Privacy and Identity: The Agenda for 2006
We held a gathering of a dozen or so privacy and identity experts in London on Wednesday, with the objective of discussing the key current and emerging issues affecting our profession. The meeting was held under the Chatham House Rule, so I won't mention who was present, or discuss the detailed findings. Please note that this is my interpretation of the meeting, and hasn't been reviewed by the delegates. These opinions do not necessarily reflect my own.
What became clear early on was, as one delegate put it, that we can't ignore "the elephant in the corner of the room" - the UK National Identity Cards Bill. As privacy professionals, this is clearly the most significant issue currently on the table, since it could provide the cause of - or cure for - many of our problems, and the debate kept returning to the subject. The spirit of the meeting appeared to be supportive of the principle of an ID card, but some of the concerns raised included:
- the confusion between government policy and media perceptions about the issue
- the capture of all of an individual's biometrics (ie both eyes, all 10 fingers, facial image) into a central government database when maybe the same result could be achieved without needing that amount of data
- the exclusion of the option of a federated identity scheme under the current proposed legislation.
The debate moved on to what can identity/privacy professionals do to address the situation. We certainly have a duty to educate government, media and the public about technologies, industry best practices and the implications for society. Some ideas were discussed about the key information that needs to be clarified before we fully understand how ID Cards will relate to society, as shown below:
I attempted to capture some of the outputs as the meeting progressed, and whilst these certainly don't reflect the broad spectrum of debate, a summary is shown below:
Needless to say we finished on a high note with an excellent dinner at Luigi's.
If you are interested in attending future events, then please drop me a line.
12:26:55 PM 
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