tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post8066920559973357572..comments2023-11-14T08:19:54.657+00:00Comments on DMossEsq: John Vine report publishedDavid Mosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post-77223714166738952932012-03-18T09:20:04.329+00:002012-03-18T09:20:04.329+00:00Thank you very much indeed Anonymous for bringing ...Thank you very much indeed Anonymous for bringing this Damian Green speech to everyone's attention.<br><br>Mr Green says:<br><i>"... the legacy given to this government left a lot to be desired ... We inherited a Border Force that failed to conduct all the checks it should have done ... A Border Force where communications between staff and managers were unclear; and where our policy towards key checks was ambiguous or non-existent. This was completely unacceptable."</i><br><br>Mr Green is accusing the entire board of UKBA of incompetence or worse. And senior officials in the Home Office, too, since UKBA is/was an executive agency of the Home Office. And not just officials but secretaries of state and understrapper ministers.<br><br>• Lin Homer, previously chief executive of UKBA, is now chief executive of HMRC.<br>• Sir David Normington, previously permanent secretary at the Home Office, is now First Civil Service Commissioner.<br>• Dame Helen Ghosh was and still is permanent secretary at the Home Office.<br>• John Reid, Jacqui Smith and Alan Johnson were Home Secretaries during the period in question.<br><br>Their careers haven't suffered as a result of the allegedly unauthorised suspension of border security checks.<br><br>How very useful Brodie Clark is.David Mosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post-40446484222705482692012-03-17T11:25:16.228+00:002012-03-17T11:25:16.228+00:00http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/speeches...http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/speeches/Damian-Green-RUSI-speech<br><br>Damian seems confident (maybe he has his fingers crossed).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post-42603708119961918412012-02-25T15:53:23.852+00:002012-02-25T15:53:23.852+00:00"You can save time at the UK border by enroll...<i>"You can save time at the UK border by enrolling your biometric information before you travel to the UK."<br><br>http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/our-work/olympic-paralympic/games-family-member/enrol-biometric/<br><br>That could well be true !</i><br><br>Speeding up the border crossing for Olympians and their entourages, as keen readers of <i><a href="http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/aboutus/workingwithus/ukba-news/issue-10.pdf?view=Binary" rel="nofollow">UK Border Agency News</a></i>, the bi-monthly page-turner, will know, is an objective of IABS, the Immigration and Asylum Biometric System currently being deployed by Jackie Keane, a senior civil servant at UKBA.<br><br>Click on the link, browse to p.10, and you will find that the team forced themselves to go to Istanbul, to do IABS practice at the world wrestling championships.<br><br>IABS uses biometric technology provided by <a href="http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/Garlic.html" rel="nofollow">Morpho</a> (previously Sagem Sécurité) and is run by <a href="http://www.safran-group.com/site-safran-en/press-media/press-releases/2009-447/article/sagem-securite-chosen-by-ibm-to?10071" rel="nofollow">IBM</a>.<br><br>IBM conducted a trial to choose the best biometric technology. It was no doubt conducted more professionally than UKBA's own trials, <a href="http://www.dmossesq.com/2012/02/john-vine-report-published.html?showComment=1330181914740#c5084386485077440028" rel="nofollow">see above</a>. But we don't know that for sure as we the public are not allowed to see the trial report. We've paid for it. Our security and convenience depend on it. But <a href="http://dematerialisedid.com/bcsl/foi.html" rel="nofollow">we're not allowed to see it</a>.<br><br>Maybe the biometrics work. Maybe they don't. We don't know. All we know is that the coalition government spent £735 million of our money in their first 18 months in power on systems whose success depends on these biometrics being reliable.<br><br>Fingers crossed. That's the scientific way.David Mosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post-15272686037259193072012-02-25T14:58:34.740+00:002012-02-25T14:58:34.740+00:00Anonymous said..."How to run a trial" se...<i>Anonymous said...<br>"How to run a trial" seems worth probing.</i><br><br>It certainly does.<br><br>The model for a well-conducted trial is provided by the pharmaceutical industry. UKBA's trial of intelligence-led border control fails even to register on the scale of academically valid trials. It's not just that we don't know whether the trial succeeded. We don't even know <a href="http://www.dmossesq.com/2012/01/theresa-may-damian-green-helen-ghosh.html#trial" rel="nofollow">what it was a trial of</a>.<br><br>UKBA claimed to have performed a trial of smart gates at UK airports on the basis of which they decided that it was worth spending lorry-loads of the public's money on this duff face recognition technology.<br><br>John Vine said he couldn't find any evidence of any attempt to perform any assessment of the technology whatever. Were UKBA <a href="http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/11/whitehall-on-trials.html" rel="nofollow">lying</a> about having conducted trials? Is it the case that they just want to buy this technology, they don't care whether it works?<br><br>The Home Office did try to run a trial properly once. Never again. It blew up in their face.<br><br>In 2004, they did a "scenario test" on face recognition, flat print fingerprinting and iris scanning, three biometrics, please see the UKPS biometrics enrolment trial <a href="http://dematerialisedid.com/PDFs/UKPSBiometrics_Enrolment_Trial_Report.pdf" rel="nofollow">report</a> compiled by Atos Origin and published in May 2005. The results demonstrated clearly that the technology was too unreliable to do the jobs required of it and that there was no justification for investing public money in it.<br><br>Not the result the Home office wanted, so they carried on and spent our money anyway, toughed it out with the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, who took them to task over the matter and ended up having to argue that it wasn't really a biometrics enrolment trial at all, despite the name. <a href="http://dematerialisedid.com/Open2.html#wriggle" rel="nofollow">Wriggling</a>.<br><br>Much "probing required."David Mosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post-41219531898971892102012-02-25T14:20:11.182+00:002012-02-25T14:20:11.182+00:00Anonymous said..."HMRC is shite" also th...<i>Anonymous said...<br>"HMRC is shite" also throws Lin Homer's name into the frame:<br>http://hmrcisshite.blogspot.com/2012/02/rewarding-failure-lin-homer.html</i><br>Few people are unremittingly good (Clint Eastwood?) and luckily few people are unremittingly bad (Tony Blair, Gordon Brown).<br><br>It may be an open shut case that Lin Homer is guilty of turning Birmingham into a banana republic. I don't know.<br><br>I do know that she <a href="http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/UKBA20100203.html" rel="nofollow">said</a> she would implement checks for lost and stolen passports at the UK border and that together with Brodie Clark she <a href="http://www.dmossesq.com/2012/01/lin-homer-brodie-clark-and-interpol.html" rel="nofollow">did</a> implement checks for lost and stolen passports at the UK border.<br><br>I don't claim that that success makes her unremittingly good. Perhaps you shouldn't claim that the Birmingham postal votes scandal makes her or John Prescott unremittingly bad, or "shite" as you unpleasantly term it.David Mosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post-34120200590706534912012-02-24T21:53:01.463+00:002012-02-24T21:53:01.463+00:00"You can save time at the UK border by enroll..."You can save time at the UK border by enrolling your biometric information before you travel to the UK."<br><br>http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/our-work/olympic-paralympic/games-family-member/enrol-biometric/<br><br>That could well be true !Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post-90688784874061289572012-02-24T11:59:49.535+00:002012-02-24T11:59:49.535+00:00"How to run a trial" seems worth probing..."How to run a trial" seems worth probing.<br><br>I guess it can't help if you do all the preparatory work and decide how to cascade the details down to your complex organisation and get it signed off by one Minister - only to be prompted to get it ticked off by the SpAds who then get the boss Minister to change it drastically with very little time left for implementation and communication. With precious little attention to detail or clarification of understanding. "Just how long is an unreasonable queue, Minister ?".<br><br>Is it any wonder that the guys on the front-line are confused and demoralised ?<br><br>What's going to pep them up for the Olympics ? Perhaps Theresa should give them each a personally signed cuddly toy Wenlock mascot.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3048449668150968412.post-77782917653217918842012-02-24T11:45:56.151+00:002012-02-24T11:45:56.151+00:00"HMRC is shite" also throws Lin Homer..."HMRC is shite" also throws Lin Homer's name into the frame :<br><br>http://hmrcisshite.blogspot.com/2012/02/rewarding-failure-lin-homer.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com