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Two fingerprints eh! But I bet the government's plan is still to collect all ten! In the interests of crime prevention no doubt.
Elsewhere in the transcripts I recall seeing a claim that address wouldn't be on the face of the card, so if the card contains only what's on the face, then an address check will require some form of online check.
I doubt this'll please the banks, and suspect there may be a mispeak in there somewhere.
@ John - The Government started off by saying that they were still considering whether or not to print the Address on the face of the ID Card, and now they appear to be claiming verbally, but not written into the Bill, that it will not be printed on the Card.
Obviously this reduces the cost of re-issuing cards where the only personal details that have changed are the address details.
If, as stated later on, the Address is not secretly stored on the Smart Card chip, then it makes the ID Card useless for many of the low level offline verification tasks that Home Office Ministers Andy Burnham and Tony McNulty have been wittering on about.
This is the first time that telephone number seems to have been mentioned - it is not part of any of the categories of information mentioned in the Bill so far. Telephone numbers could of course simply be added into the Schedule by Order later, without Parliamentary scrutiny, but, especially mobile ones, are likely to change even more often than addresses.
As you point out, all such ID verification checks by the financial industry or registration with NHS general practioners or clinics or ID checks by the Police, are going to require an online check, adding a transaction record to the audit trail.
The Home Office have not included any secure infrastructure costs for any of this in their misleading published cost estimates.
Adding things like address or telephone number to the front of the card isn't anything to do with verification. It's a method of generating a revenue stream. Most people change these details occasionally, and when they do you can bet they will be legally compelled to change their ID card and pay the requisite £100 (or whatever the cost ends up being). This will help to fund the 200 or more extra government agencies needed to administer the system.
Checking of ID online is by definition insecure, and will immediately be targeted by hackers. No matter what people might tell you, or how many little padlock symbols appear in the corner of your browser, no online transactions (even "encrypted" ones) are secure. All the commonly used online encryption methods can be beaten with the right knowledge, equipment and perseverence.
In providing identification of oneself, the usual and most useful items are name, address and date of birth.
By leaving the address off the card (including the digitised data authenticated by digital signature), there is an increase in the number of times that access is required to the National identity Register. This itself increases the number of entries in the audit trail (which many object to as Orwellian).
On the other side, some people are concerned that carrying the card with the address on will reduce their personal security (eg identify an address for burglary now, or stalking later). However, driving licences have the address on and (pre-ID card protest) I cannot recollect this ever being a concern.
However, with a voluntary ID card, the solution is obvious: the cardholder can decide.
Best regards
Concerning "whatever happened to iris scans”.
Do remember that it is neither necessary nor best to put templates of every biometric on the card. This covers both iris and those for fingerprints above the first 1 or 2.
The first reason concerns the amount of on-card memory that is required, and hence the cost of the card.
The second reason concerns the actual benefit, in terms of security of identification. Why put on additional information, required only for higher-security applications, when those higher security applications have less frequent usage and also, quite likely, also require the additional security of on-line checks.
Finally, templates placed on the card are available (to those with sufficient expertise and motivation) for attacks against the system security, including: artifact attack and infiltrator selection. By exposing (on-card) template data used for higher-security applications, one increases the value of cards to the criminal fraternity.
Further description and analysis of a possible architecture of the National Identity Scheme, of a somewhat technical nature, can be found in the presentation (PDF) at: http://www.camalg.co.uk/tk051116a/TK051116A_bcs_02.pdf
Best regards