Computer blunders and ID Cards

The Government's proposal of the ID Card in the UK became a political hot potato. It was last year, when I did some research in this area that I realised why. The ID Card is argued to infringe on civil liberties, and the major problem is with the database behind this, the NIR (National Identity Register). The Government has time and again failed to secure and even simply run computer systems/databased, and today's article in the Independent is of no surprise:

Labour's computer blunders cost £26bn

A series of botched IT projects has left taxpayers with a bill of more than £26bn for computer systems that have suffered severe delays, run millions of pounds over budget or have been cancelled altogether.

£5bn National Identity Scheme

Originally budgeted at £3bn, the Government’s plan for new identity cards, containing biometric data and linked to a central database, soon came under heavy criticism from civil liberty campaigners. As the costs spiralled, so the Home Office began to water down the aims of the scheme to assuage the critics. In July, Alan Johnson announced that the cards would no longer be compulsory, while moves to force all airport workers to use the cards were also abandoned.

More on the ID Card Scheme to come ...