is non-compulsory unless you want to save your money or get some higher education?

Wow! A couple of the usual suspects walk away from possible £billion contracts? The only way they would do this is that the high tech library card project, as is suggested by the blog, is still so undefined that they would be exposed to huge penalties no matter what was delivered in the end.

Who would have believed it.

The UK population had the option to "pull out of the ID card project"....!!!!

"Anyone wanting to open a bank account, apply for student funding or buy alcohol or cigarettes will be forced to buy an ID card."

But they're not compulsary, right?

"In order to serve you better, please bend over and drop your trousers, or we'll be forced to beat you with iron bars."

Just wait until the govt starts waving money - they'll all be buzzing around like flies over a **** Until there's any prospect of that, there's no project, so no reason to be involved.

The government don't know what they want, ill defined flaky or too wide a scope is why every single one of these projects loose money in the end.

Acn pulled out of the NHS for exactly the same reasons, and it appears have learnt their lesson; the down side is that it leaves the rest of those muppets less competition and a clear path to uncle fuck up.

Let's hope IBM get some backing as I don't fancy a scheme implemented by FJS, CSC, or the Frenchies.

Any how, back to work now to waste some more time on an ill-conceived and poorly managed government it contract...

The terrorists will be simply incapable of operating now. Either they will be unable to sign-up for student funding or open a new bank account (unthinkable to a terrorist) or they will have to get an ID card. And once they have the ID card, the card will report any suspicious behaviour (carrying 101ml of liquid around for example) to the police who will immediately arrest them and hold them without charge for 37 years.

Rejoice! Rejoice! We have won the war on terror!

What a complete and utter waste of money. This was always going to be forced down people's throats and the (possibly unconfirmed but hardly suprising) points noted in this article just confirm how they'll start it. First poor students then next it'll be that any workers can't receive payslips, drivers can't buy petrol etc. without the cards.

This was a bad idea from the start and none of the current jokers within any political [circus] party within the UK could manage to implement such a scheme without it becomming another ballsed-up, over-run-into-millions-of-pounds-of-debt I.T. project we're so used to hearing of. Need I remind anyone of all the recent other data protection fiascos/give-aways the goverment has performed recently?? This was always a pathetic, disqusting project and a complete waste of taxpayers money.

Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!

Jeez, if Accenture and BAE are running away from this project this early in the lifecycle then things must be really, really bad inside there. This is the equivalent of pikeys refusing to tarmac your drive.

Will any other contractor be daft enough to step into the breach? How much with the Government have to increase the TCV by to tempt someone back in?

This will be fascinating to watch...

That IBM dont get involved, they stayed well away from the NHS debacle, I dont even think they put in a proposal.

The government will want some kind of Fixed Price contract, and no sane vendor will want to touch it. Accenture got burned in the NHS one, and probably won't fancy it again. It cost them a lot of money and credibility in the market place

I've got direct experience with 3 of the remaining bidders' software teams. God help us...

Today if I loose my wallet no problem, get new cards ordered.

2012 if I loose my biometric ID card, I'll have to order new eyeballs/retinas and fingerprints to prevent identity theft. That sukz!

Accenture are pussies, they chickened out of the NHS fiasco as well. Whatever happened to the Corinthian spirit? Do or Die? We didn't build an empire by just walking away from piles of wonga, you know.

Accenture, if I remember correctly, were given something like £19m to set up the system for paying EU subsidies to farmers. They completely cocked it up, causing untold misery for hundreds of farmers, and their reward was they got paid another £19m or so to fix the mess THEY CREATED.

They must really not have their act together if they're unable to grab a slice of this particular pie.

Remember that Accenture is in fact Arthur Andersen, them that were largely responsible for the American accounting scandals a few years back. Accenture managed to change their name and sneak out of the building before it collapsed. Really, every single story on Accenture should have a line saying "Accenture is the consulting arm of Arthur Andersen, the auditors to Enron."

With regards to the big services companies still bidding, don't forget that they'll still get to sitkc their snouts in a big fat trough, and gorge themselves stupid, whatever the ultimate fate of ID cards is. So don't expect too many of them to give up chasing those contracts.

As regards ID cards themselves, I'm now convinced they'll not happen, at least not in any obvious fashion, simply because this government is now fighting an ongoing war to keep level-pegging, let alone ahead, of the conservatives in the polls.

There's a general election due in a year or two, and they simply CANNOT afford to pursue anything that might cost them votes: and ID cards most definitely WILL.

Don't assume that the companies that win the contract will actually come out ahead. I was involved is a $1bn Banking project that IBM won, charged us ever increasing amounts and still lost money on.

Surely this is a job for Crapita? I suppose EDS will do, at a pinch, though...

(Paris, because even she would do a better job.)

Ive not known a Government IT Procurement project thats actually worked or delivered what it says on the tin,

lets hope just hope this nightmare never happens.

70% of big IT projects are considered failures; however when you move into goverment space that percentage kicks up significantly and even though the contracts are potentially billion-dollar moneymakers the risk is just too high. BAE and ACN have made the right decision, particularly in light of the fact that the ID card has conflicting and unachievable aims.

On another note. Spleen, Accenture were not part of Arthur Andersen. They were Andersen Consulting, which split from AA in the dim and distant days of 1989. As part of the international arbitration started by CEO Shaheen they were forced to change their name well before the Enron debacle. Get your facts right.

I like their strategy. They are going to give them to the people who either can't, or haven't yet had the opportunity to vote on the matter.

How will the bank account bit work? A child can have a bank account so what are the banks going to do, close all accounts when you turn 13? 17? or are the rules just going to be you aren't allowed an over draft unless you have a (non-compulsorary) id card?

So each and every establishment which sells alcohol and tobacco will be forced to install ID card readers which will have to be used to determine if the person buying the goods has the same biometric characteristics as the person on the ID card?

1) who's paying for all these thousands of machines, which will all have to be put in place when the first card is issued?

2) who's providing the training for all the thousands of shop staff (including part-time students)?

3) how are cigarette vending machines going to cope?

Spleen - Accenture were Anderson Consulting which was a seperate legal entity from Anderson the accounting firm long before the name change. Furthermore, the at the time, each country operation of Anderson Consulting was a stand alone unit and it was not until just before the name change that they formed one global organisation.

I'm no lover of Accenture but don't tar them with Enron - there's plenty of stuff they did do which you can have a go at them over. While you're at it though, why not take a look at the Government which insisted on moving the majority of Accenture consultants to Leeds for the NHS project - thus costing the taxpayer millions. The consultants didn't want to leave friends and family in London so they had to be persuaded with promotions, allowances and all manner of cajoling.

The tories have already said theyd simply scrap the id card anyway. Seems like a decent enough reason to vote for them instead of their clones.

... have learned surprisingly little, then, about how badly they can fcuk up public sector projects.

Just a little reminder that this probably won't be happening in Scotland - the incumbent SNP are using ID Cards as a stick to beat the Westminster Parliament with (along with student loans and police pay).

http://www.snp.org/press-releases/2007/scotland-has-stronger-protections-on-civil-liberties/view?searchterm=id%20cards

I can see the policy line now... 'A vote for Scottish independence is a vote for freedom.'

:)

We didn't get where we are today by doing a half-arsed job, pocketing the profits and legging it before the customer noticed.

Once we had craftsmen. Now we've got marketing.

....EDS will be win, once the government punished tehm by taking all their gov.uk contracts from tehm and then relalised, CSC,FJS and Frenchies were no better than the Texan Cowboys it will be their turn again.....

then i can go back rengotiate my old job back with better terms and conditions, not to mention extra holiday allowances, shoudl see me nicely through to the first wave of voluntary reducnies and a good payout 3/4 of the way though the contract!

http://www.ips.gov.uk/identity/downloads/2007-05-11National-Identity-Scheme-Procurement-Briefing-May2007.pdf

IBM did bid for the NHS contracts and in fact were in the last two for consideration, but couldn't get a proof of concept working where Sun did (and probably now wish they didn't).

Shouldn't Crapita be on the list. Seems they'd be the ideal company to totally screw this up for the Government, based on their track record to date.

Can't we get these people sectioned? They're obviously deranged and a threat to the public.

I can understand why Accenture needed to withdraw. Apparently, when they lose data, it’s ‘unfathomable’.

http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?Q=395426&A=2791

This isn’t in keeping with the British way of losing personal information, where it should always be possible to follow it with a Simpsonesque ‘d’oh!’ of resigned inevitability.

Absolutely so, and not just that, but your right to travel abroad will be denied you because you won't be allowed to get a passport without giving up your data for the national identity register.

At which point no2id and other campaign groups will be launching a bunch of human rights cases in the courts, and it's hard to see how it wouldn't be an open and shut case :-)

Join no2id and/or take the pledge now!

http://www.no2id.net/pledge/

Holding data in an id card is exactly the same pattern as the old savings bank/post office passbook systems where you carried a book with your transactions and balance scribbled inside.

You dont see many of those around anymore!

Id cards holding anything other than a reference number will suffer all the same problems.

Synchronisation -- you have an eye injury how do you update the card?

Tampering -- from the simplest microfine adjustment with a hammer (sorry gov it was working yesterday - can I go through anyway) to all the documented hacks and attacks that RFIDs are prone too, plus whatever attacks are discovered in the next 20 years.

Loss -- replacing a lost card is going to be a long tedious process -- and -- probably the best way to get yourself a genuine fake id.

Added to this you have the problem of issueing 60,000,000 of the f***rs in the space of a few years. This may of course be done by highly paid, well trained specialists who will diligently double check every ones documents to ensure they do not issue any false cards, on the other hand, it may be done by civil servents.

This government has been in power too long -- its time to give the monster raving looney party a chance.

The theoretical answers are as follows:

1) A card reader isn't necessary. The government envisions believes that something like 90% of card presentations will be purely visual, which won't create a lucrative counterfeiting industry at all.

2) Training? Training? What gives you the idea that there will be training? That a spotty 17 year old has been given the legal right to see your ID card when you buy a bottle of whisky at Somerfield is sufficient. Surely?

3) Cigarette vending machines are in the process of being banned at the moment and pubs will be back to selling fags over the counter, accompanied by a ten page questionnaire about why you should be allowed to buy them and a quick flash of a fake ID card. So that's all right then.

Steve has hit the nail on the head. The cards themselves are completely pointless. If shops, banks and other establishments have the facilities to obtain a person's biometrics then surely they can be checked against the government's super on-line mega-database rather than against a silly bit of plastic that can be forged?

In 2012 we can expect: a partially implemented ID card system that doesn't work; transport and other chaos because of the Olympics not being ready on time; and televison stopping working as the digital switchover falls on its arse.

Smiley face icon -- musn't grumble, eh?

Imagine this...........

The run up to the next election.

Knock. Knock. "I'm your local MP & I want you to vote for me in the forthcoming election."

"Prove it. Show me your ID card."

"I haven't got one - I'm your MP"

"F#ck off then"

Was it not IBM that was involved with the central register in Germany in the 1930's? Who says history teaches us nothing....

This is just typical

Government contracts go like this :-

UK.Gov: Weve got no idea what we want but its a bit like this.

Vendors: Ok, well for us to deliver that it will be £10bn.

Uk.Gov: we need it to cost £5bn, and erm we actually want it to do this now.

Vendors:mmmm ok, but thats really gonna cost £7bn but we will see what we can do.

Uk.Gov: great. Now can we do this with it too, we've heard on the radio its really neat. someone has said make sure it is secure too.

Sensible vendors: Do you know what, keep your money we are going to let you fuck this up on your own.

Moneygrabbing vendors: tell you what lets offer you a retainer, £5bn a year for 10 years and another £1bn for project management.

Uk.Gov: We've got project management we can save £1bn there....

Moneygrabbing vendors: ok, sign here for the £5.5bn a year for 20 years.

uk.gov: woohoo, only .5bn over budget......

UK.taxpayer: sigh.

mmmmm Why can MS just charge say £100 for initlal purchase and say £25 per year after that, same as AV and just about everybody else does. That way they could build on the strengths and fix the weaknesses of the OS.

Why do we have to have a full new OS, and all the attentand heartache with upgrading and bugs every few years?

Oh and why the heck were AMD and Intel allowed to produce 64 bit CPU way before there was an operating system ready for them. And why the heck did AMD and Intel not kick the likes of MS in the balls and tell them to get it sorted before releasing the x64s?

http://www.thomas-associates.co.uk/The%20Price%20of%20Freedom%202004.ppt

slide 5.

...Started with the mass conscript arrmies of the 19th century, and the detailed mobilisation plans. The needed toi know where everyone was, so that they could put millions of young men on the railway trains to their deaths.

In the Nazi era, the same system of routinely recording changes of address gives us a lot of evidence for the Holocaust.

So why do they really want ID cards? What war are they planning to fight?

How do we get teens to take this up when they couldn't care less so when they're whiny old middle agers they're already on file? Think 21 -- harass the yoof so it's easier to just get the damn thing.

You don't even have to be that young to be asked for photo ID under Think 21, but if you don't have a driver's licence what do you use? You don't take your passport out drinking unless you know Paris is going to be there and you're really hopeful that she'll take you on a whirlwind trip of the real one.

And you don't normally take your passport with you to buy spoons or a quick disposable razor.

And once it's done, you can't really start complaining about the BIG PROJEKT now they've already got your data. Cunning plan.

The first part of your post is wrong as well - that cock up was due mainly to the RPA deciding to completely change the scope of the system half way through the project.

dont assume that just because the SNP doesnt want ID cards, that it wont happen.

While the exec may put a stop to it out of a desire to appear independant - they will probably create a scheme like this in future. If for nothing else to prevent things like NHS tourism.

Can't we give the ID card project to the Mormons?

They're obsessed with collecting data about everyone who's ever lived so that we can all be baptised into the church of latterday wacky - and they're somewhat less disturbing than Ross Perot's EDS.

I think you'll find there was an OS available to run on the 64-bit CPUs very early on, wasn't it called Linux or something like that?

D

IBM has provable links with the holocaust, check out-

IBM 'dealt directly with Holocaust organisers'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,675727,00.html

IBM and the holocaust

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

the book can be found on various BT sites too.

Ihre IBM Papieren, bitte!

<- Big Blue logo combined with swastika

Alas, Scotland beat the rest of us to it. The Scottish national entitlement card for pensioners, to get their bus travel etc, is in fact a much more broad based affair, and is though by some to be a prototype National ID Card.

There is a difficulty with ID cards at present which is called Northern Rock.

Since UK PC was prevented in "investing" in Iraq after the last invasion, it has been necessary to devise schemes whereby the banks can continue to create credit in the quantities they would like, and to reap the rewards of such "risk-taking". The average Briton is about brimful on personal debt. The PPI/PFI scam has been worked. Railways have had huge "safety" investment (but trains still keep coming off the tracks). IT projects have multiplied, and cost overruns are coughed up for. The limiting factors are (a) some bankers realise you have to feed the horse or it drops dead, (b) HMG gets embarrassed if you stare at it for too long. You only need look at the LSE cost estimates to see the ID card scheme is just brilliant for extracting money from taxpayers - the Mother of All Extractors (the Father being "defence"). It doesn't really matter who has ID cards, where you have to produce them, whether they work, whether they are safe (from the banks pov, at any rate - from the cardholders pov the risks are plain scary to all but simpletons), what colour they are, etc as long as all the "stakeholders" sound serious about it. And you have to admit they hadn't been doing too bad a job. It was all still looking hunky dory, until Northern Rock.

There is a story for the future - whether NR became the secret dump for toxic financial instruments in 2007H2. (The how is hardly interesting). Right now the HMG chickens are desperately scratching in the dungheap to find their heads, having removed them in that immediate panic to end the sight of depositors queuing to withdraw their money. The nationalisation option is last and least not from preferrence but because HMG is constrained by pantomime IMF rules of accounting which would trigger massive and vote-losing public spending cutbacks (read: end of jobs for the boys and girls). It will try to avoid that because of Factor B above. It also knows no buyer for NR is going to wait 25 years before sweating the assets or simply flogging them, and the indemnities will be taken up. NR has scuppered the lovely little ID card plan for taking monies out of the pockets of the public by being the elephant in 11 Downing St. There is no way either to gerrymander out of its predicament. ID cards to solve the Northern Rock problem -anyone?

HMG to play then. Banks to win. Taxpayers to pay.

We have governments (US is trying it too) to force universal ID's on us, but they are bound and determined to make it so insecure that it won't work when you need it (other people will steal your identity), and use the cards against you when you don't want it (false arrests based on it). Meanwhile, I still can't make a secure online transaction!

Every waitress I give my credit card to has the ability to copy the number, as does every online merchant. What I really want, and would be happy to buy (if it existed), would be an RSA based, time-coded, single transaction authorization device, that worked via bluetooth or USB, that could cryptographically sign transactions, and require *my* thumbprint or a passcode to operate. It should work with your home PC, as well as your neighbors, or a POS terminal, or sporting event or whatever.

It would be completely secure, opt in, and totally private, and I've been wanting one for years. Yet credit card companies still loose billions per year to fraud, and the government is still complaining about weak identification cards, and every store I go to gives me their own stupid magstrip card to stick in my wallet. Worse yet this technology has been possible for years, and still isn't available. Arg.

"what I really want, and would be happy to buy (if it existed), would be an RSA based, time-coded, single transaction authorization device, that worked via bluetooth or USB, that could cryptographically sign transactions,"

AMex blue card. You get a special card reader and every trans action use a uniuqe

number that is not your CC number . that unique number is whats use to buy stuff with. Its all based on the chip embedded in the CC. I don't see to many people use it here in the states .

You poms are pretty good at whinging, but you know you'll allow them to do anything.

When was the last time you held a cabinet minister to account?

Mind you, all western democracies have the problem... If we get the governments we deserve, maybe we are all vermin?

Its all gone down hill since women got the vote. They couldn't help it, poor things...

Look at your post, if you used to program for EDS no wonder there were so many bugs in the software! Sorry to be a pedant but if you can’t spell properly then how on earth do you manage to write any working software? Of course you could have been joking and just forgot to use the joke icon?

... in mind of the Siemens Asylum Project at the Home Office years ago. That was ill-defined too and the project kept changing resulting in the whole thing being canned. And Brown calls Hain "incompetent"? They're ALL incompetent. Politics must be the only hem hem profession where you can hold High Office with no experience of anything at all.

They are not late implementing the full scheme, I suspect that they will miss out the intermediary phase which includes a card, and go directly for the RFID implant.

The ultimate aim of this system is not to enable you to prove who you are, but to switch off any dissenter's chip and freeze them out of society.

The whole purpose of operations like the welfare state, income tax, dumbed-down education schemes, permanent overseas wars, terrorism and i.d. systems is to achieve the goal of total authoritarian control of the masses.

Years ago it was fairly easy to exercise control; transport was difficult and the church controlled the proles through the use of the moral upper hand. After all, what is the church, other than a bunch of politicians in rather fetching frocks?

Once travel became cheaper and people won the vote... something had to be done, and the ensuing control systems (and any fiuture systems) are for this purpose, even though they are sold on some other basis, like universal health or pension schemes. Otherwise, after sixty years of the "farewell state", the gap between rich and poor would be nominal, whereas it is wider than ever.

The Nazi and Soviet operations were simply the same ideas, rushed through by over zealous dictators, jumping the gun.

Q: What is the difference between government and mafia?

A: Nothing.

First there's the voluntary blocking of file sharers, the if nothing's voluntary is put in place they will pass a new law.

Then there's the voluntary ID cards

and don't forget the voluntary work that the conservatives want the unemployed to do.

I think I'll by my mp a copy of the OED for xmas.

Youn think sun have the NHS contract? What planet are you on? It seems quite clear that no-one here knows the score, the NHS contract is actually covered by several, for north/south and for different software implementations, there is no governing contractor as such, appart from the NHS. AND, the trusts and practises involved don't even have obligation to take up the proposed services anyway.

So what would you have us do? Continue using stand alone DBs and app packs for each individual trust, that were rolled out in the early 80s? Or try and conglomerate old and new systems and have the ability to share information, automate buerocratic processes ect.

It really anoys me when everyone jumps on the flame waggon without knowing a single fact other than what they've read in the daily telegraph.

HELLO MY NAME IS MR R.B. WIGGLYWOB. I HAVE $547 BILLION DOLLARS IN A BANK ACCOUNT BELONGNG TO A GOVERNMENT WHO HAS ALMOST DIED.

FOR YOU TO GET THIS MONEY I NEED YOU TO SNED YOUR NAME PHONE NUMBER AND DETAILS OF THE AN IDENTIFY CARD SYSTEM TO ME.

THEN I WILL ARRANGE THE DELIVERY OF THE MONNEYS..

YOU WILL NEED YOUR OWN SHOVEL AND WHEELBARROW TO TAKE THE MONEY OFF TRANSPORTATION.

THE ADVANTAGE TO YOU IS YOU NEVER NEED TO DELVER THE REAL IDENTIFY CARD SCHEME BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT WILL BE DEAD BEFORE THEY CAN MAKE IT REAL.

PLEASE REPLY TO MY EMAIL ADDRESS :

PRY-MINISTER@UK.GOV.SCAMMER.COM

given the enormous number of cock-ups EDS has managed to pull off in recent years the old adage "no-one ever got sacked for buying IBM" is even more pertinent here.

How many times have "cabinet reshuffles" happened due to EDS' complete incompetence with matters relating to IT?

So gov, if you're gonna impose ID cards, at least buy them from someone with a modicum of capability in delivering projects and a history of doing so, rather than the one who puts in the 15 grand bid with a "no questions asked" and a "you ain't seen me... right" clause, later to find that the questions get asked and the budget went up considerably as a result.

So once you've got your ID card you'll be able to use it for

Music Downloads

Lottery Ticket purchases

Rail and Underground travel

plus discounts at a number of high street stores

a reduction in your house purchasing costs

and special ID card holder only entry to the Led Zep tour of 2012

Now form an orderly queue - you know you need one (two)

ID cards? No way before the next election - anyone who pushes *that* idea seriously is going to lose many, many deposits! (and quite rightly imho). And after that, I suspect it'll get quietly dropped, always struck me as Bliar's idea.

@Karl Latimer(@uk.ibm.com?) "How many times have "cabinet reshuffles" happened due to EDS' complete incompetence with matters relating to IT?"

Name one please? Just because you work for It's (still) Being Mended that's no reason to post an advert for your employer - it's so immodest, sheesh! And don't try painting them as a paragon of virtue - they have their share of screw ups too.

Personally I'd like to see none of CSC, EDS, IBM etc get it - leave it in the hands of the civil service. They'll commitee it to death and then we'll have the civil service unions whinging that they need (a) more members and (b) each member needs a double digit pay rise to make up for the extra work and the resulting stress.

So the whole thing'll be so expensive that it'll never happen. Although I live in Scotland, so it'll not happen here (or in Wales) anyway. :D

Couple of points, IBM pulled out of the NHS deal because it was obviously a hiding to nothing. Quite amusingly, during recent dealings with BT for another government contract they seem to think their work at NHS has been a great success story...

Re: Id cards, at recent ID card fact finding meetings, Accenture sent graduates fresh out of uni who asked a number of off the wall questions, such as whether IPS thought the cards should be available in different designs to make them appeal to young people!

Seems like a waste of time to me, the technology is already available for pets, just add rfid to the chips and cards become unecessary, just a little scratch, or could be issued by doctors under the guise of panademic prevention, simply add a bar code tattoo, oh wait a minute, I think somebody else thought of the last idea about 70 years ago....

With the exception of knowing that my taxes will rise through the roof, the ID card price will be so high that you'll have to go without food/gas/leccy etc for a few months to buy it, I'm not too worried.

Just as soon as the first 9 year old school girl is arrested by an armed response team in the middle of her school winterval (it's not a nativity!) play for being the UK's fund raiser for Al Q (hey the biometrics match) it will all start to crumble.

Of course by this time every single bit of data about everyone in the UK will be in the hands of identity fraudsters, spammers, telemarketers and that creepy guy who wanders around your town talking to no one and singing at the top of his voice (yes even your town has one).

Look on the bright side, once ID cards have proven to be unworkable they can move onto barcodes on the back of the neck and implanted chips.

Woohoo! I should have left the country by then!

"But if you don't get one of our non-compulsory ID cards, you'll have to rescind your citizenship, you evil terrorist type you."

Stick your citizenship up your arse! Canada HO!