from
http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/Speeches/sc-identity-21st-centurySecuring Our Identity: A 21st Century Public Good
19 June 2007
Speech by Liam Byrne MP, the Minister of State for Immigration, Citizenship & Nationality, to Chatham House on 19 June 2007
Revolutions in globalisation and technology - the leitmotif of your conference - have always brought radical new possibilities – but also potent new risks.
Modern Government’s task is not to run away from that change, or shrug our shoulders in indifference, or deny its existence – but to grasp it and use it to expand horizons not for the elite, but for ordinary working families.
Two weeks ago, Ruth Kelly and I argued that the changes we see in our country today are provoking not an identity crisis - but an identity challenge to our country and to communities, and to citizens.
The Identity Challenge
We work and live differently. The job for life is gone. Our families look very different to decades ago.
Hyper-mobility – physical and virtual – has become a fact of life. Nearly two thirds of consumers now have an internet connection at home.
In 2005, the value of British e-commerce topped £92 billion - an economy the size of Argentina. Last year British residents made 68 million journeys abroad and 32 million foreign nationals visited here.
It is this hyper-mobility, set on a stage of rapid social change, that gives rise to new possibilities for British people but which also brings new risks.
The identity challenge means that without identity systems we leave our borders vulnerable; we leave community safety nets vulnerable; and we leave individuals perhaps most vulnerable of all.
Let me give you one quick example of each:
First, our borders.
By the Spring just gone, we had checked the 10 fingerprints of almost 400,000 people applying for a visa for Britain. By the end of this month, we’ll be checking visa applicants in 75 countries.
Already we have found 4,000 hits against immigration databases. 70% were applying for visas from abroad, had already claimed asylum in Britain. Many claimed in a different identity. Nearly 1 in 10, we found was subject to removal directions.
Including a Ghanaian, who applied for a visa in Accra, who biometric checks established had claimed asylum in the UK under a different identity as a Liberian national
Including a Tanzanian national, who claimed never to have previously been to the UK but who had actually claimed asylum as a Somalian citizen
Including an Albanian who applied for a visit visa in Europe, but who had claimed asylum as a Serbian national, again with a completely different identity.
So it is clear to us that the identity challenge at our borders is very real. But it is real too for public safety nets.
The DWP estimates fraud costs the benefit system £800 million a year.
Multiple identity abuse by a single individual is a problem - perpetrated by people like the man in Cleveland, prosecuted for the fraudulent abuse of over 80 identities, and a fraud of almost one and a half million pounds (£1,412,000).
But, the identity challenge is arguably sharpest for individual citizens, because in today’s online, hyper-mobile world, they can lose so much.
In the past 6 years CIFAS, the UK Fraud Prevention Service, has recorded over 282,000 victims of identity fraud from reports by their private sector members – enough to fill a city the size of Sunderland.
And at a cost to the British economy of £1.7 BN a year – more than the total budget of the entire Border and Immigration Agency.
The Risk of Uncontrolled Response
Now in response to these kinds of risks, the private and public sector cannot and will not sit back.
And in the face of these risks, it is unlikely that the most well-off will be hurt first or hurt most. It will be those who cannot afford to buy their own defences.
Business is already building solutions.
In the US there are already 120,000 customers registered to pay at checkouts using biometric technology.
Manufacturers are working on fingerprint technology locks that would make stolen phones and MP3 players instantly worthless.
Some UK nightclubs already use biometrics, taking fingerprints to stop under-aged patrons and persistent troublemakers.
The Government is trialling biometrics at the borders.
Project IRIS – the Iris Recognition Immigration System provides fast and secure automated clearance through UK immigration controls.
As of 10th June almost 100,000 (91,378) had enrolled, and nearly half a million border crossings were recorded (405,745).
But if we persist with this public and private laissez-faire, it is frankly easy to see how, before long in Britain, the day will come when we have a mish-mash of unregulated, potentially unsafe systems, mushrooming in growth and size in a way that is just uneconomic.
Unregulated – Because today no safeguards are really required or enforced.
i. Who exactly would have your details?
ii. Who could they pass on or sell your information to?
iii. What could they do with your fingerprints?
Unsafe – because with low security standards laissez-faire schemes would continue to lay the public wide open to identity theft.
The sheer complexity of the systems may mean that you will not be able to correct inaccuracies.
Uneconomic – because there would still be many cards and many systems.
A proliferation of plastic, passwords and PINs.
A world that’s harder to manage, not easier. Systems with different technologies and languages that don’t talk to each other.
A world that is prone to a new and isolating kind of digital division.
My party has always been suspicious of growth in unregulated and unaccountable power and the risk of new inequalities. That is why we advocate a publicly accountable, national solution. Something that becomes, in time, another part of our critical national infrastructure.
A 21st Century Public Good
Like the railways in the 19th century and the national grid in the 20th century, I think there are strong arguments for thinking of the National Identity System as a modern day public good - that very quickly becomes part and parcel of everyday life in Britain.But I believe its success will depend on three ingredients:
its usefulness in everyday life;
accessibility to everyone from all walks of life and its
accountability to the country. Let me take each in turn.
Part of Everyday Life
To underline this point about use, I announced last December five joint ventures between the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) and others.
Six months later there is already excellent progress. We believe the National Identity Scheme will help deliver: Criminal Records Bureau checks faster – particularly for those working with children and the vulnerable.
We have now designed new ways to make verification more effective and efficient, and we are now trialling with over two hundred CRB volunteers.
We think checks that take four weeks today could take four days with an ID Card.
Next year we will introduce Biometric Immigration Documents for foreign nationals.
The card will let employers check identity and entitlement more easily, rather than having to grapple with the raft of over 60 different documents foreign nationals can use to prove identity at and the right to work today.
Helping, I might add, the individual card holder to prove who they are, that they are entitled to work or study, open bank accounts and so on.
A pilot of a new Employers’ Checking Service is now underway.
It will soon include employers from construction, from retail, from hospitality, from agriculture and from finance. Early next year, a full service will go live.
Third, we are working with the retail industry to standardise proof of age checks for the sales of restricted goods, including knives, solvents and alcohol.
At the end of this month, we will be presenting our findings and recommendations to the Proof of Age Standards Scheme board, based on excellent engagement with industry and individual business.
Finally, we are developing blueprints for how both DWP and the Government Gateway can exploit ID cards and Biometric Immigration Documents. Project initiation for both will begin next month.
So I can see already how secure identity will suffuse working life, private life and our use of public services.
Accessibility
But if the National Identity Scheme is to be the public good it could be, it must be accessible.
The great risk of laissez-faire identity systems is the risk that they could exclude people deliberately – or price them out of secure access to things.
That is why we have to keep costs down. Once in operation, the National Identity Scheme will be self-funding through fee income.
It will not use funds intended for any other Government purpose. In any case, 70 per cent of the cost of the scheme would have had to be spent upgrading our passports as part of the global move to increase passport security and incorporate biometrics, in line with other international standards.
But we have to keep our costs under scrutiny, and always propose the solutions we believe provide the public with the maximum value for money.
Accountability
Finally, there is a requirement for accountability. The National Identity Register (NIR) will set new standards for best practice in protecting document, physical, staff and building security.
The IT systems holding the National Identity Register biographical and biometric information will be fully accredited by the government’s security authorities.
But a system created to build public trust must be overseen by something trusted by the public.
That is why I believe we should examine whether Parliamentary oversight can be strengthened further.
A National Identity Scheme Commissioner will be appointed to oversee the operation of the Scheme and report annually on the uses to which ID cards are put and the confidentiality and integrity of information recorded in the Register.
But if we are to multiply the uses of the NIR, I think we should look hard at how the Commissioner or Parliament is involved – more dynamically than an annual report. So I plan to meet those with views shortly to begin this conversation.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe we already have proven success in improving security in our identity service. Last year, UK passports were successfully upgraded to the new, more robust, e-Passports. Maintaining confidence in the integrity of the UK passport has allowed our citizens to continue to enjoy visa-free travel to the US.
And we are successfully rolling out interviews to crack down on fraudulent applications for passports.
But we have talked about this long enough. Now I believe it is time to get on with it.
In 20 years time, I suspect that the National Identity Scheme will be just a normal part of British life – another great British institution without which modern life, whatever it looks like in 2020, would be quite unthinkable.
I can't comment at the moment as I have to calm down - but what the f*ck is this guy one ??>??
