Gordon Brown promises an ID Card review

So, according to tonight's Evening Standard (no online version available!) Gordon Brown will review the potential impact on civil liberties of the ID Card scheme when he becomes Prime Minister. That's good news if he really means it (you never know with these politicians). After all, with the right technology (and only with the right technology), a government-issued ID Card could be a useful thing for both citizen and government.

Meanwhile, the government also chose today to sneak out the news that the scheme has gone even further over budget. A massive budget overrun for a UK public sector IT project? I suppose we would be rather amazed if that did not happen!

LSE's Identity Project site

Anyone interested in the London School of Economics' work in advising the UK Government not to accelerate the arrival of a Surveillance Society with a poorly-conceived ID Card implementation might want to check out their project site.

Stefan Brands podcast

Dave Birch recently interviewed leading cryptographer Stefan Brands, whose company Credentica has developed a set of technologies that enable "multi-party security": for instance, allowing the government to vouch securely for my age, but also for me to "spend" that assertion with the local pub (via a smart card) without either the government knowing I have done so or the pub knowing any more than that I am over 18.

If adopted in schemes such as our national ID Card here in the UK, Credentica's U-Prove technology could transform our ability as citizens to negotiate control over information (rather than that control being hard-wired into the technology, as the current government scheme would entail). It's a really important issue for people to understand, so I heartily encourage you to listen to the podcast:

• listen now (mp3)
  
• subscribe in iTunes

An ID Cards revolt?

The Times reports:

The government is predicting that some 15m people will revolt against Tony Blair’s controversial ID card scheme by refusing to produce the new cards or provide personal data on demand.

The forecast is made in documents released by the Home Office under the Freedom of Information Act. The papers show ministers expect national protests similar to the poll tax rebellions of the Thatcher era, with millions prepared to risk criminal prosecution.

Opposition MPs said the new documents proved their case that the programme would never work. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “This will cripple the system. Fifteen million is a massive number. What the Home Office is accepting in private, but refuses to accept in public, is that a massive number of ordinary law-abiding citizens simply will not go along with their scheme.”

Davis, whose party’s policy is to scrap the cards, added: “This will render it completely useless as a security or check mechanism of any sort.”

The documents, quietly released during parliament’s Easter break, also show that the government is planning to make ID cards compulsory in 2014, despite the expected revolt.

The first cards are due in 2009, alongside new passports. Labour has said it will make the scheme compulsory if it wins the next election.

The ID card scheme could be an election loser for Gordon Brown, make no mistake about it. And given the way that the current Labour government has consistently dodged the opportunity to foster an informed public debate about the scheme's huge ramifications for information control and transparency in society, it's hard to feel too sympathetic.

Big Blair

Tony Blair insists his government is not building a Big Brother-style super-database. But all the talk of 'perfectly sensible' reforms and 'transformational government' masks a chilling assault on our privacy, says Steve Boggan (BBC News).

Oooh dear. I might mind a bit less if they at least shared the information they gathered about me with me. I have a feeling that's where effective action might be taken—perhaps with the help of MySociety's Freedom of Information filer and archive project?