Big Brothers

"NEVER BELIEVE anything until it's been officially denied." So ran the famous line from Yes, Minister, written 25 years ago, and still as perfectly topical and deadly accurate as it ever was.

Last fall, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the British government eventually denied it was considering introducing a national ID card scheme. From that moment the graffiti ought to have been plain on the wall, and now here we are: with Home Secretary David Blunkett announcing this week that he'd like an ID card that people must produce in order to prove their entitlement to state benefits. You know, small stuff like access to the health service, education, and state payouts.

Today's USP of choice: it will cut down on fraud, which taxpayers are paying for.

Of course, there is the small matter of the fact that taxpayers would also be paying for the national ID cards, which estimates put at £1 billion to establish ( See Daily Telegraph) That's a lot of fraud. For comparison, the 2000 National Fraud Initiative report found £41 million worth of fraud against local councils in 1998 ( Here), its 2002 report (covering 2000) is due out later this year. The government's own estimates ( here) say that benefit fraud costs the country £2 billion a year.

Given those figures, £1 billion in start-up costs may not sound so bad: spend a lot at the beginning and then the thing will tick over nicely making back its cost in the first year. Plus, there's all those ancillary things we can throw in, like saving £55 million a year on paper driving licences. Has no one in government ever worked with computers? Has no one in government ever noticed that large computer projects generally run way over budget, take twice as long to complete as they are supposed to, and have a shocking rate of failure. This would be a very large computer project, involving integrating probably incompatible systems from such diverse sources as the NHS, Inland Revenue, DVLA, and the DSS. Integrated biometrics. Photographs. Smart chips.

You can see from the way things have developed that in reality the desire to have ID cards - and a card that is required for access to such a wide range of benefits is clearly a national ID card in all but name - has nothing to do with cutting benefit fraud. Last fall the raison du jour was to combat terrorism, which the government eventually conceded national ID cards wouldn't do effectively. There is just something about integrated databases - which of course must back any national ID card system - that ineffably draws government officials in.

Perhaps it's the mirage of perfect order available only to those who have never actually worked with computerised databases and the illusion of control.

The software engineer and essayist Ellen Ullman has a different explanation. In her wonderful 1997 book, Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents ( here), which ought to be much better known than it is, she blames the computer systems for infecting the humans. There is something in technological systems that poisons people into wanting to merge databases and use them to check up on people just because the technology allows them to do it.

No one can fault Blunkett's timing, however. His consultation document canvassing public opinion, due "this spring" is perfect to qualify him for a nomination in the "Worst Public Servant" category of the Big Brother Awards ( here), due to be announced on March 4 and presented at the LSE.

Other nominations for this year's awards so far include Sir Richard Wilson (Blunkett's competition for Worst Public Servant), the head of the Cabinet Office who recently threatened to repeal the Data Protection Act because Lord Ashcroft had used it to gain access to his personal files. In Most Heinous Government Organization, the Department of Education and Skills is under consideration for requiring students to include full identifying information on the national schools census forms. In the Most Invasive Company category, the Countryside Alliance has been nominated for registering with the Information Commissioner to collect and hold an immense range of sensitive personal information.

Further nominations for the awards can be sent to this address in all categories: Worst Public Servant; Most Invasive Company; Most Appalling Project; Most Heinous Government Organisation; and Lifetime Menace, and also for the Winston awards, which celebrate those who have contributed to safeguarding individual privacy. Though get on it quickly: the judges (of whom I am one) meet next week. Past Winston winners include Caspar Bowden of the Foundation for Information Policy Research ( here); Lord Cope, the conservative peer who got rid of the worst excesses of the proposed Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act; and the journalist Duncan Campbell for his work exposing the existence of Echelon. Anyone wanting to attend the presentation should email for tickets.

As for national ID cards, it seems like the best deterrent to the politicans who will be voting on the scheme is to follow another maxim from Yes, Minister, and quote the four words that deter politicians from adopting a scheme: expensive, complicated, lengthy, and controversial. National ID cards - even if they're billed as "entitlement" cards are all four of those. And introducing them would be the worst of all: COURAGEOUS.

Previous Columns
The Sound of Money
Battle of the titans
By any other name
Creative Accounting
Dumber people can run Windows
2001 in review
Care in the community
Remembrance of postings past
BT's Stupid Patent Tricks
Preserving our freedoms
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Net is the mother of re-invention
Save the Cookie
Digital rights and the new era of world terrorism

Wendy M. Grossman, whose Web site is pelicancross ing.net, is author of From Anarchy to Power: the Net Comes of Age (NYU Press, 2001), net.wars (NYU Press, 1998), and the Daily Telegraph A-Z Guide to the Internet (Macmillan, 2001). She can be reached at this email address.

Copyright on all articles published in the INQUIRER is hers.