Current Event: Biometric Identification Cards Distributed in the UK, But No Readers
A recent article from silicon.com details the recent issuance of £4.7 billion worth of ID cards containing biometric and biographical data to people of the UK. Critics of the plan are quickly pointing out that with no readers in place, the new cards are no more useful than traditional photo ID. The UK government has also stated that it has no concrete plans to implement the readers, but instead will allow individual organizations to purchase and implement them on their own. This raises a number of issues and questions about government efficiency versus individual choice versus comprehensive security. One thing is for sure – without any readers in place, this schema gives no extra security and is essentially a waste of money.
This security ‘flaw’ is essentially a result of poor policy. While it’s noble of the UK government to encourage these ID cards by funding them, requiring individual organizations to decide whether or not to implement them is a huge risk. As Richard Clayton, Cambridge University security expert, said in the article, “If this capability is not there then the biometrics are, in short, a waste of time.” However, it is somewhat promising that the UK government is clearly not willing to overexercise its power and force companies to use the readers.
A simple way to prevent this £4.7 billion from being wasted is for the government to spend a little bit more and offer incentives or help fund the manufacturing centers for the readers and the stations that will be implementing them. It’s possible that the system only needs a small boost of momentum to be accepted by the mainstream and more widely utilized. Implementing ID cards such as this is definitely a good idea, it just needs to be done properly so that the cards provide additional security, rather than being just another photo ID to carry around.
In attempting to address a major point of policy, the UK government rendered these IDs at the very least temporarily and at the very most permanently useless. In attempting to preserve individual organizations’ autonomy, they simply funded the cards and left the matter of manufacturing and implementing the card readers to …whomever. While it shows promise for a government that won’t readily overstep boundaries for whatever reason it feels fit, it’s also very worrisome that they didn’t notice how useless this system is without card readers.
A moment of pause by the critics should be given, as it’s possible that the airports and border offices will be able to fund and implement these readers seamlessly and efficiently. Hopefully this will be the case, as wasting that much money on yet another type of ID that isn’t any more secure would be a shame. However, the government should learn a lesson from the backlash surrounding this – all parts of a plan must be implemented for it to function.