20 March 2007

The Home Office today admitted to issuing an “estimated” 10,000 passports to fraudsters last year [1] despite the introduction of routine background checks for new applicants last March [2]. Claiming the introduction of face-to-face interviews for first time passport applicants to be an anti-fraud measure, ministers failed to mention that such interviews will also come be part of compulsory enrolment on the National Identity Register, the linked databases behind the ID cards scheme.

Phil Booth, NO2ID’s [3] National Coordinator said:

It is a Home Office number. So naturally it doesn’t make sense. Assuming it is even vaguely right, then the IPS plans to add hundreds to the price of a
family holiday, inconvenience and intimidate millions of law-abiding people, and spend billions of pounds – all to tackle a problem that affects just 0.15% of all passports issued.

No-one should be fooled – the interrogation system is for the ID card scheme, and cost-effectiveness is no object. We urge anyone who hasn’t yet got an adult passport to get one, before they get dragged in for an official grilling whose main purpose is to compile a personal dossier that will follow them through life.

The IPS originally set [4] next Monday, 26th March – as the start date for its new intrusive “interviews”. For this reason, NO2ID has declared Monday ID-Day. The fight back is beginning.

Guy Herbert, NO2ID’s General Secretary said:

In what must be the poorest excuse yet offered for a scheme that has racked up some impressively implausible pretexts already, the Home Office is saying
‘We’re crap; so you must suffer.’ We say, ‘You don’t have to put up with this. Show them you’re not a number [5].

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6470179.stm – ‘10,000 passports go to fraudsters’, BBC, 20/3/07.

To put the fraud figures into perspective, it should be noted that from December 2003 to March 2006, over 646,000 passports were either lost or
stolen and 1500 passports went missing in transit to UKPS, see http://westminster.snp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2172&Itemid=38. Recent figures (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6387925.stm) show that at least 1000 new passports each year, or 3 per day, go missing
from the supposedly secure delivery service.

2) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/14/passport_data_checks_live/ – ‘Passport data checks go live’, The Register, 14/3/07. The ‘Personal
Identity Project’ (PIP) checks information provided by first time applicants against data held by credit reference agency Equifax.

3) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. NO2ID is affiliated to by the National Union of Journalists:

http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=1595.

Scroll down http://www.no2id.net for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.

4) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article666614.ece – ‘Passport applicants will have to attend personal interviews’, Sunday Times, 10/12/07.

5) See http://www.no2id.net/getInvolved/id-day.php – NO2ID is encouraging people to show their faces to the government by sending a picture message anonymously to 60300 with the code no2id – who (people not names, ranks and numbers) says NO2ID will be continuously revealed from ID-Day.

6 March 2007

In a ‘web chat’ yesterday afternoon, James Hall, Chief Executive of the UK Identity & Passport Service (UKIPS), denied that the new ePassport had been “cracked” [1] on the same day that just such a successful crack by NO2ID [2] was reported in the national press [3]. The UKIPS spin machine was also on full cycle – re-announcing a three-year-old programme to fix the 35 year old ‘Day of the Jackal’ loophole [4], in a desperate attempt to distract from further bad news about the nature of the passport ‘upgrade’ [5].

Phil Booth, NO2ID’s National Coordinator said:

Mr Hall must be confused. His own officials admitted at the weekend that the chip in the passport can be ‘cloned’ in transit [6]. NO2ID has proved beyond any doubt that the data on an unknown passport’s chip can be stolen from inside the sealed envelope in which it is delivered. He knows that passports are leaky. His department designed them to be [7].

Rather than boasting about fixing a problem that has been well-known for more than three decades, James Hall and his Home Office masters should face the music for the serious flaws they have deliberately introduced into the passport system so that your passport data can be instantly perfectly copied by border authorities. They have chosen to dispense with the individual security of millions of UK residents for international official convenience [8].

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:
1) James Hall web chat – http://www.webchat.pm.gov.uk/index.asp?webchatID=34 – in which Mr Hall said: “The passports were not cracked. All that was shown was that someone who already had access to all the details in the passport could read those same details on the chip. [...] What was demonstrated would not have been possible if the people concerned had not already had possession of the passport details and been able to read it.”

Not only is it possible, but NO2ID was able to read an unknown passport’s chip **in under 4 hours**, using little more than the information printed on the face of the (intercepted) envelope in which it was delivered.

2) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. NO2ID is affiliated to by the National Union of Journalists: http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=1595. Scroll down http://www.no2id.net for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.

3) “’Safest ever’ passport is not fit for purpose”, Sue Reid in the Daily Mail, 5/3/07:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=440069&in_page_id=1770

Working with security expert Adam Laurie, NO2ID have previously demonstrated insecurities in the new ‘ePassport’, as reported in the Guardian last
November:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,1950226,00.html

4) “Passport officials close ID loophole”, Yorkshire Post, 5/3/07: http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=2096503&SectionID =55

5) “Warning over ePassport microchips”, BBC, 7/2/07: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6337687.stm

6) “New ‘chip’ passports are copied in transit”, Brian Brady in Scotland on Sunday, 4/3/07: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=341772007

7) See Regulatory Impact Assessment for the eBorders scheme: http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/terrorism/library/ukebodersria.pdf British and American delegates were advocates of the new ICAO standard to which all passports now conform. It is designed to suit the US-VISIT programme, which is coincidentally managed by Mr Hall’s former employers Accenture. See Washington Post, “US Border Security at the Crossroads”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200613.html

8 ) Bruce Sterling explained it this way, writing in Wired, “Beyond the Beyond”, 17/11/06: http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2006/11/arphid_watch_fi.html

They did this, not because they want to make private citizens more secure against ID theft, but because they want to install huge databases that track the movements of civil populations generally. The point of electronic ID is to input a suspect passport number and see every place that guy’s been in the last 20 years. Then you compare that the movements of other known malefactors and you’ve got an instant Al Qaeda winnowing-machine. “Of course some individuals will suffer, but compared to the awesome imaginary benefits of Total Information Awareness, that’s like watching a few Nevada civilians cough up their lungs from atom-bomb tests.

4 March 2007

Campaign group NO2ID [1] responded to today’s revelations about the government’s ID scheme – leaked documents showing plans to fingerprint children as young as eleven, further hikes to the price of passports [2] and a bald admission to the insecurity of the new ePassports [3] – by calling for an immediate halt to all development of the scheme, including the ‘data-sharing’ elements of several new Bills [4] being hurried through Parliament under cover of Labour party leadership wrangles.

Phil Booth, NO2ID’s National Coordinator said:

The government has been hiding the full extent of its plans from both Parliament and voters using excuses of ‘commercial confidentiality’ and ‘international obligation’ [5] for far too long. Now its secret agenda for lifelong control of personal identity is being exposed. Caught in a deception like this, it is not enough for ministers to blame officials, or vice versa – the whole scheme should be dropped immediately.

The Home Office has deceived the public about the security of its new passport and demonstrated not only its incompetence but a cavalier disregard for the safety of millions of people’s personal details. Will John Reid now take personal responsibility for his failing department? Surely heads must roll.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. NO2ID is affiliated to by the National Union of Journalists:
http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=1595. See http://www.no2id.net for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.

2) Children of 11 to be fingerprinted, David Leppard in the Sunday Times, 4/3/07. Article contains details of passport price rises due to the cost of introducing ID cards, and other “stealth charges”:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1466943.ece

3) New ‘chip’ passports are copied in transit, Brian Brady in the Scotsman on Sunday, 4/3/07.
Still saying “It doesn’t matter”, officials now admit that the data on passport chips can be stolen or cloned:
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=341772007

4) Very broadly drafted and largely unconstrained data-sharing powers, essential to the establishment of a National Identity Register – the linked databases at the heart of the ID scheme – are included in the UK Borders Bill, the Serious Crime Bill, the Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill, and the Statistics and Registration Service Bill. Ministers admitted to the UK Borders Bill Scrutiny Committee, to which NO2ID last week gave evidence on the impact on those living legally in the UK (e.g. certain well-known Australians and Americans), that it is a precursor to the full ID cards scheme.

5) The government has repeatedly claimed that changes to the passport are due to ‘international obligation’ and that ‘70% of the costs of the ID scheme’ would therefore have to be spent anyway. These claims are completely untrue. UK passports are already ICAO-compliant, and continue to qualify for the US Visa Waiver scheme, and the UK – not being a member – is not bound by the EU Schengen agreement on travel documents which would, in any case, involve taking only two fingerprints, and require no central Register or interrogation (cf. http://www.RenewForFreedom.org )

The National Audit Office reports that the total cost of the recent passport ‘upgrade’ was just £61 million, compared to the £540 million which the Home Office says it will spend each year on passports and ID cards combined in just the first ten years of the programme.