Monday 7 May 2018

RIP IDA – Windrush & ID cards

No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but,
just in case it isn't obvious to all,
IDA is dead.

IDA, now known as "GOV.UK Verify (RIP)",
is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme.
And it's dead.

"If Verify is the answer, what was the question?"

The Law Commission: "Verify does not currently ensure that the person entering the information
is in fact the person he or she is purporting to be;
rather it focuses on verifying that the person exists" (para.6.67/p.119)

4 May 2018 Windrush scandal: no passport for thousands who moved to Britain. That article and hundreds more like it describe the outrageous Windrush generation problem we have in the UK. Home Office officials are threatening some of these British citizens from overseas with deportation. Some of them have lost their jobs. Some their rented homes. Others have been denied the free state healthcare which they are entitled to.

Many commentators have had the same reaction. If only we had ID cards, these disgraceful injustices could have been avoided. Please see for example:
Politicians and their officials spent eight years in the UK from 2002 to 2010 trying to introduce government-issued ID cards and failing. Nothing daunted, the delusion that ID cards would solve all sorts of problems persists, even though it is perfectly obvious that people who have trouble proving their British citizenship would have the same trouble proving their right to an ID card.

Noticeably, although lots of people's minds turned automatically to ID cards, absolutely no-one's first thought was "this is a job for GOV.UK Verify (RIP), what we all need is a GOV.UK Verify (RIP) account". Whatever the problem, GOV.UK Verify (RIP) is the solution that occurs to no-one.

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