UK national ID (again)

There’s news of another go at a UK national ID scheme. It might all be about the proof of right-to-work. My knee jerk reaction is that a single database is a bad idea as it’s one place to attack, it’ll be horribly expensive, won’t work, and won’t achieve its aims, and what the heck is right to work anyway. 

But who knows what will be put forward. The FT reports that one proposal draws “on existing data sources and does not require a centralised database, or a physical card”.

In terms of history, there’s a great summary from The Conversation on what happened last time, which also pointed me to the removal of ID cards in 1952. Essentially they were an expensive pain in the bottom.

All that aside, it made me wonder what existing ID systems are in place in the UK today.

The obvious ones are driving license and passport.

Next down the list are council tax bills and utility bills (PDFs).

Then I suppose there are a bunch of other identifiers: bank statements, NHS number, tax or national insurance number. And now Gov.uk One Login.

If you’ve had to go through One Login or any modern bank KYC process, that’s probably as strict as it gets for most of us. From what I can tell it involves matching your actual face on a phone camera to existing ID.

I assume it’s relatively easy for the government to match to your driving license, say, but for everyone else there are some interesting third parties. For example, AU10TIX look like they match your face (selfie or video) against official documents you present, such as a driving license or passport. I don’t know if they retain that information or not.

So: It feels like there are systems in place already. Some years ago even I worked with Doug and Martin on a rules system for right-to-rent. It was eye-openingly thorough. 

It’s not clear to me what problem another system would solve. Unless it’s all about something else entirely.