Identity cards

There is widespread agreement that identity management is good and that the identity card as currently described is going to cause many more problems than it solves e.g. the eGov monitor article http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/14070. Even more worryingly as Government Computing (GC) comments “The National Identity Card Scheme ……. (is) being sold as a great idea that could revolutionise public services but with little idea about how it will be used”.

There have been two trains of thought about identity management, whether it is used in a Transformational Government way to enable joined up citizen centric services or in a narrower way as a tool for the police. I don’t think the debate is about a database or a card but rather about the balance between having something that makes life easier vs further damaging the trust between citizens and their government.

Going back to the GC comment, it’s hard to have an informed debate without clarity on what is proposed and how it will impact on citizens, so before spending a lot of money implementing something why not spend rather less on a study of what impact different styles of identity management could have on UK PLC. And as part of that study engage in an open debate on what citizens actually want, and what tradeoffs they will accept.