The UK government is seeing widespread interest from firms mulling the use of national identity (ID) cards, the civil servant in charge of the controversial scheme revealed at a European ID cards event last week.

Speaking at a conference in Brussels organised by e-business lobby group Eema, Katherine Courtney said that the government had been consulting the public and private sectors to develop usage cases for the proposed cards.

Courtney, director of the UK’s ID card programme, said there had been strong interest from the business community, and in particular from the banking sector, which is investigating ways to use ID cards to verify customers’ identities.

“Banks are looking to do this anyway, either by issuing [their own] card readers for customers or collaborating as an industry [to tackle fraud], but they would rather work with government [on a national scheme],” Courtney said.

The enhanced security and convenience of using ID cards to authenticate banking customers could encourage the public to use them, said Courtney. She also hinted that while banks will not legally be able to use the cards as their only accepted form of authentication, they could offer incentives to customers to use them, through quicker processing of applications or other means.

However, there was no word on whether firms will have to pay to verify customers’ identities against the central registry – a scenario the Home Office admitted was being investigated last year.

Courtney also suggested that secure ID cards could encourage more use of e-government services. She said security requirements mean it is presently hard to access some online government services. As a result some simple activities, such as applying for a parking permit, require a disproportionately complex online authentication process. But Courtney added that the government was already tackling this problem through its Government Gateway web site.

Courtney’s comments followed presentations from representatives of several European countries already engaged in deploying ID cards. The consensus from these experts was that gaining business support and developing practical uses for the technology was critical to the success of the schemes.

Peter Strickx of Belgium’s Federal Government Service for IT said that as well as enabling better access to e-government services, the country’s electronic ID card scheme was also being used as an authentication mechanism for banking and e-business services. “Cards can enable secure e-business transactions, for consumer to business,” he added.

Firms might also use identity cards linked to a register to verify other details about customers, according to Strickx. “If you have a system that can answer basic questions about the card holder without disclosing all their inform- ation, you can also check details such as whether a customer is the required age for a service,” he said. For example, one Belgium chat room for children aged 12 to 15 is using ID card information to help enforce its entry policy.

However, Patrick van Eecke of law firm DLA said more progress is needed across Europe to develop uses for electronic ID cards. “The electronic ID schemes in many countries are now active, but we are still lacking applications,” he added.

‹ ID card tricks, Leader, p12