NO2ID

http://www.anorak.co.uk/politicians/180005.html
http://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/nis_options_analysis_outcome.pdf

I read this with interest. It's quite interesting how the scheme has morphed since Golden Brown took over. He seems less interested in the whole illegal immigration/terrorism/crime/identity fraud justifications that the Bliarites were spewing and more interested in how it can make him money.

The line 'delivery of identity services to the private sector' is quite telling. Selling our details for as much as he can get. Bloody accountants!

I don't know if this is because Golden Brown sees us in a different way to how Tony Blair saw us. Blair saw us as his subjects who need to be controlled. Brown also wishes to control us, but seems to see us more as commodities.

I think this latest document puts the government in a weak position. It's a fundamentally different NIS than the one they presented to Parliament,

Trin

Gotta love the No2Id annotations.

I had no idea that my jaw could drop as low as it did when I read this leaked document.

I can't believe that it was written by anyone in contact with IPS, the Borders Agency, the Treasury, the Cabinet Office and OGC.

Is it possible that, after six years work on the entitlement card/ID card scheme, members of these five agencies can take part in three workshops to agree the objectives of the NIS? Tell me that it isn't, no, it's impossible, nobody could work on a project for six years and not know why.

Tell me that £50 million of consultancy buys more than "the objectives for the NIS are to protect the public and make life easier". Tell me that our rulers don't have lazy, gormless, fatuous, vacuous and inane jokers for officials.

Tell me that no private sector contractor would go anywhere near these people, who don't know what their product is, don't know how to sell it, who to sell it to or why anyone should buy it -- imagine them trying to raise £5 billion in the Dragon's Den.

And tell me how these people could work with the civil servants of other countries, e.g. on Project Stork -- imagine the gales of laughter before James Hall walks into the room and the embarrassed silence when the other occupants suddenly realise he's there.

No wonder Gordon Brown looks a bit peeved sometimes if this is truly the work of his advisors and this is the calibre of the briefing our representatives get.

But it must be a forgery, mustn't it, this document? A wry satire? It can't be authentic, can it?

I don't know how Mr Hall is received over here but, alas, Brian Lenihan, the Justice Minister, was apparently quite smitten by Baroness Scotland when he discussed E-borders with her, and has even admitted to it in a press release.

As for making money out of the wretched thing I hate to say I told you so but.......


Justin.

On Page 4, under enrollment, there's reference to an assumption of 'market provision' as the starting point, and addressing any market failures, before committing to a long term solution.

That strongly points to a lot of this being contracted out, to enterprises 'incentivised' to sign people up as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The model is already there, with United Health Europe taking control of 3 medical centres in Camden http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... article.do

If the market doesn't produce contractors or agents to do the work, it may have to use existing means - e.g. social security offices, perhaps schools, GPs, etc., as trusted parties, to sign people up initially. You could see the transport franchisees being used as well - integrated with or as an adjunct to Oyster in London, perhaps, and photocards for rail season tickets, OAP travelcards .....

There will be an ID card, and it will be a travel document.

And we think will have to give them away for free. And we are wondering why the applications and fees for passports are drying up......
Bang goes our income stream subsidising ID cards.

(top of page 7)

What indeed do they have in mind?
Perhaps this is the model they're working towards:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3087477.ece

"Listen sonny, you can argue til you're blue in the face that you've never driven your combine harvester in London, but until you pay the congestion charge, your driving licence is suspended. Oh, and don't think about leaving the country either."

It will place a whole new meaning for example on 'FREEDOM' passes http://www.freedompass.org/

Sorry dear, the reader isn't working / your wrinkles don't compute. Let's muse on how many 60+ people there will be in say 2010, voluntary coercion, and likely false-negative readings, and at a rough estimate of how many refused bus journeys to the shops will be happening 'cos your card doesn't work and/or biometrics if any at all don't match up.

One to put a fire under the retired persons organisations / Age Concern etc?

No it's not a day or nightmare - it's SNAFU UK and about par for the course where central government is concerned, for the last 30+ years. And vendors etc are just on a gravy train - if they (the politicians and the fonctionaires) keep changing the requirements, lead politically and expect the technology to drive it (whatever that it is), and then decide to think again about the detail of what it is they want ......... it isn't surprising.

It's also a consequence of limited technical competence and literacy either of politicians or of the civil service. As I think explained in another thread, probably many times over, consultant advisors have a vested interest in advising positively. Not only is that what the politicians want to hear, but that means success, payment, and more work.

How you get a dispassionate and objective assessment when so much loot is at stake is not clear. There are for example reasonably independent academics, professional bodies - BCS, ISOC, Royal Society of Arts and others - but they have to transcend the technical and argue the public policy at a level and in terms that are understandable, practical, and easily digested by the politicians and civil service.

It's not to say that they aren't bright and intelligent, but they don't have the technical capacity by and large to judge critically what they are being told. And there is this huge naive belief that technology contains all the solutions to their needs - the truly universal panacea.

[sorry - end rant]

Welcome to the public sector. It is quite, quite possible.

I believe you.

I didn't want to. But the statements of Katie Davies, Executive Director of Strategy at IPS, confirm that this leaked document is authentic.

The hope that it is a forgery or some sort of a pastiche must be abandoned. The hope was that there was some logic to the NIS. There isn't.

It's because there's nothing left to sell off. So our personal data is being nationalised to then be privatised.

That's an idiot argument. Governments nationalise things for power, not money. They don't privatise things for money (directly) either. Those are politically-driven decisions.

And just how are the elderly meant to manage to hold their handbag, find their ID card, take off their gloves, hold their hands still for long enough for a print to be taken and all this whilst clutching on to a Zimmer frame?

Justin.

You might find the answer in the interest in the Assisted Living Programme - http://www.3cresearch.co.uk/item/85