As if to address Trevor’s post from Tuesday, QinetiQ gives evidence to Home Affairs Select Committee on ‘ID cards’ promising that cards which hold information confirming an individual’s identity, could be produced for far less than £30. Neil Fisher, QinetiQ’s director of security solutions, who gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee today, outlined the potential ‘benefits’ of an appropriate biometric identity authentication system – one that incorporates a unique physical signature such as facial recognition.
Encapsulating individuals’ biometrics in one or more authentication devices will ensure that their identity cannot be stolen and that they can prove, swiftly and simply, that they are who they say they are. In today’s digital age, this will give them secure access to a huge range of services. Additionally, if a portable data storage device like a barcode is used, it can link people irrefutably to their possessions – to their luggage at an airport, to their cars, and even to their baby in a maternity ward.
Absolutely, just moving the cattle, move along, nothing to see here. But why do I have to prove, ‘swiftly and simply, that I am who I say I am? Missing the point here, Mr Fisher…
We automatically assume that the so-called smart chips, which are relatively expensive, will be used in identity authentication devices such as ID cards. But by using current technologies like 2D barcodes or memory sticks, which cost from fractions of a penny to less than £1 to produce, it is possible to develop low-cost data storage devices without compromising on security.
Yes, tag them all and keep the change. For you, Mr. Big Blunkett, only £5 a piece.
Note: Thanks to Malvern Gazette reporter for alerting us to the story.
I just finished reading this very depressing mirror of societal ignorance/stupidity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3246523.stm
It seems that a large number of people buy the “I’ve got nothing to hide” and “woudln’t it be nice an convenient” lines but, most disturbingly, a lot of contributors support the idea because it will (as they put it) put a stop to the “scroungers”, “freeloaders”, “Asylum seekers” and “ilegal imigrants”.
So Big Blunket seems to have sold his cattle tagging scheme on the back of popularist ignorance. I’m so proud of this country.
🙁
The same poll however reveals that majority of that same gullible public doesn’t want to pay for cards. Is this a point d’appui?
Will enthusiasm disappear if voters can be made to undertand that there’s no-one else who’s going to pay for them (in financial terms), and that there will be other personal costs, monetary and otherwise, that they haven’t yet appreciated.
The other point which QinetiQ may hope the Home Affairs Select Committee misses is that the cost of the system per head of population is not identical with as the cost of producing cards.
Cheap-but-dumb cards may mean more expenditure and maintenance on back-office processing and communications. Barcodes linking people to things won’t be (even nominally) secure unless they are made unique for each such relationship, which will require centralised recording, processing and encryption of such relationships.
QinetiQ is not saying “spend less money”. It is saying “spend more money with us than with our competitors”, and in order to do so focussing on the cost of the most easily understood but least important component of the ID system.
There seem to be two ways of appealing to the public, appeal to their prejudice and appeal to their pocket.
There would appear to be (from the BBC’s unscientific cross-section of opinion and the rantings of the popular press) a passionate fear of immigration, legal or otherwise and a complete ignorance of any quantitative analysis of the impact of such immigration. However, if there is a suggestion from the home office that ID cards might prevent this illegal immigration or benefit fraud (another popularist touchstone) then it gets instant popular support and any concern about liberty is a mere trifle, after all, what do all of us non-scroungers, non-fraudsters, non-asylum seekers, non-illegal immigrants have to fear?
Conversely, any mention of having to stump up the cash for such a scheme brings out an “us and them” attitude of government mistrust among those same ID card cheerleaders.
It seems that all the government has to do is focus the argument on the cost of the scheme (and reducing it to a level the public will swallow) while constantly declaring that “the public supports the scheme in principle” and “civil liberties objections have been addressed” and we will all be tagged up by the end of the decade.
Guy Herbert writes:
Will enthusiasm disappear if voters can be made to undertand that there’s no-one else who’s going to pay for them (in financial terms), and that there will be other personal costs, monetary and otherwise, that they haven’t yet appreciated.
I hope this will be the case but I think the major factor of influence is likely to be financial. I sincerely hope that people do realise all the other “costs” though…
Any serious anti campaign will have to try as many possible approaches as possible and see what sticks. Snappy execution is the key, because the details are boring and abstract. It needs to be dramatised and concretised.