Home Office is being 'misleading'

Friday, February 06, 2009

An anti-ID cards campaigner has published an open letter to the Home Office permanent secretary, Sir David Normington, saying the National Identity Scheme (NIS) has no users and has no chance of achieving its aims.

David Moss, from Business Consultancy Services Ltd, is a backer of a campaign called Dematerialised ID. This believes that it can save billions of pounds of public money by using mobile phones as a portable ID card, rather than relying on smartcard technology.

In his letter to Sir David, Moss called a Home Office press release, published on 29 January, "misleading". On that day, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith made a speech in Manchester about the commercial benefits the NIS will bring to people young and old. On the same day an event was held in London with the prospective commercial users of the NIS. Moss said delegates from APACS – a payment card security organisation - and Barclaycard who attended the event criticised the NIS, saying it did not offer the online capabilities that were first hoped for and that it was not a product that customers will want.

Moss asked Sir David why the press release did not discuss the London event and accused the department of making many "questionable assertions" in the past in other press releases.

"Several people have brought this fact to the attention of the Home Office several times over a period of several years. It cannot be argued in this case that the Home Office did not know that the 29 January 2009 press release is misleading," Moss wrote.

"Examine the evidence, and it is clear that it couldn't. As the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) says: 'This has all the inauspicious signs of a project continuing to be driven by an arbitrary end date rather than reality ... I conclude that we are setting ourselves up to fail ... Just because ministers say do something does not mean we ignore reality - which is what seems to have happened on ID Cards.'"

Moss added: "Sir James Crosby told them in March 2008 that the NIS is of no use to the UK's banks and retailers. Where is the common sense and openness in telling children about the benefits of ID cards when the prospective commercial users of the NIS have already told the Home Office that there aren't any benefits?"

A sponsor of the London event, who Moss has not named, was allegedly very positive towards ID cards before the event, saying: "This one day seminar will be invaluable for delegates who wish to learn of the commercial opportunities that the British national identity card will provide ... It is simply an opportunity too good to be missed."

Yet, the day after the London event, the sponsor wrote: "The UK is, I can't help but feel, falling behind. The only infrastructure that the government is putting together, the ID card scheme, has nothing to offer the online world."

Moss also questioned the level of progress being made on the NIS since the consultation document was published in July 2002 and asked: "Where have we got to after all this time?

"Answer, the National Identity Scheme is a scheme with no users and no chance of achieving its stated aims. The number of key partners on whom the Home Office can rely for the delivery of ID card services is small, and seems to be falling. When they get a first-hand view of how the Home Office plan to deal with the issues, their enthusiasm tends to evaporate.

"Six years after the starting gun, all the NIS has, is press releases."

A Home Office spokesman told Public Servant Daily that this is an issue between Moss and Sir David and so the permanent secretary's office will respond accordingly. He also refused to be drawn on what the response might be and said he could not confirm if the response would be made publicly available.