you think it's a bad idea then?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Biometric data. Once on the database, you can't say you're someone else. Gone are the cases of people claiming benefits under 15 aliases and terrorists having 3 or 4 different passports.

You really don't know anything about this subject do you? The risks of false negatives and positives are pretty high, and they increase exponentially with the size of the database. The chances are that even if the system prevents multiple enrollments (which will get extremely difficult as the database size grows), it will fail to recognise valid or invalid matches at the point of delivery. Like the government, you have been told some magic moonbeams story and believed it.

[TykeMerc]

From the TAMMIS doc...

Capacity to integrate and merge state of the art biometrics technology

I've used this and superior gear and while it's ok for a cursory check the "state of the art" is quite frankly at the level of cave paintings, it will be a long time before it reaches the Michaelangelo levels for biometric data to be meaningful and not stacked with errors. It also falls flat on its arse when the databse becomes large enough for there to be coincidental similarities of gigantic proportions. That's why the biometric details have to be collected at a very micro level and then the scanners have to be superb and expensive.

Of course for an ID card scheme to have any use at all you need to collect data from and issue cards to the vast majority of the population, young and old and while a proportion of that population (us included) will be expected to cough up the fees to obtain a card the numbers that will have to be entitled to get one free will be astronomical, if nothing else those on benefits are a major part of the potential audience. The costs of those "free" cards alone will be prohibitive to say the least and that's assuming no level of replacement cards.

It's unworkable in practice to issue meaningful biometric ID cards without a budget to rival the US Defence costs for a decade.

[DimPrawn]

You really don't know anything about this subject do you? The risks of false negatives and positives are pretty high, and they increase exponentially with the size of the database. The chances are that even if the system prevents multiple enrollments (which will get extremely difficult as the database size grows), it will fail to recognise valid or invalid matches at the point of delivery. Like the government, you have been told some magic moonbeams story and believed it.

WHS

[Incognito]

You really don't know anything about this subject do you? The risks of false negatives and positives are pretty high, and they increase exponentially with the size of the database. The chances are that even if the system prevents multiple enrollments (which will get extremely difficult as the database size grows), it will fail to recognise valid or invalid matches at the point of delivery. Like the government, you have been told some magic moonbeams story and believed it.

Yeah no, you're right. I know nothing about the subject.

I can guarantee you I know far more about the subject than you and have worked on similar projects before, but hey ho, I'm on the internet I could be making it all up.

[DaveB]

You will not get an ID card with forged documents. This isn't Albania.

Why not?

[Incognito]

Of course for an ID card scheme to have any use at all you need to collect data from and issue cards to the vast majority of the population, young and old and while a proportion of that population (us included) will be expected to cough up the fees to obtain a card the numbers that will have to be entitled to get one free will be astronomical, if nothing else those on benefits are a major part of the potential audience. The costs of those "free" cards alone will be prohibitive to say the least and that's assuming no level of replacement cards.

On that we agree, but I never claimed it wouldn't be expensive and I have no answer for that, I don't have access to the cost model or the budgetary recommendations that would have been made during the tender stage. I'm just a punter on the street who thinks it's a good idea.

[Incognito]

Why not?

From the IPS site (hint:try reading it)

Your ‘biographical footprint’ is simply the basic facts of your life, for example: name, date of birth and address.

When you apply for an ID card, we will check your ‘biographical footprint’ against information held in other databases such as National Insurance or driving licence records. We will not rely entirely on written documents for this information (as they could be forged). You will be asked to visit one of our local or mobile centres in person wherever possible. This will make it harder for someone to pretend to be another person when applying for an ID card.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

You think it's more expensive to put in a few card readers and a data link at hospitals and GP surgeries than supporting however many hundreds of thousands of 'holiday' tourists we get every year? Unfortunately we can't put a figure on it because we have no way of identifying if someone is entitled to that treatment or not, if only there was a way.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4415491.stm

1 illegible health tourist = £30,000

So, as I said, you don't have a clue - not a good justification for a system that will involve every adult in the UK, is it?

Why are you so terrified of handing over your fingerprints? Have you got something to hide?

My fingerprints are my property not the governments. I am not terrified - it is amusing that you keep using Stalinist and Nazi techniques of characterising logical and well-reasoned objections as "luddite" "terrified" or implying I must have something to hide - what a laugh.

You mentioned the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but compulsory ID cards changes that and assume that I must either be lying or "have something to hide" - I don't.

You have got this the wrong way round - if you and your Stalinist government wants my fingerprints, you'd better have a good case - and so far, like the government, you have only proven that you know nothing about the technology, the costs and you haven't thought about any practical details.

As for people having nothing to hide - the government has spent a lot of time and our money trying to keep details of the ID Card scheme secret from us............