Fergie's Tech Blog

UK ID card a recipe for massive ID fraud, says Microsoft exec

John Lettice writes in The Register:

Microsoft UK National Technology Officer Jerry Fishenden has warned that the UK ID card scheme could trigger "massive identity fraud on a scale beyond anything we have seen before." Writing in today's Scotsman, Fishenden says that the security implications of storing biometrics centrally are enormous. "Unlike other forms of information such as credit card details," he says, "if core biometric details such as your fingerprints are compromised, it is not going to be possible to provide you with new ones."

Although he says that a "well-designed UK national identity card could help tackle many problems," Fishenden clearly feels that the current UK scheme does not qualify. He points to the 'honeypot effect' of putting a comprehensive set of personal data in one place, thus producing a "richly rewarding target for criminals," and says that we "should not be building systems that allow hackers to mine information so easily... Inappropriate technology design could provide new hi-tech ways of perpetrating massive identity fraud on a scale beyond anything we have seen before: the very problem the system was intended to prevent."

posted by Fergie @ 10/18/2005 08:54:00 AM