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?

FFS, where is an ID card that I can buy?

We have governments (US is trying it too) to force universal ID's on us, but they are bound and determined to make it so insecure that it won't work when you need it (other people will steal your identity), and use the cards against you when you don't want it (false arrests based on it). Meanwhile, I still can't make a secure online transaction!

Every waitress I give my credit card to has the ability to copy the number, as does every online merchant. What I really want, and would be happy to buy (if it existed), would be an RSA based, time-coded, single transaction authorization device, that worked via bluetooth or USB, that could cryptographically sign transactions, and require *my* thumbprint or a passcode to operate. It should work with your home PC, as well as your neighbors, or a POS terminal, or sporting event or whatever.

It would be completely secure, opt in, and totally private, and I've been wanting one for years. Yet credit card companies still loose billions per year to fraud, and the government is still complaining about weak identification cards, and every store I go to gives me their own stupid magstrip card to stick in my wallet. Worse yet this technology has been possible for years, and still isn't available. Arg.

Well its your own fault!

You poms are pretty good at whinging, but you know you'll allow them to do anything.

When was the last time you held a cabinet minister to account?

Mind you, all western democracies have the problem... If we get the governments we deserve, maybe we are all vermin?

Its all gone down hill since women got the vote. They couldn't help it, poor things...

@return of the king

Look at your post, if you used to program for EDS no wonder there were so many bugs in the software! Sorry to be a pedant but if you can’t spell properly then how on earth do you manage to write any working software? Of course you could have been joking and just forgot to use the joke icon?

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition... Our chief weapons are....

They are not late implementing the full scheme, I suspect that they will miss out the intermediary phase which includes a card, and go directly for the RFID implant.

The ultimate aim of this system is not to enable you to prove who you are, but to switch off any dissenter's chip and freeze them out of society.

The whole purpose of operations like the welfare state, income tax, dumbed-down education schemes, permanent overseas wars, terrorism and i.d. systems is to achieve the goal of total authoritarian control of the masses.

Years ago it was fairly easy to exercise control; transport was difficult and the church controlled the proles through the use of the moral upper hand. After all, what is the church, other than a bunch of politicians in rather fetching frocks?

Once travel became cheaper and people won the vote... something had to be done, and the ensuing control systems (and any fiuture systems) are for this purpose, even though they are sold on some other basis, like universal health or pension schemes. Otherwise, after sixty years of the "farewell state", the gap between rich and poor would be nominal, whereas it is wider than ever.

The Nazi and Soviet operations were simply the same ideas, rushed through by over zealous dictators, jumping the gun.

Q: What is the difference between government and mafia?

A: Nothing.

@ Anon coward

Youn think sun have the NHS contract? What planet are you on? It seems quite clear that no-one here knows the score, the NHS contract is actually covered by several, for north/south and for different software implementations, there is no governing contractor as such, appart from the NHS. AND, the trusts and practises involved don't even have obligation to take up the proposed services anyway.

So what would you have us do? Continue using stand alone DBs and app packs for each individual trust, that were rolled out in the early 80s? Or try and conglomerate old and new systems and have the ability to share information, automate buerocratic processes ect.

It really anoys me when everyone jumps on the flame waggon without knowing a single fact other than what they've read in the daily telegraph.

at this point, a sensible choice should be made...

given the enormous number of cock-ups EDS has managed to pull off in recent years the old adage "no-one ever got sacked for buying IBM" is even more pertinent here.

How many times have "cabinet reshuffles" happened due to EDS' complete incompetence with matters relating to IT?

So gov, if you're gonna impose ID cards, at least buy them from someone with a modicum of capability in delivering projects and a history of doing so, rather than the one who puts in the 15 grand bid with a "no questions asked" and a "you ain't seen me... right" clause, later to find that the questions get asked and the budget went up considerably as a result.

The only 411 scam where you can win...

HELLO MY NAME IS MR R.B. WIGGLYWOB. I HAVE $547 BILLION DOLLARS IN A BANK ACCOUNT BELONGNG TO A GOVERNMENT WHO HAS ALMOST DIED.

FOR YOU TO GET THIS MONEY I NEED YOU TO SNED YOUR NAME PHONE NUMBER AND DETAILS OF THE AN IDENTIFY CARD SYSTEM TO ME.

THEN I WILL ARRANGE THE DELIVERY OF THE MONNEYS..

YOU WILL NEED YOUR OWN SHOVEL AND WHEELBARROW TO TAKE THE MONEY OFF TRANSPORTATION.

THE ADVANTAGE TO YOU IS YOU NEVER NEED TO DELVER THE REAL IDENTIFY CARD SCHEME BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT WILL BE DEAD BEFORE THEY CAN MAKE IT REAL.

PLEASE REPLY TO MY EMAIL ADDRESS :

PRY-MINISTER@UK.GOV.SCAMMER.COM

Chill dudes!

ID cards? No way before the next election - anyone who pushes *that* idea seriously is going to lose many, many deposits! (and quite rightly imho). And after that, I suspect it'll get quietly dropped, always struck me as Bliar's idea.

@Karl Latimer(@uk.ibm.com?) "How many times have "cabinet reshuffles" happened due to EDS' complete incompetence with matters relating to IT?"

Name one please? Just because you work for It's (still) Being Mended that's no reason to post an advert for your employer - it's so immodest, sheesh! And don't try painting them as a paragon of virtue - they have their share of screw ups too.

Personally I'd like to see none of CSC, EDS, IBM etc get it - leave it in the hands of the civil service. They'll commitee it to death and then we'll have the civil service unions whinging that they need (a) more members and (b) each member needs a double digit pay rise to make up for the extra work and the resulting stress.

So the whole thing'll be so expensive that it'll never happen. Although I live in Scotland, so it'll not happen here (or in Wales) anyway. :D

Why bother with cards?

Seems like a waste of time to me, the technology is already available for pets, just add rfid to the chips and cards become unecessary, just a little scratch, or could be issued by doctors under the guise of panademic prevention, simply add a bar code tattoo, oh wait a minute, I think somebody else thought of the last idea about 70 years ago....

I'm not concerned

With the exception of knowing that my taxes will rise through the roof, the ID card price will be so high that you'll have to go without food/gas/leccy etc for a few months to buy it, I'm not too worried.

Just as soon as the first 9 year old school girl is arrested by an armed response team in the middle of her school winterval (it's not a nativity!) play for being the UK's fund raiser for Al Q (hey the biometrics match) it will all start to crumble.

Of course by this time every single bit of data about everyone in the UK will be in the hands of identity fraudsters, spammers, telemarketers and that creepy guy who wanders around your town talking to no one and singing at the top of his voice (yes even your town has one).

Look on the bright side, once ID cards have proven to be unworkable they can move onto barcodes on the back of the neck and implanted chips.