Still stumbling head-first into the database state

After Devil's Kitchen's fisking of Neil Harding over ID Cards (again and again) there are some more blogs pointing out to him just how wrong he is over ID Cards. Such as a fellow Labour party member at Talk Politics who also rips apart Mr Harding's arguements, particually the ones about costs and the likelyhood of this whole thing actually doing anything useful with a list of all the other recent IT projects and their sucsess:

The Inland Revenue tax credits system which locked up for 15 minutes at a time and led to staff walking out. After ten months, 220,000 cases were unresolved and 400,000 people got their money late.
The NIRS2 national insurance system that came in years late and massively over budget - costing £85 million in compensation and £68 million to put right.
The electronic personnel management system in the Inland Revenue that can only be used by managers on a Monday to ensure that demand doesn't cause the system to fall over.
The on-line PAYE system that hasn't been sufficiently well-tested.
Five million tax records lost by the Inland Revenue.
Problems with the Swanwick air traffic control system.
The Security Service's new SCOPE computer, which is running three years late and 50% over budget for an underpowered system.
The HR system for the Northern Ireland Office which cost £3.3 million and didn't work after nine years
A lack of performance monitoring on NHS IT, criticised as 'an appalling waste of money' by a parliamentary committee.
The BOWMAN military radio project, which came into limited use over a decade late at a cost of almost £2 billion.
The new Child Support Agency system which went massively over-budget and over-schedule
The complete cock-up of the payment card system that swallowed £1 billion before it was scrapped
The immigration document handling project that was scrapped after £77 million and a delay of years
The CRAMS system for the probation service that went 70% over budget

[List above courtesy of the excellent PoliticalHack]

Then there is Chris Lightfoot who destroys Mr Harding's claim that the ID Card database will only contain the same data as the Passport database (for his arguement Mr Harding conveniently forgets that inclusion of Biometrics into the passport database comes as part of the ID scheme, and that it cannot be designed so that it does not contain at least one extra field. The number that matches between the NIR and the card). When we where told this it was a leak of what Charles Clarke was going to do, but didn't.

In fact, schedule 1 of the Bill, which defines the information which may be held on the National Identity Register, is unaltered from the Bill at second reading, and still contains a list of fifty-odd items of personal information and retains the intrusive `audit trail'. I pointed this out in a letter to the Independent today:

Sir: Ben Russell and Nigel Morris write (18 October) that the Home Secretary ``will offer a guarantee that the planned national identity database will hold no more personal details than contained on a passport''. Charles Clarke has made no such guarantee, and the Home Office has always intended that the National Identity Register would hold much more, and much more intrusive, information than does a passport.

Specifically, under Schedule 1 of the Bill, the register will store, ``particulars of every occasion on which information contained in the individual's entry has been provided to a person''. That ``audit trail'' will record the details of every occasion on which a person presents their card to be checked; according to the Home Office, that will be whenever they consult a doctor, or visit a hospital or a public library or even go to the shops. So the register will build up a detailed picture of every card-holder's life -- vastly more than the simple personal details shown on even the planned biometric passports. And under clause 22 of the Bill, this highly confidential information can be disclosed by the Government to anyone at any time for any purpose connected with a public service.

Chris Lightfoot
Cambridge