Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

 

UK ID Cards a Doubly Bad Idea

Microsoft UK National Technology Officer Jerry Fishenden warns that the push for a national ID card in Great Britain could lead to identity fraud on a gigantic scale unlike anything that has been seen before. The Register reports

and

Charles Clarke confirms that ID cards will be a massive waste of both time and money – well, what else can he mean by guaranteeing that the personal details contained on ID cards won’t go beyond those currently held on passports? If we’ve already got passports holding that information (with which we can, erm… prove out identities), why, precisely, do we need ID cards as well?

From CSO and Europhobia, respectively. Europhobia has some great analysis links, too.

[It turns out that Jerry Fishenden has a blog: NTO – UK, where he posted the full text of his article. I also enjoyed his perspective on the artificiality of the split between science and the arts.]