The Home Office has announced:

UK identity card image unveiled

The ID card image shows the information contained on the face of the card, including photograph, name, date of birth and signature, and the card's unique design. It will hold similar information to that currently contained in the UK passport as well as a photograph and fingerprints on a secure electronic chip - linking the owner of the card securely to their unique biometric identity.





Thankfully there is no printed address on this ID Card design.

Will the Home Office Press Release use of the word "unveiled", coupled with a female photographic image of a female, cause resentment within the fundamentalist Islamic community ?

The 2006 to 2016 validity period of this specimen ID card image also implies 3 years of delays to the scheme.





It comes as no surprise, that the web link URL advertised on the back of this ID Card: www.direct.gov.uk/myid, gives a 404 error i.e. the web page does not exist.

This lack of coordination and communication between different parts of the Home Office is typical of the whole ID Cards scheme to date.

Will the ID Card number be randomly allocated, or will it betray information about the ID Card controllee, through batch sequences, which can also help to break the cryptographic protections on the Contactless / RFID chip, just as happened with the Netherlands biometric passport ?

The prefix "IDGBR" will be enough of an unencrypted identifier, which can be read remotely by "illegal" radio equipment, to snoop on British travellers, well beyond the normal very short range of the official ID Card reading equipment.

Potentially, this could also be used to trigger terrorist bombs, which only detonate, when British citizens are within the lethal radius - this is not our idea of a "security feature"!

Identity Commissioner The Home Office takes seriously the concerns that the public have over their information being stored securely and accessed appropriately. That is why an Identity Commissioner will be appointed before ID cards are introduced to oversee operation of the service and report annually on the uses to which ID cards are put and the confidentiality and integrity of information recorded in the National Identity Register. Public panel meetings in Manchester and London will allow the public to join a conversation about the National Identity Service so their views, reactions and concerns inform the way service is developed and delivered.

Who exactly will be appointed as the virtually powerless National Identity Scheme Commissioner ?

Why should we trust the National Identity Scheme Commissioner, to provide effective checks and balances ? The Commissioner can only write an annual, censored Report to the Home Secretary, about the scheme, and the office will not have any resources to investigate individual complaints about the scheme from members of the public, and no legal powers to do anything about any such errors and failings.

The National Identity Scheme Commissioner is specifically forbidden by the terms of reference which appoint him under the Identity Cards Act 2006 section 22 Appointment of National Identity Scheme Commissioner to look into the following activities, which are exactly the secret activities which are the most likely to abuse the National Identity Register, and which therefore should be scrutinised the most:

(4) The matters to be kept under review by the Commissioner do not include-- (a) the exercise of powers which under this Act are exercisable by statutory instrument or by statutory rule for the purposes of the Statutory Rules (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 (S.I. 1979/1573 (N.I. 12)); (b) appeals against civil penalties; (c) the operation of so much of this Act or of any subordinate legislation as imposes or relates to criminal offences; (d) the provision of information to the Director-General of the Security Service, the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service or the Director of the Government Communications Headquarters; (e) the provision to another member of the intelligence services, in accordance with regulations under section 21(5), of information that may be provided to that Director-General, Chief or Director; (f) the exercise by the Secretary of State of his powers under section 38; or (g) arrangements made for the purposes of anything mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (f).



Please support or join the cross party NO2ID Campaign, to resist the introduction of this far too expensive, insecure, privacy invasive and counterproductive ID Card scheme in the UK.

