The LSE Identity Project welcomes the publication of the May 2008 s37 Cost Report and the further insights it provides to the current plans for the introduction of a National Identity Scheme following from the Delivery Plan issued in March 2008. 

The report explicitly acknowledges the decision to drop the use of iris biometrics, with the Scheme relying solely on fingerprints and face biometrics to uniquely identify every person on the National Identity Register.  In order to meet the deadline of the first identity cards being issued to British Citizens in 2009, the Scheme will now have a ‘twin track’ delivery approach with a small number of people enrolled on a temporary National Identity Register from 2009 and the majority of the UK population only starting to be enrolled into the full Scheme from 2012/13.

The report notes that, “as previously indicated” the fee for an ID card in 2009 and 2010 will be “£30 or less”.  To achieve this, the cost report notes a reduction in the total cost of the Scheme of £975million, based on a reduced cost of “replacing the current passport application system” and reduction in costs to the Home Office following a decision to provide fingerprint and photograph biometrics “through the open market”.  (There is also a financial cost associated with meeting the 2009 deadline for the first UK Identity Cards as the report notes an increase in the costs of issuing biometric ID cards and fingerprints arising from the twin track approach to roll out).

Dr Edgar A. Whitley of the LSE Identity Project says “It is worrying that the only way that the government can still keep to its initial promise that an identity card will only cost £30, despite two major cost reduction revisions to the Scheme, is by effectively excluding the biometric enrolment element from the Scheme.  At a time when we are told we should feel confident that our identity data will be kept securely, because it will be linked to our biometrics, the government is proposing that the collection of this biometric data should be left to the open market.  Presumably this means that grocery stores and post offices will be encouraged to set up biometric enrolment kiosks, with little financial gain to them unless the citizen is charged.  Ensuring adequate security in such environments will be challenging.  Thus, while the headline costs of the Scheme to the government go down, the costs and risks to the citizen rise.  This is not what Parliament was led to expect and causes us to question how this version of the Scheme will offer greater benefits than existing identity assurance measures”.

A more detailed response to the report will be published by the LSE Identity Project shortly. For LSE research and reports on identity policy please see http://identityproject.lse.ac.uk