The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Privatised Details

Well, here's a thing: the Independent Scheme Assurance Panel, a team of experts appointed by the Government to advise it on implementing the ID card scheme, has warned that the system "will be open to fraud by the people running it" - rather like the parliamentary system. The panel, appropriately acronymed ISAP, observes that "Based on the likelihood that the scheme will aggregate a lot of valuable data, there is the risk that its trusted administrators will make improper use of this data", despite the Government's intention to contract out the fingerprinting and photographing of law-abiding people and hard-working families to the private sector. The panel also notes that the scheme does not have a "robust and transparent operational data governance regime and clear data architecture", which the Observer helpfully translates as "confusion over its roll-out". Also, "Though the tender process is supposedly well advanced, requirements for information, communication and technology systems, processes and operations have still to be adequately specified and the rationale for key design decisions is unclear". Never mind what you're supposed to do for your money; never mind who you answer to; just grab those contracts and all that lovely taxpayers' money.

A spokesbeing for the Ministry of Snoopery said that using private companies "will give applicants a choice of competing services which should maximise convenience and drive down price"; which presumably means either that the public will have a choice of several different ID cards, or that there are several different governments trying to apply the service. On the question of whose convenience will be maximised, and whose pockets left unstrained, the spokesbeing was tactfully silent, although it did mention that the private sector "will have no decision-making powers over who is eligible for a passport or identity card"; which apparently is why there is no risk to the security of anyone who matters.

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