Accenture and BAE pull out of ID card project

high tech library card project flounders?

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.

If Only...

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."

Non compulsory ID cards, windows without bugs and unicorns

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.

No Comment...

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

Hurry up with growing organs in a lab

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!

Two issues

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.

Cost to Shops ?

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?

Money

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.

Bring in the experts

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.)

Fujitsu Services ...

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

@nickj

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.

Probably not in Scotland

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.'

:)

Return of the King!

....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!

Bank passbook model.

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 two Mikes re: losing your rights.

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/

Cost to Shops?

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?

2012 is shaping up to be a vintage year

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?

IBM

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

Typical government blunders

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.

How to target the yoof?

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.

@AC - Why?

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

Wht people had identity cards in Europe

...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?