Thursday, September 15, 2005

If biometrics isn't perfect...

The Guardian reports on the government's charm initiative on the ID card scheme this morning.

Nothing particularly new except to reinforce the impression of experience Ian Watmore brings to the role of chief information officer. He has apparently convinced the government that authentication through biometrics should be the exception rather than the norm in the use of the card. Normal checking will apparently now be through chip and pin numbers. At a stoke that deals with one of the serious technical limitations of the original scheme - the need for a vast robust network of biometric readers. It also cuts the costs by a fair margin. The network of readers will still be required but not based on such ropey technology.

Of course it does undermine also the wild claims of David Blunkett, in particular, when he repeatly stated that the nature of biometric technology meant that it would be "impossible" for it to fail.

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