Read my lips...
I'm a little confused about the reporting of Dame Stella Rimington's (the former head of MI5) comments about Identity Cards. Amongst other things she is quoted as saying that "My angle on ID cards is that they may be of some use but only if they can be made unforgeable - and all our other documentation is quite easy to forge." The media have blown this up into a condemnation of the Identity Cards scheme.
When we talk about ID Cards, we're accustomed to hearing propaganda, polemic, sales blurb, confusion, miscomprehension, lies and more damned lies. This report smacks of misquotation, since I can't believe that Dame Stella doesn't understand the principles of the Identity Cards Bill. If she were that out of touch with technology and the law then we'd be overrun with every terrorist, maniac, criminal and loony in the northern hemisphere (although some would argue that's already the case). So she was either misquoted, or referred to 'cards' when she could more correctly have referred to 'the database'.
Dame Stella is quoted as saying that cards could be 'forged', rendering the scheme 'useless'. Within the scheme as proposed, I would suggest that forgery is extremely difficult. The Bill mandates that cards should be checked against the National Identity Register (NIR), thus rendering forgery exceptionally difficult indeed. A forged card, as the Minister, Andy Burnham MP states, would be pretty much impossible to create - the use of biometrics and the NIR ensures that each "identity... can only be registered once". I agree. It would be extremely difficult to create a smartcard that would be accepted as a valid identity by the systems.
That is, unless the individual making the check is not equipped with the correct equipment, in which case the card doesn't get checked against the NIRN, and we get a 'flash and dash' identity fraud. Or the enrolment staff have been corrupted to create false identities. Or the individual was sufficiently equipped to spoof a biographical footprint, and hence create a 'legitimate' false identity. Or the NIRN was misused or hacked to create or modify an identity. In those cases, of course, it would be possible to forge an identity. But not to forge a legitimate identity card. That said, who needs a forged identity, when you can commit a crime with a legitimate identity such as the 7th July bombers?
So when the Minister says that "it will make it almost impossible to forge an identity," I think he's either being misquoted, or he referred to 'identity' when he meant 'identity card'. Forging an identity is clearly a doddle - even within this scheme.
This debate has descended to the level of semantics. Maybe the government should get its words right before it attacks others who got theirs wrong.
9:54:55 PM 
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