Uk.gov database 'rationalisation', the ID scheme way

R.A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Sun Oct 31 05:27:49 PST 2004


<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/29/id_scheme_eats_cip/print.html>

The Register


 Biting the hand that feeds IT

The Register ; Internet and Law ; Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs ;

 Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/29/id_scheme_eats_cip/

Uk.gov database 'rationalisation', the ID scheme way
By John Lettice (john.lettice at theregister.co.uk)
Published Friday 29th October 2004 17:01 GMT

Among the Home Office "concessions" on ID cards hailed (with quite
remarkable promptness) this week by Home Affairs Committee chairman John
Denham MP (Lab) was "the rationalisation of current database proposals and
the dropping of the Citizen Information Project." Denham appears however to
have been in error in cheering the demise of the CIP on behalf of his
Committee, for just 24 hours later Treasury Chief Secretary Paul Boateng
issued a written statement to Parliament indicating the CIP is actually
being reworked to use the national ID register.

Or vice versa? According to Boateng's statement: "The CIP team has
investigated the costs and benefits of a range of potential options for
delivering a population register. It has recommended that proposals for a
national identity register (NIR), as part of the Government's proposals for
ID cards, mean that if ID cards were to become compulsory then it may be
more cost effective to deliver these benefits through the NIR, rather than
develop a separate register. The Government has accepted this
recommendation."

The CIP has been going through the works via the Office of National
Statistics
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/05/uk_birth_certificates_to_morph/)
as a sort of cuddlier cousin to the ID scheme. The modernisation of births,
marriages, deaths and the like led government thoughts to turn to what kind
of additional related services could be offered to the citizen, with these
ideas being fairly neatly encapsulated in the concept of the "through life
record". As the white paper Civil Registration: Vital Change tells us "the
creation of a central database of registration records provides the
opportunity to make improvements..." Which is all well and good until
alongside this particular register of names addresses and sundry details
about the population there arrives another register with, as the Home
Affairs Committee report put it, "a very large degree of overlap".

In its response on Wednesday the Home Office did not say 'dropping' - it
did say: "The Government believes that the NIR has the longer term
potential to fulfil some of the functions envisaged for the national
population register. In the light of developments to the NIR, CIP is no
longer actively exploring options to improve the quality and effectiveness
of existing registers, including the possible use of personal reference
numbers." So the CIP is no longer developing its own population register as
the electronic implementation of births, marriages and deaths, and the
National Identity Register becomes that population register, with the CIP
going ahead, but now hinging on the NIR.

Which you might view as more of an expansion of the ID scheme than a
concession, as such. Alongside the specific CIP complaint, Home Affairs
expressed its concern over the growing number of government databases in
general. "We believe that the Government must tackle this proliferation of
databases, examining in each case whether the number, identifier or
database is needed, what its relationship to other existing or planned
databases, how data will be shared or verified and other relevant issues.
For this action to be effective, it must be co-ordinated at the highest
levels of the Civil Service... an identity card should enable access to all
Government databases, so that there would be no need for more than one
government-issued card."

In its response the Home Office appears to indicate that the CIP-NIR
approach could present a model for other services, saying "we believe that
the identity card will provide an opportunity for more joined up Government
by providing a consistent and standard business key for future systems
evolution." Which represents a strengthening rather than a weakening of the
ID scheme. Here however the Committee was effectively arguing for a
strengthening, and as David Blunkett envisages the ID card and register as
becoming the key to everything, this is precisely the kind of "concession"
he wants to make. It does rationalise (as Denham put it) current government
database proposals in the sense that it makes them dependent on the NIR.
The databases themselves will continue to proliferate though.

It's possible that shoehorning CIP functionality into the ID scheme may
cause some delay to the ID scheme bill itself. Spy Blog points out
(http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/000482.html) that if the CIP stage
2 feasibility study plans aren't to come (as Boateng said) before Ministers
until June 2005, they might knock the ID bill back beyond the next
election. It's possible the CIP study might be accelerated, but Gordon
Brown's Treasury might on the other hand not view it as a top priority. Or
worse. Spy also notes that the change will mean incorporating children
under 16 in the NIR, and raises the issue of the Children's Bill. This sets
up another universal database, of children this time, and will operate with
a number of other databases, including the NHS one and Connexions.

In its Home Affairs response the Home Office said that the "National
Programme for IT (NPfIT) is putting into place an infrastructure of card
readers across the NHS, which will facilitate the checking of cards" and
that in the case of the Connexions card readers, which are issued free to
schools and colleges, there may be "cost savings to be realised for
identity cards by exploiting the existing infrastructure." So some more
opportunities for rationalisation here, no doubt. .

Related stories

Blunkett sets out store on compulsory ID cards
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/27/blunkett_hac_response/)
Everything you never wanted to know about the UK ID card
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/05/complete_idcard_guide/)
Blunkett poised to open ID scheme offensive tomorrow
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/26/blunkett_prepares_hac_response/)
Home Office seeks spin doctor to sell cuddly ID card brand
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/13/id_marketeer_sought/)
UK ID cards to be issued with first biometric passports
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/11/new_passport_equals_new_id_card/)
Biometric gear to be deployed in hospitals and GPs' surgeries
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/29/blear_confirms_nhs_biometrics/)
UK gov pilots passenger tracking in fight against terror
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/29/project_semaphore/)
Tag, track, watch, analyse - UK goes mad on crime and terror IT
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/20/home_office_strategic_plan/)

) Copyright 2004

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'





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