Identity Cards Bill

There is some good news in the amendment: it seems that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and others who support the amendment no longer have any major concerns over the principles of the introduction of the system of national identity cards. If not, we would not have moved so far. The concern expressed in the amendment is the cost of implementing ID cards. I am a technologist; I have a huge laboratory where we carry out image analysis and scanning. We are also experienced in implementing big IT systems throughout the world. The new clause could only be supported for one of two reasons—either the project is of such tremendous complexity that the Government have to be protected from getting lost in a technological maze, or it is potentially so costly that the Government have to be able to monitor costs so that they do not spiral out of control. Today we are being asked to believe that the project of modernising our system of passports to incorporate biometric measures and to expand their coverage to ID cards for the 20 per cent of the population who do not have passports is so hugely complex that the Government cannot be trusted to carry it out without the most zealous financial oversight. It is, after all, just a marginal cost. The system has to be there. First, let us consider the technology. Most of the technology behind any system of biometric ID card implementation is far from new. Most of the tools of biometric recognition—fingerprints, facial or irises—have been in use for many years. The technology behind image recognition has been there for the past 30 or 40 years. We are not travelling blind when it comes to using this technology. In the United States, the FBI has the largest biometric database in the world in its Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It contains the fingerprints and corresponding criminal history information for more than 47 million subjects in the Criminal Master File. It may be the wrong example to give, but I want to demonstrate the scale. The system provides automated fingerprint search facilities, latent search capability, electronic image storage and electronic exchange of fingerprints and responses 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The speed of retrieval is obviously determined by the technology of implementation. Today, the most recent of these technologies—iris recognition—is being used in Afghanistan for identification purposes. I am sure that all Members of the Committee are very aware that Afghanistan is not renowned for being at the forefront of the use of high technology. There are many IT systems in operation or in development many times more complex than the proposed ID card system. The upgrade of the national air traffic system had some minor glitches at the outset—which of course our press loved—but it is now working extremely well. This year, our national air traffic control system will control all traffic movements over the United Kingdom and the eastern part of the northern Atlantic.  It will ensure the safety of some 2 million aircraft movements, carrying some 180 million passengers. Another example is the supercomputer at the Met Office, which has been very successfully implemented. New massive computer systems collecting and modelling huge amounts of complex data work. It does not make the headlines if they work. It is the ones with problems, such as some in the public sector, which get reported. There is nothing hugely complex or difficult about the data collection or the management system that a national ID card system will entail. So what about the cost? Biometric forms of identification are coming. The US is already well down the road and Canada is not far behind. And only this month, the European Union announced that by 2008, the use of biometric data will be included in all passports issued by member states. The technology of image acquisition, storage and biometric data retrieval has to be undertaken anyway, and it is largely a proven technology. The expenditure will have to be committed for passports anyway. Currently, the Passport Office spends almost £300 million a year and the DVLA almost £500 million a year. As the market develops, the cost of the technology will fall. It is only because the market is still very small that the cost of the technology is high.