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Readers may be interested to compare James Hall's letter with the following news item which appeared on the EU's eGovernment website (an eID is an electronic identity) and is available at http://www.epractice .eu/document/3983: QUOTE EU/UK: EU pilot to boost compatibility of eID kicks off in the UK Date: 15 October 2007 Country: United Kingdom, EU Institutions Domain: eGovernment Topic: Interoperability and infrastructure, eIdentity and eSecurity 288 visits An ambitious pilot project to test the compatibility of several different electronic ID systems is to be undertaken in the UK. The pilot, worth over €20 million, is part of the EU’s eID STORK project which aims to establish EU-wide interoperability for eIDs by 2010. The ultimate goal of the STORK project is to implement an EU-wide interoperable system for the recognition and authentication of eIDs that will enable businesses, citizens and government employees to use their national eIDs in any Member State. Once established, this would significantly facilitate migration between Member States, allowing easy access to a variety of eGovernment services including, for example, social security, medical prescriptions and pension payments. It could also ease cross-border student enrolment in colleges. European ministers, as well as some non-European countries (e.g. Iceland), set themselves the political objective to reach mutual recognition and interoperability of electronic identities by the year 2010 in the Manchester Declaration adopted in November 2005. This declaration, however, also adopts the subsidiarity principle, leaving full autonomy to Member States as to what kind of electronic identity they issue. The STORK project is expected to help bridge the gap between the different eID systems currently in use, leading to a de facto standard for interoperability in eIDs. The deadline for this is 2010, when the EU’s European eID Management Framework comes into force. The UK’s Identity and Passport Service (IPS) is leading the pilot project, in close co-operation with the Government Gateway, the UK’s centralised registration service. “It is about the eventual pan-European recognition of electronic IDs,” noted an IPS spokesperson. “Neither services nor entitlements will change; rather, the project is currently about looking at methods that already exist and figuring out how to make them recognise each other.” UNQUOTE

[quote]Claims that there are plans to share information from the proposed National Identity Register with 26 other EU countries are unfounded[/quote] -James Hall, Chief Executive, Identity and Passport Service On what date was the claim unfounded? How long, if true, will that claim be valid?

"Project Stork is not about ID cards, has nothing to do with the National Identity Scheme or providing data from the National Identity Register. "Nothing to do" seems a little strong to me. How is service provider going to authenticate and authorise the user? Is Mr Hall suggesting that we will require a different set of identities? I think not, given the objectives of the project. This is a federated identity model involving multiple public and private sector identity and service providers and so identity data is involved. I wonder whether Mr Hall could clarify: a) What audit records will be maintained by the service providers? b) Who will have access to that audit data? for what purposes? under whose legal system? Finally, Mr Hall's statement "As with the passport database, the National Identity Register will only hold core identity information. It will not hold tax, benefit or other records or be an amalgam of existing government data." appears to have nothing to do with this particular story and is an attempt to address concerns following the HMRC data leak. Unless biometrics are used whenever a user is required to authenticate (which would require a very expensive network of biometric readers - including in the home) e.g. online banking; online shopping; accessing their tax records then the fact that a rogue element is able to get access to identity data in the identity register will risk them getting access to the other data which Hall references

The letter is from "James Hall, Chief Executive, Identity and Passport Service". To quote, "He would say that, wouldn't he."

It always seems, in anything connected with the EU - and its 'Directives', which all seem to have one thing in common - that of eventual Total Population Control, and which this crazy Government we are currently living under, whose only ability(?) in the 'affair' is to follow blindly anything the EU comes up with! A strong message of 'Beware the EU' - must be at the forefront of our minds at all times - regardless of the persuasion of our own Political party in 'power', all of which seem to have the same theme of 'Total Population Control' as their basic need for operating!

[quote]A strong message of 'Beware the EU' - must be at the forefront of our minds at all times [/quote] Surely the strong message must be to "beware of government". I don't see any real difference in the activities and aims of the EU with those of the UK government.

we dont beleve you!!!!!!