ID plan raises fear of database confusion

MPs investigating proposals for national identity cards have been told the government needs to co-ordinate the many major database projects it has underway.

The Home Office confirmed this week that it plans to build a new National Identity Register from scratch to support ID cards - just the latest in a growing number of national databases.

The Office of National Statistics in working on a population register, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister wants to make the electoral register a national database and the Department for Education and Skills is investigating a unique child identifier - on top of existing NHS, Inland Revenue, Passport Agency and Driver Vehicle Licensing Association (DVLA) databases.

The issue has surfaced repeatedly in the Commons' Home Affairs Committee investigation into ID cards, committee chairman John Denham told Computing.

'The issue being made to us by a number of our witnesses is there is nothing fundamentally wrong with any of the different schemes but there is a lot of activity in the same area,' he said.

'The government needs to be clear either where the different databases interrelate or if they don't, and what could be done to rationalise the approach,' said Denham.

The ID card databse will hold a citizen's name, date of birth and biometric data, and will be cross-checked with other public databases as part of the registration process.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas told the Home Affairs committee last week it was not feasible to use information already held by the public sector.

'The government will be required to start from scratch because there would be a nightmare of problems if they used the existing databases,' he said.

The new database and related technology infrastructure is expected to cost £186m in the first three years.

'We would like to think that the government has planned the work that has gone into the storing of information and the building of these databases, but sadly it looks like this is not the case,' said Shadow home secretary David Davis.

'This has the potential to be a huge waste of taxpayers money and could well mean that many departments are duplicating work, whilst still running up huge bills.'

The ID card scheme is undergoing the Gateway Zero progress review by Treasury buying agency the Office of Government Commerce.

Additional reporting by Gareth Morgan