UK ID scheme shortlist announced
/v3-uk/news/1966331/uk-id-scheme-shortlist-announced
22 Oct 2007, Robert Jaques , V3
The shortlist for the suppliers of the UK’s controversial identity card scheme has been narrowed down to eight firms by the Identity and Passport Service (IPS).
It is understood that Accenture, BAE Systems, CSC, EDS, Fujitsu, IBM, Steria and Thales have qualified to go through to the next round of bidding, for final supplier positions, in a project that could have an expenditure of up to £5bn.
It is estimated that over 50 potential suppliers were initially interested in the government's planned multi-million pound biometric identity card programme.
The first deals expected to be brokered under the framework will be for an upgraded fingerprint system and enrolment processing for both passports and ID cards.
Bill Crothers, IPS commercial director, said: "We have been pleased with the level of interest shown in the National Identity Scheme by the industry and now have a solid core of eight 'prime' bidders' who will go forward to the next stage of the procurement process. Of course involvement in the procurement process is not restricted to just the eight companies we have announced today. Each prime bidder has their own network of sub-contractors representing a wide range of industry talent.”
Do you agree?
The Philosophy of Security
That which man invents, man will circumvent. From and intelligence and security standpoint and device designed to deny access only buys time. The effort the black hats put in is proportional to the perceived gain. The ID card won't solve all of the problems we are experiencing, it will however present another barrier thta will deter some efforts to defraud or steal in some ways. The need to produce an ID card will deter because it will be difficult to fake one. As for being in favour of the idea I am not. I see it as another nail in the coffin of freedom however, the influx of illegal immigrants and criminals from other countries may be lessened if they were in place. The infrastructure and administration costs are going to be huge. Let's just close the borders deprt the illegals and get on with life.
Posted by Dave, 23 Oct 2007
Reasons why biometric ID cards should not be implemented at any cost.
Following details show that these ID cards will make bad problems worse and hence should not be implemented at any cost.
These biometric ID cards will not be effective where there is no reading equipment and hence they will
Like Chip and PIN system divert fraud to other sectors and
Provide fraudsters option to use fakes of these cards as IDs. So rather than deterring these cards will boost more identity fraud.
Posted by Tom, 22 Oct 2007