BBC News: Giant ID computer plan scrapped
Not unfortunately the scrapping of a plan for a government computer the size of a building like they had at Bureau West near where I live.
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In fact the government has announced that the proposed National Identity Register which underpins their ID Card scheme will not be created anew so as to be clean and error-free but instead will be constructed from the current databases of various government agencies. |
The information will be stored in three separate databases including the Department of Work and Pensions’ Customer Information Service, which holds national insurance records, and the Identity and Passport Service computer system.
Mr Reid denied IT companies had wasted millions on preparation work for an entirely new system, saying the industry had been consulted on the move.
The government has reportedly spent about £35m on IT consultants since the ID cards project began in 2004.
“Doing something sensible is not necessarily a U-turn,” Mr Reid told reporters.
“We have decided it is lower risk, more efficient and faster to take the infrastructure that already exists, although the data will be drawn from other sources.”
So we’ll have a National Identity Register that is as full of errors as the current ones are, hardly the ‘Gold Standard’ for identity that the Home Office proudly announced it would be is it.
Interestingly the Press Release from the Identity and Passport Service makes no reference to this at all other than in passing.
This news comes as Home Office Minister Liam Byrne published a Strategic Action Plan for the National Identity Scheme and the Borders, Immigration and Identity Action Plan, which follow the wider Home Office review earlier this year and signal the countdown to the introduction of ID cards to UK citizens in 2009.
The Strategic Action Plan being the document where the new plans for the National Identity Register are laid out. Instead the press release focuses on the part of the plan that describes how the fingerprinting of foreign nationals will help secure Britain’s border and crackdown on illegal working and fraudulent access to services. Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said:
We’re determined that Britain won’t be a soft touch for illegal immigration. Compulsory biometric identity for foreign nationals will help us secure our borders, shut down access to the illegal jobs, which we know attracts illegal immigrants, and help fight foreign criminals.
But all this is completely irrelevant when we are talking about the establishment of a biometric based National Identity Register of UK citizens.
As NO2ID theorize this is about the establishment of the ‘database state’.
There is a growing list of planned systems.
* So-called ‘biometric’ ePassports that log data about your travel when used – see www.RenewForFreedom.org
* Centralised medical records without privacy – see www.TheBigOptOut.org
* Biometrics in schools – see www.LeaveThemKidsAlone.com
* Recording of all car journeys as a matter of course, using ANPR.