Group critical of ID card trial checks

The results of a trial to use the planned ID card system and passports to check for criminal records were described as "farcical" by a privacy campaign group.

Phil Booth, national coordinator for No2ID, said the Home Office was guilty of “PR puffery" and using the trial as "another thin excuse for the justification of ID Cards."

The pilot project run by the Home Office, Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) aims to speed up criminal checks needed by anyone wishing to work with children through identifying the applicant via their passport or ID Card.

It found that in two separate legs of the pilot, 96 per cent of 160 volunteers, considered the new passport-linked service to be an improvement on the current paper process which requires CRB employees to trawl through records to authenticate the applicant.

Feedback for the second part of the trial, which is looking at identifying someone via their ID card, was also positive, with 87 per cent of the volunteers claiming it was even more effective than the passport part of trial.

The positive reactions pleased the Home Office, which said the new scheme would “clearly, establish identity quickly and accurately.”

However, Mr Booth disagreed: “What’s shocking about this pilot is that after three years and tens of millions of pounds the Government has not progressed with its plans.”

“These ideas were announced three years ago when the legislation about ID cards was being pushed through parliament which clearly shows the Government is using it once again as a justification for its ID cards,” he told Computeractive.

Booth also attacked the number of volunteers involved in the pilot claiming such a small number of volunteeers was not large enough to form a representative opinion.

“The Government is testing a handful of guinea pigs about a mock system that’s not even up and running in real life,” he said.

The Home Office was unable to say why it had tested such a small group saying only: “We bought in an outside agency which thought 160 people was enough.”

It also strongly denied Booth's claims of ID card justification saying the scheme was an example of other ways in which ID cards could help other agencies.

A Home Office representative said: “We don’t need an excuse or any justification to bring ID cards into the UK, the legislation has already been passed and the fact is ID cards are coming in.”

At the trials, all volunteers went through a simulated experience of applying for a position requiring a CRB check.

The participants met a prospective employer, filled out the CRB disclosure application form and had their identity authenticated by a counter-signatory. Their criminal record information was then disclosed to the company requesting it.

Each volunteer was checked via their passport and their ID card.