In case you’ve missed it there’s an excellent debate on the subject of torture and its justifications or otherwise – mostly otherwise it should be said – which is well worth catching up with.

I suppose [modestly] it started here with my own take on comments by Lord Carlile; who, in addition to being a Liberal Democrat peer and QC, is also presently advising the government on its anti-terrorism legislation, before being picked up, somewhat more eloquently by Chris at Stumbling & Mumbling and has now migrated over to the Sharpener, where Jarndyce and Phil have been keeping the discussion ticking over very nicely. In between times, Tony Hatfield has also weighed in to cast his experienced legal eye over proceedings with this fascinating post, which ably demonstrates the thought processes of one particular member of the judiciary and offers considerable insight into the legal arguments which underpin this issue. This all arises directly from the SIAC case that has now reached the stage where the Law Lords have been asked for their final, definitive, ruling on the admissibility of evidence obtain through or as a result of torture [so as to be clear why this issue has come up at this time].

Re-entering the fray at this point, its towards this last mentioned post and the arguments teased out by Lord Justice Neuberger in the matter of the nature of evidence which might be obtained via the torture that I want to turn my attention to:

“The difference between the three categories [of evidence] can be demonstrated by an example involving a person suspected of having brought a dangerous chemical into the country. The first level is where the suspect admits, under torture, having brought the chemical into the country. The second is where, under torture, he admits having brought the chemical into the country, and says where he has concealed it, as a result of which the authorities find the chemical. The third level is similar to the second, save that the authorities also find the suspect’s fingerprints on the packaging of the chemical. In light of my conclusion, and the reasons for it, there are obviously very strong arguments for contending that all three categories of evidence should be excluded, even where the statement is made by a person other than the accused.

The first is a simple confession or accusation under torture, and should plainly be excluded; indeed, as I have already mentioned, the exclusion can be justified on the simple grounds of unreliability.

The second, is more difficult, because, in order for there to be good evidence against the suspect, it would be necessary not merely to disclose the finding of the chemical, but also the fact that he had told the authorities where to find the chemical, and that would involve putting before the tribunal what he had said under torture. In my view, this second category of evidence (which is, as I have already suggested, unlikely to arise where one is considering a third party statement, rather than a statement given by the suspect himself) must also be excluded, albeit only insofar as it relates to the statement. The essential point is that it does not merely involve putting evidence before the tribunal which was attributable to the fact that the suspect was tortured, but actually giving direct evidence of what he said under torture.

Real difficulty is presented by the third category, because there is no need to rely upon the evidence actually given under torture: all the prosecuting authorities need rely on is the finding of the chemical together with the suspect’s fingerprints on its packaging. There is obviously a powerful argument for saying that none of that evidence should be permitted to be adduced, on the basis that it as only obtained as a result of torture.

If the fundamental reason for excluding evidence obtained by torture is due to the revulsion on the part of the international community […] there is obviously powerful logic in the contention that the exclusion of evidence obtained by torture should apply to all evidence obtained by torture and not merely to evidence given under torture.

Despite this argument, I have come to the conclusion that what I have called the third category of evidence, namely evidence obtained as result of torture, but not involving putting before the court evidence of what was actually said under torture, is admissible.�

At first sight it might be tempting to regard this latter point, on evidence obtained ‘as a result of torture’ as something akin to legal sophistry; however, Lord Justice Neuberger is clear in his understanding of the ethical dilemma that evidence of this nature would create and, on the face of it, the demands of justice in the face of such seemingly compelling evidence would seem, as he acknowledges, to dictate that it should be admitted in evidence even allowing for the circumstances in which that evidence was obtained.

Nevertheless, and even lacking a trained legal mind and years of experience, I would still dispute his conclusion that such evidence should be thought admissible.

Taking Lord Justice Neuberger’s example, that of evidence in the form of a canister containing a dangerous chemical upon which is discovered the suspect’s fingerprints, what precisely has been established as a matter of fact by such evidence? Only that the suspect has handled, in some way, the canister itself.

Such evidence may demonstrate a clear relationship between the suspect and the evidence but not the precise nature of that relationship. If we remove for consideration the evidence obtained under torture, that the suspect was directly involved in the importation of the chemical in question and in full knowledge of the contents of the canister and its uses and purpose, can one reasonably argue that there is no reasonable explanation for the presence of the suspect’s fingerprint on the canister other than that the suspect was directly and knowingly involved in its importation?

No.

While there may be evidence which supports an assertion of direct and knowing involvement on the part of the suspect; their knowing the location in which the evidence was concealed, particularly if they have a clear association with that location – it’s in their home, their place of employment or in a location where they are the registered owner or tenant, even that does not rule out conclusively the possibility that they may, in handling the chemical, be acting merely as an unwitting dupe of a third party. They could conceivably have been transporting and/or storing the canister for a friend. They could conceivably have known nothing of its contents or, depending on how the canister is labelled, may have thought that canister contained something altogether more innocuous and not the dangerous chemical it actually did contain.

Without the support of further corroborating evidence; for example a bill of sale for the chemical in the suspects name or documents found in the suspect’s possession demonstrating knowledge of the chemical and its uses [or, of course, electronic data to same or similar effect] one has, at least, a basis to argue that there is reasonable doubt inasmuch as there is no conclusive evidence of the precise nature of the relationship between the suspect and the dangerous chemical itself…

… other than, of course, the confession obtained under torture; a confession which Lord Justice Neuberger concedes is inadmissible.

This is the logical flaw in his argument. The example given may appear to provide conclusive evidence of the suspect’s direct involvement but, in fact, does not – not without further corroboration; corroboration that may, in turn, only be available should admit the confession itself. The test itself is flawed.

Only if the chemical itself is proscribed and its use and purpose obvious can this this flaw be circumvented. If the suspect is found in possession of explosives, neurotoxins, anthrax, etc. then one can reasonably infer intent and purpose from the mere presence of the substance itself, their use being self-evident, but if the chemical in question has other applications – what then? The situation is no different to that when an unwitting gardener is found to have been cultivating a cannabis plant without knowing what it actually was or, to extend the argument further, I know of people in what was then my neighbourhood who grew opium poppies in the back garden because it was a ‘nice-looking plant’ without ever realising what the plant was or it potential uses. One particular street in that area was notorious for the fact that at the right time of year almost every front lawn would be covered in psilocybin mushrooms – none of the, mostly elderly, householders knew what they were other than they were a nuisance which spoiled the ‘look’ of their carefully maintained lawn. With ‘fresh’ magic mushrooms now classified as a class ‘A’ narcotic should we be hauling them before a court if that happens again next year? Of course not.

There are too many variables here to be satisfied with the possibilities created by Lord Justice Neuberger’s argument, too many situations in which, potentially, the case for the prosecution may rest directly on information obtained under torture even where that produces evidence which is one step removed from the information itself.

There is, however, another problem here, one which is ethically and philosophically far more troubling when juxtaposed with Lord Justice Neuberger’s argument.

If one reviews the extant treaties and conventions which deal with the matter of torture and its prohibition one cannot help but be struck by the manner in which such prohibitions are framed and by the complete absence, in the text as it relates to torture, of any of the usual qualifications, equivocations and legislative dissembling that is typically found in treaties and conventions of this kind.

Read any of the main documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights or the United Nations Convention against Torture and one is left in no doubt whatsoever that irrespective of how trained legal minds in various countries might wish to append their own interpretations of the text to the treaty – a good example of which can be found here in the US response to the Convention [scroll down a bit to the first section on the US] although one should not such things are entirely common place when the US deals with international treaties as it invariable goes to great and often tortuous lengths to establish the primacy of its own constitution over and above the treaty itself - the text itself exhibits the clearest possible intent on the part of its authors and sponsors that what should be put into place is the total and absolute prohibition of the use of torture in any circumstances; the prohibitions on torture exists solely to be observed and adhered to and not circumvented even if it may be expedient to do so.

That is not to suggest that, in strict jurisprudential terms, that Lord Justice Neuberger is entirely wrong in his implied assertion that there may be a little ‘wiggle room’ in the terms of International Law. If one treats the text of the Convention against Torture literally, the provision which relates directly to evidence obtained under torture would admit the possibility of his distinction in relation to evidence obtained as a result of torture, vis:

“Article 15

Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.�

However such a literal interpretation is but one possible avenue within jurisprudence that the Law Lords might follow in rendering their final judgement in this matter; they may and undoubtedly will consider the case before them in other contexts including their interpretation of the intent expressed by this and other treaties in addition to that which exists in UK law, give due consideration to extant precedents in UK and European law [and possibly elsewhere - consideration of precedents set in other countries being an increasing factor in such decisions] and, of course, within the context of that which, in their view, is seen to serve best the interests of justice.

As much as there is room for legal manoeuvre in the text of article 15 of the Convention against Torture and as compelling as arguments for expediency might appear at first sight – read the article at the Sharpener which covers the problems of such an approach to this matter – I would still hold that above all the Law Lords must consider and place the greatest possible weight on the intent expressed in the Convention against Torture. If one avoids a reductionist approach which focusses exclusively on a literal interpretation of article 15 and takes, instead, a position based on the text of the entire treaty one cannot doubt that the clear purpose of this treaty is to effect an absolute and total prohibition on the use of torture and that, consequently, provisions in law such as that which might come about were the Law Lords to accept Lord Justice Neuberger’s argument, which clearly provide an incentive to make use of torture are entirely contrary to the clear principles expressed in the convention itself.

No doubt this argument, or one very similar, has been placed before the Law Lords by barristers acting for the plaintiffs in the SIAC case – and no doubt, also, they will argued it far better that I have.

Logically, one cannot have an absolute prohibition on torture if the law provides for circumstances in which such a prohibition may be circumvented in order to obtain evidence which is admissible in court, even if that evidence is not derived directly from the act of torture itself, but obtained on the basis of information obtained under torture. To rule otherwise would be to create an extremely dangerous precedent, one which validates and vindicates the practice of beating information out of suspect provided that said information leads to evidence which corroborates their guilt but which does not rely on the information obtained under torture itself.

To contextualise that last statement, even were the Law Lords to accept Lord Justice Neuberger’s argument and set exactly the precedent outlined above, we would not, as a civilised society, tolerate such conduct by our own Police or Security Services were it carried out on British soil. Were a British Police or Intelligence Officer to be found to have beaten information out of a suspect in order to obtain evidence such as that used in Lord Justice Neuberger’s example we would, quite rightly, expect that they would face the full force and penalty of the law, irrespective of the circumstances in which that officer had acted and I doubt very much that said evidence would then be considered admissible in court due to the manner in which it was obtained.

Having set such standards for ourselves, can it then be right to accept lesser standards in others when matters come before a British Court of Law?

If one compares the rules of evidence in this country with those elsewhere one will surely find a myriad of instances in which evidence which would be accepted in a foreign court would be deemed inadmissible in this country, instances in which we would never contemplate making the kind of exception that the Law Lords are now being asked to consider.

And if we wish to continue to consider ourselves a civilised society, we should make no such exception here.

UPDATE: MI5 Chief’s evidence leaked to Channel 4 - none of which alters the argument above.

After all the talk of Cameron, Osbourne and their [alledged] mate Charlie, now it looks as though Fox is on the receiving end of a major smear.

Apparently, in an interview with the London Evening Standard, Fox was questioned about his sexuality - questions to which he didn’t give a direct answer.

Now, as happened with Cameron where his failure to issue a clear denial that he’d taken drugs in the past was taken as a tacit admission that he had, so Fox in failing to deny having a homosexual past finds his lack of comment has been interpreted as yet another tacit admission of guilt - one that could prove particularly damaging as he’s set himself up through the contest as the right-wing pro-family candidate.

I must say this is all getting particularly compelling - nothing more fun to watch than a bunch of Tories scratching each other’s eyes out.

The one point of interest here is that having seen Cameron and now Fox getting smeared, a few months back there were also unspecified rumours [which came to nothing at the time] of a major skelly in Basher Davis’s closet as well.

It’s also interesting to note that of the three remaining candidates, only Cameron has not done a stint as Whip and would not have had access to the Tories ‘little back book of dirty secrets’.

Neil’s responded to my piece of yesterday here and, again, there are several points worth responding to:

Firstly the price tag of £30. You are right, it may well be inaccurate. But by the government coming out and stating this figure so loudly, aren’t they making it more difficult for themselves?

If they do believe they are vastly out on the figure, why say it? Sweden and Norway have just released biometric ID cards for around £30 (43Euros), so £180-300 seems to be a bit of a scare story, maybe we should trust the government on this one (strange concept I know).

As far as I know, ID cards are due to come out in what, 2007? It would be a bit silly of the government to say they’ll cost £30, and then charge much more than this in the run up to an election.

On the price, one needs to consider the political ‘games’ going behind the scenes on ID cards, particularly in relation to the role of the Treasury.

When the decision was taken by Blair/Blunkett to go ahead and pursue ID cards seriously, the Treasury’s response was to make it clear that the entire project would have to be self-financing - there would be no additional money from the Treasury to fund implementation. That, in anyone’s terms is as close to a vote of no confidence in the project as the Treasury will come without issuing a flat ‘no’ and suggests that Gordon is, to say the least, extremely lukewarm on the whole idea even if that’s something he can’t admit publicly.

Clarke has announced a ‘fixed’ price of £30 for two basic reasons:

First because the LSE’s report into the potential real costs did a hell of lot of damage on the public opinion front and demonstrated clearly that the project is extremely ‘price sensitive’ - as the cost rises so public support fall.

Second, and rather perversly, because having anmnounced a set price and knowing that ID cards are due to come on stream at around the time Brown takes the helm and starts to prepare for the next election, he now has a possible bargaining chip with the Treasury when it comes to releasing public funds for the project, either directly or via the back door into departmental budgets.

In effect, if costs start to over run and spiral, Gordon has three choices - bail out the project to keep the price down to £30, stick to his guns on self-financing and see the cost to the public rise heading in to an election, or kill the project outright as unworkable.

This, however, assumes everything runs on schedule and to time irrespective of where the costs end up heading, which does give him a fourth route out of this situation - simply set the treasury’s beancounters on to the project with orders to examine everything with a fine tooth comb - this would not only delay implementation but could provide a politically acceptable [for him] way out - as the dilligent ‘Iron Chancellor’ he examines the project in detail to ensure that costs are full accurate and realised before going ahead and then as newly annointed leader he pulls the plug - well, puts it on indefinite hold - after a detailed Treasury analysis - with no doubt an assist from the Audit Commission and Public Accounts Committee - demostrates that its not financially and technical viable.

If you know the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy well, think of it as the ‘Magrathea strategy’ - mothball the whole thing until conditions are right knowing that the legislation’s already there when needed.

Cost comparisons with Norway, Sweden, etc are, I’m afraid, a matter of ‘apples and oranges’.

The biometric passports being introduced in Europe are both very different from the ID cards being proposed here - the only biometric identifier being used is a digital photograph which can be read by facial recognition software [no fingerprints or iris scans] - nor is there a massive database infrastructure required to support a central identity register.

One simple cannot compare costs between the two projects although one can reasonably argue that if it costs £30 in Sweded for a passport/ID card with simple biometrics and no central ID register then that proves that £30 is an unrealistic figure for the UK’s far more complex system.

Reading the EU press released linked in Neil’s piece raises a further area of concern in terms of security. Sweden’s system uses an RFID chip, which is basically a radio transponder which broadcasts your information to reads over a short range - anything from 10mm to 6 metres depending on the type of chip. I’d need to check the full technical specs of the Swedish system but unless they’re using one with a range of the very bottom of end of what is possible [which as this is Sweden seems very likely, I must admit] then there may be a risk of the information on cards being harvested using techniques similar to bluesnarfing.

You make good points about the govt’s poor record on IT projects, but thats not really a specific argument against ID cards. The ‘not on time and over budget’ argument has been used to argue against almost anything, from having the Olympics to the congestion charge.

This point runs into much of Neil’s following comments as it encompasses not only civil service practice in large-scale IT projects but also the present state of the technology itself.

The government’s poor record on IT projects is one of those factors which looks, at first site, like a bit of a straw man - after all this could hypothetically be the project where they finally get it right - but it isn’t as the concerns run far deeper that just the track record itself.

The list I gave in my original article spans not just the life of this present Labour government but include projects which date - in their conception at least - back to the Major government and possibly beyond.

It’s also by no means a complete catalogue of governmental failures on IT projects - such projects were routinely running late and over budget before Labour came to power and such problem arise at every level of the public sector including within Local Authorities of all political make-ups across the UK.

One cannot, therefore, attribute these problems solely to politicians or a particular adminsitration or political party.

It’s also fair to say that the fault here does not lie with IT professional working in the public sector, either. I know and have worked with quite a few over the years and they are, almost to a fault, hardworking, dilligent and skilled professionals.

Nevertheless, examine each of the cases listed in the first article and you’ll find that somewhere in there an evaluation has been carried out which has arrived at the same conclusion as evaluations of similar projects before and afterwards; that conclusion being the public sector, particularly the civil service and more particularly than that policy makers and non-technical managers do not know how to adequately project manage large scale IT-based projects. This is systemic fault in the public sector so widespread as to be almost axiomatic.

As someone who has watched these development closely and who has a strong technical background which includes working as an IT professional, nothing I’ve seen suggests that any of this has changed or that any real lessons have been learned from past failures - the people in government and in the civil service who are driving this project forward are no better equipped to deliver and project manage it successfully then their predecessor who failed so badly on a whole catlogue of projects which ran over both time and budget - the critical difference here being that unless the Treasury does relent on its ‘no public money’ stance, in this case the effects of such overruns will be all to visible and reflected directly in the price the public will be asked to pay. There is no hiding the screw-ups on this project.

All things being equal the government have a consistant track record of failure on IT projects even where proven, robust technology is being used, mainly as a result of poor project management and decision-making.

To give but one example, take the NHS e-mail system. While the rest of the world [quite literally] standardised their use of e-mail on the ubiquitous SMTP and POP3 protocal which drive almost every non-webmail e-mail service on the internet, a few years back the NHS decided to buck the trend an use a protocal called X400.

All went fairly well for a while until government demands for standardisation to facilitate the development of e-government services lead to the first e-government interoperability framework [e-gif][ standards which specified the use of SMTP and POP3 for e-mail, leaving the NHS to rip out and replace its entire e-mail system to bring it into line with the new government standards.

Even with established technology in place, the government get it wrong. What chance is there of them getting it right, therefore, when the technology they’re hanging their hat on is still unproven and some considerable way from being robust - as is clearly the case with biometrics.

Every trial of biometric recognition systems to date has shown an unacceptable rate of failure - 10% on the first trial of Uk biometric passports, problems with people with disabilities, dark skin, brown eyes, ‘worn’ fingerprints from things like typing and manual labour not to mention the problems that facial hair can cause - and that’s under ideal test conditions not under real world conditions where less than optimal lighting and misalignment of scanning equipment becomes a factor.

Matter get worse as in the same week that Tony McNulty claimed that UK Id cards will carry thirteen rather than three biometric identifiers - the trick is to count the 10 fingers and two eyes separately - comes this report which although very technical, demonstrates that combining biometrics may result in more and not fewer errors in recognition.

Ultimately, though, the thing we should be most concerned about, whether we support ID cards or not, is the manner in which this debate has developed and what that says about the attitude of government and the state to us, the citizens of the United Kingdom.

At every stage in this debate, the government has put forward its arguments for ID cards and on every single point those arguments have been challenged, analysed and rebutted in clear and precise detail.

And on every occasion that has happened the government has responded in the same way.

First, it tells us that whatever the argument against it, they reject it out of hand - no reasons are given, no logical or reasoned arguments are put forward, no real attempt in made to debate the issues or put forward counter arguments.

All we get is ‘We’re the government and we’re right, so you’re wrong - and no, we can’t explain why because that information is ‘commercially sensitive’.

Take, for example, Clarke’s claim, made before the general election, that identity fraud costs the UK £1.3 billion a year - this claim has long since been rebutted and thoroughly debunked, as shown here, yet during the third reading debate this week, Clarke yet again repeated this claim?

Does this not seem to you to show an complete and utter contempt for the British people? The arguments being put forward here are not coming from a small band of wing-nut conspiracy theorists, however much the government would like to pretend that the case - mots of the detailed argument are coming from people who in every significant respect are far better qualified and able to assess these plans than the government’s own advisors and, certainly, better qualified and more knowledgable than any Minister.

Yet the government refuses to listen to anyone but a small cabal of civil service advisors and the biometrics industry, which stands to rake in huge profits on the back of this bill.

Next we get the ritual ’shifting of position’ - like Iraq where tyhe rationale has been:

“Well its about the threat of WMDs… err, no actually it’s about liberating the Iraqi people… errrm, well no its not that after all, its actually all part of the War on Terror’.

THe same thing has happened in this debate:

“It’ll combat terrorism”

[then July 7th happens]

“Oh, fuck, that one won’t work… let’s try identity fraud

Shit, that one isn’t working either…

Let’s blame Europs?… No…

How about the Amercians and this visa thing? No…

Why don;t we say it’ll be as cheap as chips… Oh fuck…”

Look at the debate as a whole, at the arguments for and against and its clear that the government have run out of excuses…

And worse than that, being partisan for a moment, they’ve put forward a law which the Tories have wanted all along but never had to balls to follow through with themselves and done it is such a way as to hand the moral high ground to the opposition, to allow them to claim to be the protectors of social justice and civil liberties when one of the strongest proponents of ID cards on their side was Michael Howard, the man who, until recently, lead the Tory Party.

So, all we get now is ‘We’re right, you’re wrong. Fuck you!”

So much for democracy, eh?

Or as Franklin Roosevelt sharply observed:

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes strong than their democratic state itself.

That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

I feel a bit guilty about this as I’ve generally got quite a bit of time for Neil from the Brighton Regency Labour Party blog, but as its ID cards and Neil’s comments exhibit clear naivety as to what all the fuss is about then not only is a response called for but also a good fisking of comments.

So, on with the show…

The government have persuaded me, I want an ID card.

Thirty quid for a ten year card that allows you to travel around Europe, not much really, is it?

Houston, we have a problem right from the outset.

You see as Bernie Herden, head of the UK Passport Agency, admitted in July, the shelf-life of biometric identity systems - in this case passports - is gong to be rather less than 10 years, vis:

Herdan was pretty candid on forgers’ ability to circumvent new security measures, saying the agency would have to keep changing designs and would have to change its technology “more frequently than every ten years� as it races to keep ahead of forgers.

Changing designs and changing technology means changing the biometric passports themselves, and if that’s true for passports then its also going to be true for ID cards, which are based on the same systems and technology - and what are the chances of a free ‘upgrade’ when that happens? Yep, none.

What of Clarke’s £30 price tag claim?

As this analysis [also from the Register] shows, this claim is far from being as solid as its being sold. The cards should cost £30 but only if the government’s costings and assumptions are 100% correct all the way down the line and even KPMG, in their own carefully guarded fashion seem doubtful about that.

KPMG’s report does not, as Clarke has tried to imply, state that the government’s costings are robust or realistic, rather is says- in Clarke’s own words - that “independent analysis in a report from KPMG, a summary of which will be published shortly, has concluded that the costing methodology is robust and appropriate for this stage of development” with a footnote to this press release which adds this comment:

“KPMG have recommended improvements such as extending the sensitivity analysis, revisiting the process for estimating contingency and revisiting some cost assumptions. KPMG have confirmed that the majority of the cost assumptions are based on appropriate benchmarks and analysis from the public sector and suppliers.”

From years of dealing with the public sector, its invariably a bad sign when such strong emphasis is placed on ‘evaluating the process’. As older, wiser heads know well ‘evaluating the process’ is a standard blame reduction strategy in public sector circles which is used extensively when things go pear-shaped or are expected to go pear-shaped - you evaluate the process and when that is shown to be ‘robust’ you then blame everything that went wrong on ‘external factors’ and ‘unexpected changes in the external environment which were outside of the control of…’, all of which means that nothing of what went wrong was actually the fault of those with responsibility for the screw-up.

The main points highlighted by KPMG; ‘extending the sensitivity analysis’, ‘revisiting the process for estimating contingency’ and ‘revisiting some cost assumptions’ are all things which will impact directly on the overall cost of the project and, as sure as ‘eggs is eggs’ you can be certain that none of this will result in cost being revised downwards.

Lets also not forget that this is an ‘independent’ analysis which was paid for by the government and done to government specifications - of course a respected firm such as KPMG would never backpedal on its findings to please the customer would it [see Arthur Andersen].

Finally it should be noted, when it comes to the matter of independent analysis, the government have used the claim of ‘commercial sensitivity’ - an exemption under FOIA - to prevent anyone not on its payroll from examining the detailed costings of the project.

Faced with the LSE’s genuinely independent analysis of the scheme, which puts the real costs potentially as high as £180-300 per card, the government’s response has been first to state that it didn’t accept the LSE’s figures, while refusing to publish its own, following which it did publish a ‘rebuttal‘ which was both misleading and inaccurate and which, incidentally, failed to address the majority of the LSE’s criticisms of the scheme.

Also on costs, its worth noting this analysis from the Register, which looks at just one area in which the true costs of ID cards are being hidden from public sight; the as yet unspecified contributions to be made to the cost of the overall project from other government departments and agencies. No mention has yet been made by Clarke et al of the knock-on costs of the system that this will engender, either indirectly through taxes or cuts in services as money is taken from, for example, NHS budgets to pay for the cost of using ID verification in the health service or directly in increased costs for everything from passports to driving licences to criminal records certificates, where costs can be recouped by passing them on directly to the ‘customer’ in increased charges.

On of the more telling bits of analysis I’ve seen [will try to find the link] is one which shows that this system, on current costings, will only break even on near 100% take-up - which will only happen if/when ID cards become compulsory. If uptake is slow or there is significant resistance - and there are already more than 11,000 openly pledged refusniks who will fight this all the to the courts - then this whole system will turn into a money pit for the government.

And all this, so far, is predicated on the government’s costings being correct or as near correct as makes no difference - so before we leave the subject of the cost of the scheme lets just remind ourselves of the government’s stellar record on bringing home IT-based projects on-time and on-budget which includes:

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]

When it comes to the matter of ID cards costing £30, I rest my case.

Yesterday, Charles Clarke announced that the cards will only hold the same information as a passport and that primary legislation would be needed to change this.

The bill specifies that only name, date and place of birth, gender, address, nationality and immigration status can be recorded on the ID database. When you think of all the records our telecoms/mobile companies, supermarkets, banks, credit card companies and ISPs hold, its a joke to suggest this is intrusive.

I’ve covered this point is some detail here the general gist of which is that Clarke’s supposed concessions are meaningless - without restrictions on the use and recording of the National Identity Registration Number from the National Identity Register there is nothing to prevent the development of an all-encompassing database state in which all the personal data held not only by government but by the telecoms/mobile companies, supermarkets, banks, credit card companies and ISPs, and a whole shed load of others besides can be linked together and used by government agencies to examine our lives in the minutest of detail.

If anyone thinks that can’t be done of that further legislation might be required to pull something like that off, then this other post of mine should soon disabuse them of that notion. And that’s just the powers accorded to civilian investigators working for the DSS - just think how the reach of Revenue and Customs, the Police and the Security Services will extend into such a huge cross-linked data system.

Further to this, everyone will have access to their own entry on the database and even information of who has been using it to verify their identity.

Spyblog was, last night, looking closely into this claim and, in particular, into the exact wording of Tony McNulty’s comments on this issue, which from the comments, were:

“Mr. McNulty: I certainly accept what my hon. Friend says about static as opposed to ever changing databases. She makes an entirely fair point. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) offered a lot of comedy about the Domesday book, but it is not a fair interpretation of the Bill to say that the Secretary of State can change anything in the database that he likes, and insert whatever he wants to. That is not the case. We want people to be able to access secure web sites, by means of their PIN number, so that they can adjust and change data on the register.”

As someone with more than 20 years dealing with IT both professionally and personally I can full concur with spyblog’s comment:

“So “hackers” or “phishers” or terrorists or criminals or foreign intelligence agencies etc. will be able to steal or muck around with NIR data without any of the security provided by Biometrics at all !!

No doubt you will then be accused of tampering with the Register and sent to prison for 10 years, since it will be impossible for most people to prove that their IP address was hijacked or faked.”

It’s close to impossible to accurately assess the real level of fraud in online transactions as many of the most serious cases tend to go unreported - as an industry, like banking, it is tremendously ‘confidence sensitive’ with the result that problems are frequently ‘fixed’ on the quiet so as to avoid adverse publicity which might affect consumer confidence in a particular online system.

It has been, since the earliest days of computer-based fraud, an axiom that if you’re going to steal, steal big - banks and financial institutions are typically unwilling to even admit to major security breaches let alone large-scale thefts for fear that their customers will take their business elsewhere should they find out that the system they’ve been using has been seriously breached.

In all this, the weakest link in the chain is invariably the end user and their password or pin number, a fact known all too well to criminals as this report demonstrates.

We live in a world where people still fall for all the old scams, the now classic ‘419′ and lottery scams and, of course, pyramid schemes still trap people on a regular basis - there are plenty of people out there who would, and currently do, send confidential information about the bank account and pin number to complete strangers so long as the e-mail they get looks ‘official enough’.On that alone it should be obvious not only that a system which offers direct access to official identity records will be targeted right from the off but there are plenty of people out there gullible enough to be conned in turning over their pin number to fraudsters as well - a system secured on a pin number is an open invitation to “hackers”, “phishers”, terrorists, criminals - especially organised crime - and foreign intelligence agencies to ‘come and get it’.

I’ve argued all along that government just doesn’t understand the system its trying to put in place - if it did it wouldn’t be putting forward this evidence - and McNulty’s comments simply confirm that.

Fiona Mactaggert MP was a former head of Liberty and a vehement opponent, but she now sees the benefits of ID cards and argues that progression in biometrics technology have made them inevitable and worthwhile. She also categorically states that; “There will be no new powers for the police to demand ID cards”. This seems to address most of the opponents concerns.

No it doesn’t address ‘the opponent’s concerns’ at all.

First, the fact that there are no new police powers now does not mean that there will be no new police powers in the future.

Second, it should be obvious that even without such powers the Police can and will be demanding to see ID cards under their existing powers of stop and search.

The scenario isn’t difficult to imagine, is it? The Police decide that you look ’suspicious’ so you’re stopped and searched. Now suppose you look ‘foreign’ [i.e. non-white] - could there not then be a ‘reasonable suspicion’ that you might, just might, be an illegal immigrant? I mean how do the police tell someone who’s here legally from someone who isn’t?

By checking your immigration status on your ID card of course…

Of course, legally you don’t have to produce it but then what options do you have in this situation? You can show your card or you can be hauled off to the local nick to prove your identity.

In any case, a voluntary system in which citizen’s are not required to produce their ID Cards on demand by the Police is not really what the Police want - what they want, unsurprisingly, is a compulsory scheme and portable scanners which allow them to check identities in the field - at least that’s what they told the Home Affairs Select Committee in April 2004 when questioned about their views on proposals for ID cards.

As for Neil’s touching faith in Fiona McTaggart’s integrity as a former ‘head of Liberty’ - such things are entirely irrelevant.

Things change and it would be a rare - and short-lived - Minister indeed who managed not to ‘go native’ within weeks, or even days, of joining a department like the Home Office and who could stand up for personal beliefs in the face of being flanked by a mass of civil service advisors to tell her constantly:

“Ah, Minister. If only things were that easy”

Anyone who mistakenly believes that Ministers can easily carry private convictions forward into public office should, perhaps, acquaint themselves thoroughly with the story of Chinook ZD576 and note that a series of Labour Defence and Armed Forces Ministers which includes John Reid, John Spellar, Geoff Hoon and Adam Ingram have all, at different times, stood up in the Commons to stonewall and defend the verdict of gross negligence against the pilots, handed down by two [now retired] Air-Vice Marshalls even though that verdict was not supported by the actual unbiased conclusions of the RAF’s own Board of Inquiry and Air Accident Investigation Bureau, a Scottish Fatal Accident Inquiry and a Lord’s Select Committee which consisted of a former Justice of the Scottish Court of Appeal, three QC’s and Lord Tombs, an engineer who holds, amongst other things, nine honorary degrees in science and engineering from UK Universities.

And yet the MOD still refuses to this day to strike the verdict in case from the record.

What about the cost? Well a lot of the expense of upgrading passports to bio-metric technology is going to have to happen anyway to comply with US standards being introduced. Some costs might actually be recouped by savings in other departments by making an ID card standard for NHS and benefit access.

Costs I’ve already dealt with.

As for US standards - well as recently as June, the Times were reporting on Eire’s moves to ditch plans to introduce biometrics into its passport in the expectation that the US will ditch its plans to make them mandatory under its Visa Waiver programme.

Why? Because the US cannot get the technology to work accurately.

It’s also worth noting that the US specifications require only a digital image for facial recognition and either fingerprints or iris scans - they take their own fingerprint records when you arrive.

Let’s also remember that the EU has not finalised the spec for its own biometric passport as yet, nor is it guaranteed that the EU and US specs (if the latter happens) will be compatible - yep, its VHS vs Betamax time again!

So will it make a difference to crime, immigration, identity theft etc? (Clarke has already admitted it won’t make much, if any, difference to terrorism).

Well not according to Microsoft, their UK National Technology Officer Jerry Fishenden has warned that the UK ID card scheme could trigger “massive identity fraud on a scale beyond anything we have seen before.”

As Jerry rightly notes:

“Unlike other forms of information such as credit card details, if core biometric details such as your fingerprints are compromised, it is not going to be possible to provide you with new ones.”

Before going on to mention the ‘honeypot effect’ of putting a comprehensive set of personal data in one place, thus producing a “richly rewarding target for criminals,” and that we “should not be building systems that allow hackers to mine information so easily… Inappropriate technology design could provide new hi-tech ways of perpetrating massive identity fraud on a scale beyond anything we have seen before: the very problem the system was intended to prevent.”

This, for the non-technically minded, is a particularly salient issue. Outside of government circles and the biometrics industry, which stand to make billions of this scheme, no one in the independent technical community - those of us who understand the technology, its uses, abuses, limitations and implications; actually support the government’s plans to introduce ID cards.

The experts - those of us with an informed opinion - are firmly against and with good reason. The opposition here is not just a bunch of overly suspicious conspiracy theorists, wing-nuts and hardcore civil libertarians, many of us are hard-nosed techs who understand all too well how the system works, what can go wrong and where its limitations and fault are.

Which is precisely why the government has refused to provide any detail as to its proposals, costings, etc and faced with a community who do know what they’re dealing with and talking about - far better than any Minister - because its plans won’t stand up to that kind of detailed, hard-edged scrutiny.

Believe me, this is a debate we want. A debate we’ve been asking for all along and a debate we’ve consistently been denied by government. To borrow a saying from the pro-ID camp ‘if you’ve nothing to hide, then you’ve nothing to fear’ - so why are the government so obsessive in hiding the detail of their plans from those of us who can understand them and assess fully whether the rhetoric matches the reality?

Well most countries in Europe have ID cards and they wonder how we cope without them. It is just the natural progression of a responsible society that we do have them.

True. 11 out of 15 pre-accession EU nations have an ID card system.

None of the use biometrics, as yet, and none of them make use of the centralised, state-owned, identity register - in fact in countries such as Sweden, their ID card system is deliberately constructed in such a way as to prevent the government from accessing personal data without consent and to preclude the creation of the kind of national register our government wants. It’s also entirely voluntary as well.

I would actually go much further than the government and DNA test every baby at birth. I can hear the screams of outrage at this suggestion, but think what this would mean. Thousands of rapists caught at the first offence, more victims coming forward with a confidence they will get justice. The deterrent effect would be massive. This alone would make the process worthwhile without all the other benefits in crime reduction. This of course is just my own suggestion, nobody in the government would dare propose anything this controversial.

I’m not even sure I want to dignify this comment with a response.

Why stop at DNA? Why not let the government put telescreens in everyone’s home - as per ‘1984′ - it would certainly sort out the whole business of switching the terrestrial TV network over from analogue to digital at the same time and we could recoup some of the cost from the BBC licence fee.

When the Police were first permitted to gather DNA information for comparison with evidence from crime scenes - back in 1980’s - they were permitted to do so on the basis that dna profiles obtained from people who were subsequently eliminated from their enquiries would not be retained - such records were to be destroyed either six or twelve month following the closure of the case. This was set out explicitly in primary legislation.

After Labour came to power it was discovered that the Police had ignored this provision in the legislation and illegally retained this information and kept in on file.

And what did the government do?

Did they hold an inquiry? No.

Were there any prosecutions? No.

Were those responsible disciplined in any way? No.

What the government did instead was they inserted and passed a retrospective clause [in a new piece of legislation] to make what the Police had done legal after all.

And we should trust the government?

While it is good that plenty of criticism of the ID card scheme is forthcoming and that the legislation is carefully made (it can still be messed up), a lot of opponents are just not thinking this through properly, but acting on an instinctive mistrust of this government driven by the media.

Is any of what I’ve written here instinctive or driven by the media?

If anything the media [other than the technical press] were slow to respond to this issue and limited in their ability and capacity to put the opposition case across fully.

This is debate which, throughout, has been driven by, in the main, either technical press - who are not really renowned for their histrionics - and by a number of bloggers, especially those with a clear technical background from which to understand the issues in detail.

As with the debate on electoral reform before and after the last election, its more often than not been bloggers who’ve led and carried the debate, who’ve done the detailed analysis and the scut work in understanding exactly what this bill means and how it will impact on our society - but for a few op-ed puff pieces about ‘principles’ the media has been for the most part riding on our coat tails throughout.

It’s time we realised, like the 11 countries out of 15 in the EU that have ID cards, that the benefits outweigh the costs. I’m sure I’m not going to very popular with a lot of you out there for posting this, but I’ll give more details on this when I get them together.

Like I said, I do feel a little guilty at hammering one of Neil’s posts as more often than not I like the guy and his work.

There is nothing personal in all this - throughout I hope I’ve played the ball and not the man in my comments - nor, I suspect, is Neil’s view of ID cards that uncommon for all that it is deeply flawed and limited in its understanding of both the real debate and the real issues - which is perhaps the best reason of all for doing this as Neil has demonstrated the extent of public misconceptions about ID cards, the debate and, in particular, the opposition’s position and the issues we’re trying to raise.

Will anything I’ve written here change his opinion or that of others who support the introduction of ID cards for markedly the same reasons as those he’s put forward? I don’t know - but hopefully anyone reading this will now be better informed about the real nature of the debate and why, amongst those of us who do opposed this Bill, the opposition is so strong that more than 11,000 of us are prepared - and pledged - to go to prison [including Labour members like myself] rather than submit to a future under an omnipresent database state.

Martin Caton (Gower)
Michael Clapham (Barnsley West & Penistone)
Katy Clark (Ayrshire North and Arran)
Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Paul Flynn (Newport West)
Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow)
Ian Gibson (Norwich North)
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall)
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead & Highgate)
Lynne Jones (Birmingham Selly Oak)
Andy Love (Edmonton)
John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington)
Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway)
Linda Riordan (Halifax)
Clare Short (Birmingham Ladywood)
Alan Simpson (Nottingham South)
Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)
John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan)
Robert Wareing (Liverpool West Derby)
David Winnick (Walsall North)
Mike Wood (Batley & Spen)

Twenty-one of them - the Labour MP’s who voted for freedom and against the creation of the database state tonight.

Thank you.

Update: The number of rebels is being reported in some places as 25, adding:

Diane Abbott (Hackney North & Stoke Newington)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North)
Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe & Nantwich)
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North)
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn)

To the list of those who did the right thing - there does seem some confusion regarding Martin Caton (Gwent) who’s been reported as both voting for and against.

Ken Clarke falls at the first hurdle, despite a bit of movement at the bookies this afternoon which did suggest for a while that a few of Basher Davis’ supporters might have switched to Clarke on a tactical vote to get shot of Fox at the first time of asking.

On the numbers - Davis [62], Cameron [56], Fox [42] and Clarke [38] - Davis’s predicted vote [67] held up despite his poor speech at the Tory conference, leaving Cameron and Fox to fight for the second berth in the members vote. You’d expect most of Clarke’s supporters to swing behind Cameron, unless there’s a major outbreak of ‘Get Davis out’ with Fox’s support also likely to get squeezed by ‘tactical’ switches to Davis by MP’s who reckon that being on the winning side will do their career prospects a bit of good.

So it looks rather like the choice for Tory members is going to be Basher vs the Charlie Kid.

e-Goverment is apparently dead and we should all be getting ready for ‘t-government’ - at least that’s according to e-Government supremo Ian Watmore.

‘t’ in this case, appears to stand for ‘transformation’ which will be at the ‘heart of the government’s new vision and strategy for technology in government to be published in the next couple of weeks’.

Government have a ‘new vision’, a ‘new strategy’ and, of course, a ‘new buzzword’ but what does this all mean?

Yep, you’re right - it means another bunch of consultants have just wandered out the door with a big fat paycheck at taxpayers expense.

It also means that its no coincidence whatsoever that this announcement at the SOCITM conference has been made on the very same day that the ID cards bill gets its third reading as Watmore[fucking overpaid consultants] goes on to rally the troops by telling them them that at the strategy’s core will be three things: putting the customer [us] at the centre of government services, shared services and professionalism, which the Register helpfully points out will mean things like:

“linking the profiles of prisoners set for release to the public services that should provide support for them in their rehabilitation”

…before noting that Watmore went on to say:

“Things like NHS Direct are good, but is only on the margins of what is possible from the NHS. I want to have access to the doctor for diagnosis, and I want the doctor to have access to the latest information about me through the electronic patient record. I want the same to be true for teachers and police. I want the best information in the hands of the frontline public servants.”

So, while the Safety Elephant is misleading parliament and the British people with claims of concessions in the ID cards bill which are, in IT parlance, total ‘vapourware’, Watmore is addressing a conference of governmental ubertechs on the joys and efficiency of creating exactly the kind of all-encompassing data systems that Clark claims won’t exist under the new ID card regime.

First, if there were any doubt, let me point you to this article in The Register which demonstrates exactly how the Safety Elephant’s claim to have fixed the price of an ID card at £30 works - or rather doesn’t work as his assumptions on costs are a long way from being valid.

And now on to meaningless concessions…

Today, according to the Guardian, the Safety Elephant will make a string of ‘concessions’ on the content of the National Identity Register (NIR) which will include a requirement that primary legislation is required to extend the range of data held in the NIR and possibly an outright ban on the inclusive of particularly sensitive identifiers, those which identifiy police and medical records, for example.

All of which is meaningless; it looks like a major concession but it isn’t.

I’ve written several articles on technical aspects of the NIR, particularly the use of information contained in it to cross-link information held in different systems. On the face of it, the Safety Elephant’s concessions might appear to place quite strict limits on that happening - but does it?

No.

In a piece entitled ‘Where the truth becomes a lie‘ I noted:

This, then, is the unstated purpose of the National Identity Register, it acts as an index, and as ’skeleton key’, to locate and unlock a vast range of information about individuals which is held across government and in a wide range of other databases and, indeed, will include from the outset a number of index references - what in database terms are called ‘keys’ - to other systems including your passport and driving licence numbers as your National Insurance Number.

In order, therefore, to link your medical records, or even your criminal record, to the Register its not necessary to store that information in the Register itself, only its location - another database - and the unique identifier - the key - required to identify and isolate your individual records from everyone else’s. And this information can be added to the Register at any time not by Act of Parliament but by secondary legislation, by a statutory instrument which is not, generally, subject to anything like the same degree of scrutiny or debate as a full Act.

And for all the world it looks as if that criticism of the system has been addressed, except that I also noted, later in that same piece:

The third and final deceit regarding the National Identity Register is rather less obvious than the other two yet, in many ways, potentially the intrusive and the most damaging to civil liberties inasmuch as it enables personal information and data to be linked to the Register without anyone even realising it.

In order to locate a specific piece of information in a database you need a ‘unique identifier’, a piece of information held in the database which is unique to that information - and when it comes to identifying information which relates to a specific individual, the Register provides just such a unique identifier, your National Identity Registration Number.

Now, if and/or when ID cards are introduced, one of the pieces of information which will be disclosed to anyone making a request to verify your identity will be your National Identity Registration Number, the number which uniquely identifies you - and once that information has been disclosed there is nothing in the Bill to say how it may then be recorded or used. The only protection, in law, you will have will be via the Data Protection Act which, when it comes to issues of privacy, is far from watertight.

In fact, its highly likely that a wide range of third parties will make use of and record your National Identity Registration Number as a matter of routine - one can envisage from the outset that the financial services industry will be amongst the earliest adopters and that before very long, banks, building societies, credit reference agencies, insurance and pension companies and others will all be tagging every single piece of information they hold with your Registration Number and using that number to exchange information about you an your finances. Once your National Identity Registration Number gets out ‘into the wild’ it can be used for a wide range of purposes outside of those specified in the Bill and with few controls on its use. More often than not, you may not even realise that its being used.

This same principle, that information tagged with the NIR number may be just as easily located and accessed as information tagged with other numbers held on the identity register, such as tax and benefit records which contain a national insurance number, is as true for the use of the NIR by government departments and agencies as it is for the private sector in the examples given above.

It matters not one bit that the Safety Elephant is now ruling out the inclusion of identifiers for police and medical records on the register itself if that that exclusion is not also matched with an equal prohibition against the unregulated and unregistered recording of the National Identity Registration Number (NIRN) in other information systems. Database keys, for that’s what we’re talking about here in technical terms, are a two-way street - if you have someone’s NIRN then you can easily locate information about them in any system which uses the NIRN as an identifier and, as yet, I’ve seen nothing in the legislation which offers any controls over the recording and use of the NIRN either within or outside government.

To paraphrase Tolkein, the National Identity Registration Number is nothing more nor less than:

One Number to rule them all,
One Number to find them,
One Number to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them

Finally, I should mention the new research report ‘Identity Cards: an assessment of awareness and demand for the Identity Cards Scheme’* which the Safety Elephant claims ‘demonstrates strong public support for the scheme’.

* Can’t get the direct link to work, so visit http://www.identitycards.gov.uk/publications.html for the report - it’s the October 2005 report.

And indeed, there in the report it states with confidence that 73% of the public support ID cards, a figure taken from reseach carried out in January/February 2005 and verified by follow-up research in August to take into account any changes in opinion which have arisen in the aftermath of the July attacks on London.

Of course, look more closely at the research and its methodology and things begin to look rather less conclusive.

One obvious problem is the sample size - a mere 983 adults aged 16-75 with an extra 125 parents of children aged 15 in the first study, and only 250 in the second ‘verification’ study - from which the government feel confident in deriving the clear opinion of over 40 million UK citizens.

Second, the research paper does not include a copy of the questionnaire used in the study nor does it address the question of whether participants had any knowledge or understanding of the wider debate around ID cards - in short there is no way to verify what the participants were asked and howand, therefore, no way of assessing how impartial the study may or may not have been.

One interesting point to note is that in explaining the methodology of the first study is states that ‘no specific BME breakdown was included’ - which is interesting enough given that Race Relations Amendment Act 200 places a specific duty on all public bodies, inclusing the government naturally, to consider the impact of any decision on race relations issues - one might reasonably have assumed, post 7/7, that some detailed consideration would have been given in particular to the views of the Muslim community on an issue with such obvious sensitivities as ID cards but evidently not. More to the point, when we come to brief appendix on the August research we find the language has changed - no longer is there ‘no specific BME breakdown’, noe there’s no ‘BME boost’. Presumably this means they made no effort to include more BME participants in the second sample than in the first, which is just as well as they appear not to know how many were included in the first study in anything more than the most general fashion.

Its also noticable that while a quick follow-study of ‘public opinion’ was carried out in August, no repeat study of the views of potential ID verification service users was done - which is just as well for the government as if this report on the views of members of the London Chamber of Commerce is anything to go by, they wouldn’t have got the answers they were looking for.

Irrespective of all this the fact remains that informed opinion amongst those who understand the technology and the detail of the ID cards proposal - outside of government and the biometric data industry which stands to fill its boots with our money if all this goes ahead - remains firmly against the introduction of ID cards for a whole raft of sound and detailed reasons that the government continues to ignore for no other reason than the fact that its not what they want to hear.

Let’s get this absolutely straight, shall we.

At the end of some fairly stiff questioning by Chris Grayling MP at a hearing of the Transport Subcommittee on 14th November 2001, Stephen Byers responded to the following question:

“Was there any discussion, theoretical or otherwise, in your Department before 25 July about the possibility of a future change in status for Railtrack, whether nationalisation, the move into a company limited by guarantee, or whatever?”

With this answer:

“Not that I am aware of.”

The transcript of Byer’s evidence in court in July of this year is as follows.

Keith Rowley, the Railtrack shareholders’ QC (referring to the select committee hearing in November 2001):

Mr Grayling [Conservative MP] asked the question: “Was there any discussion, theoretical or otherwise, in your department before 25th July about the possibility of a future change in status for Railtrack whether nationalisation, the move into a company limited by guarantee or whatever?” Do you see that question?

Stephen Byers: I do.

QC: You see your answer: “Not that I am aware of.”

Byers: Yes.

QC: That answer was untrue, was it not, Mr Byers?

Byers: It is true to say there was work going on, so, yes, that was untrue.

QC: That was untrue?

Byers: It was.

QC: Let me just run through with you - there are doubtless more but these are the most prominent examples of the discussion about the possibility of a future change in status for Railtrack. Within three days of taking office you had requested an options paper on Railtrack, did you not?

Byers: Yes.

QC: And that was supplied by Mr Coulshed on 12th June?

Byers: It was.

QC: Was the meeting on 20th June at which it was agreed that an approach would be made to the Treasury to set up a joint working party between the two departments to consider the future of Railtrack?

Byers: Yes.

QC: You received a further copy of Mr Coulshed’s paper before your first meeting with Mr Robinson. You received Mr Coulshed’s paper again on 26th July. The meeting with Mr Robinson was on 27th July.

Byers: 25th actually.

QC: Sorry, June. Yes, sorry, I have my dates wrong. The briefing paper came to you on 26th June, you met Mr Robinson for the first time on 27th June?

Byers: Yes.

QC: And the briefing paper included Mr Coulshed’s paper on options for Railtrack?

Byers: Yes.

QC: On 29th June you provided a briefing to the prime minister in which you said: “My department, the Treasury and the Policy Directorate are accordingly starting joint work to identify all the possible options for Railtrack.”

Byers: Yes.

QC: The status of the options for Railtrack’s future status were discussed at the stock take on 5th July with the prime minister?

Byers: It was.

QC: On 12th July Mr Hill sent his email to Mr Rowlands that we spent some time over yesterday, in which you expressed the view that you were keen to make quick progress on options for Railtrack. Do you remember seeing that email?

Byers: Yes, I do.

QC: Amidst that welter of documentation you could not possibly have believed that the answer you gave to Mr Grayling was true, could you?

Byers: I accept this is not an accurate statement.

QC: It was deliberately not an accurate statement, was it not, Mr Byers?

Byers: It was such a long time ago, I cannot remember, but it is not a truthful statement and I apologise for that. I cannot remember the motives behind it.

So Byers ‘inadvertantly’ mislead the committee when he claimed to be unaware of:

An options paper on the future of Railtrack that he commissioned; which he received [in presumably a draft form] on June 12th; on the basis of which he agreed to approach the Treasury with a view to setting up a joint working party on June 20th, provided a briefing to the Prime Minister about on June 29th and turned the screw on his staff to push ahead and make progress on July 12th - all before the 25th July, the date to which Grayling’s question related.

Presumably this was ‘inadvertant’ in the same sense as revealed in court, i.e. because he couldn’t think of a better excuse that ‘I can’t remember why I did it’.

About the only thing that seems to be missing here is the ‘Saunders Defence’* from the Guinness trial - Sorry M’lud I have Alzheimer’s…

Oh, sorry, the bit I want explained…

How is any this possibly - and without relying on semantic trickery - not lying?

*After having his five year sentence for conspiracy to contravene section 13(1)(a)(i) of the Prevention of Fraud (Investments) Act 1958, false accounting and theft reduced to two and half years, of which he served 10 months in Ford Open Prison, on the grounds of his illness, Saunders made a complete ‘recovery’ claiming his ‘illness’ was due to a ‘cocktail of sleeping tablets and tranquilisers he’d been prescribed’… and went on to work as a business consultant for, amongst others, Carphone Warehouse.

“A woman has been arrested in Dundee after acting suspiciously in the harbour area of the city. Well, I say acting suspiciously, what she was doing was walking on a cycle path.” [ Curious Hamster]

So the lesson here is when in Dundee, get on your bike - Norman Tebbit would be so proud.