MPs and IT Suppliers Criticise ID Scheme

The government has been advised to further postpone the introduction of ID Cards until it can be sure the scheme will work.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee inquiry into the thinking behind ID Cards, published today, found the government had decided what it wanted to do before it had determined if it would even work.

"In view of the potential adverse impact on large numbers of people, it is better that the scheme is late and workable than on time but flawed," the committee report said.

It recommended that the Home Office, which introduced the scheme, "extend the procurement phase to ensure that enough time is taken to gather the necessary scientific evidence and to undertake all the appropriate trials" ... Government trials of the biometric technology it wants to use in ID Cards are planned to occur simultaneously with the procurement, which specifies the system, decides who will develop it, and how much it will cost. But the procurement process should be informed by evidence gathered from the trials.

To date, the committee found, the Home Office had been "unscientific" in its practice of selectively using evidence collected by previous trials to prove its own theories about biometric technology ...

... [The] lack of inhouse knowledge has been identified before as the cause of government IT failure, the Child Support Agency debacle being a case in point. As it happens, the committee was worried that the signs showed the Home Office had not taken enough notice of the accumulated wisdom of previous IT disasters, as surmised in numerous reports over the last decade.

It was also concerned that the committees set up to guide the ID IT plans had not been "best placed to offer expert advice" because they had few experts. The Home Office also lacked an IT chief, while there was uncertainty about who at the Home Office was in charge of the project.

The Home Office wanted a flexible, staggered approach because it was learning what to do as it went along.

During the limited consultation already conducted, the IPS reported today, several suppliers wanted the IPS to clarify what sort of identity card it wanted.

“There was some evidence that respondents are not clear on how wider government ID schemes interact and support each other, particularly in terms of procurement,” said the report.

Part of the problem, as the Committee is expected to reveal tomorrow, has been that there are still doubts that biometric technology is up to the job that the IPS wants to put it to. The inadequacy of the IPO's attempts to generate evidence to support its plans may also come under fire, though the IPS has used its consultation with experts and academics as a defence of its approach.

Impending trials of biometric technology have caused suppliers to question the IPO's timetable for implementing ID cards. Some want it to be delayed. At the very least, they want to see the technology proven before they get embroiled in any procurement. Even then, they are worried that the skills shortages that have hindered other projects such as the NHS National Programme for IT, will impede ID.