News that a private sub contractor working for the Home Office has lost a data stick with personal details of criminals has once again renewed concerns over the creation of a National Identity Card database1. The National Identity Register or NIR as it is otherwise known will form the backbone on which ID cards system is run, becoming part of wider data-sharing plans set out in a strategy document entitled ‘Transformational Government’2. Reassurances were only recently given by Home Office Under-Secretary Meg Hiller to a select committee looking into the issue of a ‘Surveillance Society’ that strict measures were in place to ensure Home Office for Data Security.

James Elsdon-Baker Regional NO2ID coordinator for Yorkshire said “The Identity and Passport Service are trying to sub-contract out the collection of our biometric identities for use in the National Identity Card Databases3. Already we have seen one contract for £18 Million awarded to French defense contractor Thales4. Countless data loses have taught us it only takes one mistake by one individual within an organization to violate the privacy of millions of people. The only true security measure the Home Office could adopt would be to heed the advice of security experts and abandon their fantasy of building a database state, and issuing us all with ID cards.


The Government has responded by launching an investigation into this most recent of data loses.


Sources:

1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7575766.stm

2 http://www.cio.gov.uk/documents/pdf/transgov/transgov-strategy.pdf

3 Source  http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/analysis/2212405/approach-id-card-scheme-3897027

4  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/01/thales_wins_id_card_contract/



For more information or interview, please contact James Elsdon-Baker Yorkshire NO2ID coordinator on 07817605162 or via e-mail at  yorkshire@no2id.net


NO2ID is the UK-wide, non-partisan campaign opposing the government's planned ID card and National Identity Register. We bring together individuals and organizations from all sections of the community and

seek to ensure that the case against ID cards and the database state is forcefully put forward in the media, in the corridors of power and at

grassroots level. We continue to actively campaign on all fronts for the abolition of the ID scheme and repeal of the Identity Cards Act 2006.