Murdoch Mactaggart

Dorset, UK

Writer

As David Taylor effectively, and rightly, points out a card holding biometric data simply asserts that the person presenting the card is the person presenting the card. Granted such cards would presumably not be self-certified any more than, say, passports but they would suffer from exactly the same limitations. Passports are routinely forged and are of no security use whatever in serious situations; exactly the same considerations would apply to a localised biometric ID card except that there would be even more incentive to forge it and this would lead to increased identity theft and inconvenience to such victims.

The alternate version, backed up by a central database, is equally absurd although here it's because the idea of accurately managing a complex database of some 60 million people for the UK is risible. Recent attempts such as the credits fiasco or the NHS computerisation debacle give a taste of what would happen in reality. Why should this even more elaborate and difficult project work?

Too many in govenment and the security services fail to understand that technology doesn't solve social and political problems, useful though it may be as a component. And the second point they, sadly, don't understand is that far better security comes from linking together individual small, manageable elements of security rather than trying to build a mammoth and inevitably rickety construction. Ockham's Razor applies well here as elsewhere.

Biometrics can work excellently in limited domains, particularly of known users and backed by other relevant data but as a kind of grand catch-all it fails, as test after test has shown and despite the propaganda of the vendors involved.

The only consequence of deployment of biometric ID cards whether centrally linked or stand-alone will be to increased cost and inconvenience to individuals while simultaneously worsening, not improving, national security.