I have to recommend the British Ideal Government<\/a> blog – “a web user's antidote to personal frustration with public services” run by William Heath as a kind of wikki with a lot discussion of eGovernment and related subjects. It seems to be a good vantage point from which we in North America can get an unofficial view of the approaching British rendezvous with government identity cards.<\/p>\n Having myself followed William's advice on this matter, I recommend that everyone interested in identity issues read the British Information Commissioner's perspective<\/a> on the Identity Cards Bill.<\/p>\n Of course, government eIdentity<\/strong> cards run smack into the Law of Fewest Parties (Third Law of Identity):<\/p>\n Technical identity systems MUST be designed so the disclosure of identifying information is limited to parties having a necessary and justifiable place in a given identity relationship.<\/span> (<\/span><\/em>Starts here…)<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Interestingly, this law is well understood by the Information Commissioner<\/em>, who has obviously thought long and hard about these issues (American readers are advised not to miss the understated intensity of the words ‘myriad’ and ‘plethora’):<\/p>\n The problems (…administrative and technical – Kim) would be substantially exacerbated if it becomes the norm for a myriad of organisations \u2013 including commercial bodies – to check the Register for a plethora of purposes completely unconnected with those public interest objectives set out on the face of the Bill (Clause 1(4)).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n One of the most thought-provoking aspects of the proposed scheme is the auditing of uses of the identity asserted by the card.<\/strong> This aspect of identity systems is one to which we will dedicate considerable attention going forward.<\/span><\/p>\n The example is given of employers being required to verify a person's right to work before hiring them. This would involve the card-holder (in conjunction with the employer?) accessing “the registry” by using the card. The card's use would in turn be recorded as part of an ever-growing audit trail of transactions associated with the subject<\/em>. The commissioner points out that in this kind of scenario, much more guidance is required. Is the card to be used and audited every time you apply<\/em> for a job? Only when the job offer is accepted<\/em>? And above all, why?<\/span><\/p>\n We will all learn a lot by watching Britain grapple with these issues. In Britain there seem to be many mixed opinions. But it is encouraging that the national identification card is not proposed<\/strong> as a universal or commercial identity. It seems to be intended for use in official government contexts, making it conform to the Third Law.<\/span><\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I've been taking occasional breaks from the long-running Christmas party and swimming upstream into my email torrent. I have to recommend the British Ideal Government blog – “a web user's antidote to personal frustration with public services” run by William Heath as a kind of wikki with a lot discussion of eGovernment and related subjects. … Continue reading Identity and eGovernment in Britain<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1238,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/1238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n