Brodie Clark gave evidence today to the Home Affairs Committee. According to the Guardian's live coverage:
For 10 years the Home Office have been investing public money unwisely in projects which depend for their success on mass consumer biometrics technology being reliable – it isn't.
Clark says there are nine checks. The fingerprint check is the most recent, and the least reliable. It was a lower-level check. Lifting that check was a "sensible" thing do to.
Brodie Clark gave evidence today to the Home Affairs Committee. According to the Guardian's live coverage:
For 10 years the Home Office have been investing public money unwisely in projects which depend for their success on mass consumer biometrics technology being reliable – it isn't.
Clark says there are nine checks. The fingerprint check is the most recent, and the least reliable. It was a lower-level check. Lifting that check was a "sensible" thing do to.
You may not grasp all the detail – he's talking about the federated model of identity management, not a United States of Europe – but you get the gist, "a lot has moved on", the Government Gateway is oldsville.
... the UK assumed the federated model in the Electronic Communication Act (2000) and built the Government Gateway accordingly. But a lot has moved on in the dozen years since Government Gateway was developed and we have a lot of work to do to develop solutions that work for users in the many contexts that they’ll need them.
Now here's a wrinkle – if you click on that Project STORK link of his to see which opportunities are testified to, what's the first thing you see?
There is a strong desire to work collaboratively across the public and private sectors to develop solutions that meet users differing needs. That desire is international. The USA’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace and the EU Project STORK pilots testify to the opportunities.
"eID" in STORKspeak is electronic identity, and not the famous festival of the same name. Bit of a clanger for ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, that – "national eID" takes us straight back to identity cards and national identity registers.
The aim of the STORK project is to establish a European eID Interoperability Platform that will allow citizens to establish new e-relations across borders, just by presenting their national eID.
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is a member of a consortium of leading European private and public sector organisations which has said it will start a pilot into the use of a citizen’s national digital identity from France to open a bank account in the UK.
UK progress during those 10 years?
EU/UK: EU pilot to boost compatibility of eID kicks off in the UK, 15 October 2007
The ultimate goal of the STORK project is to implement an EU-wide interoperable system for the recognition and authentication of eIDs [electronic identities] 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 ...
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.
There is a lot of respectable evidence suggesting that the technology chosen by the Home Office is not reliable and no respectable evidence suggesting that it is. The enquiry may conclude that for 10 years public money has been wasted.
For 10 years the Home Office have been investing public money unwisely in projects which depend for their success on mass consumer biometrics technology being reliable – it isn't.
| August 2008 | Back in August 2008, the UK Border Agency started a trial of so-called "smart gates" at Manchester Airport. UKBA issued a press release about the trial here. Don't bother clicking on the link, the press release has been deleted. With smart gates, travellers walk into one end of a booth, stick their ePassport (electronic passport) in a reader and stand in front of a camera. Face recognition software compares the face on camera with the "template" stored on a chip in the ePassport. If the two images match, according to the computerised threshold tests, then the exit gate opens and that's the traveller done, successfully through passport control. No UKBA passport control staff needed. They can be laid off. There will be considerable cost savings and – the matching process having been performed by computers – it will be more reliable than mere human beings, the security of the border will have been enhanced. That was the idea. In the event, there was some adverse coverage of the equipment in the Daily Telegraph and on the BBC News website: 19 August 2008 – Machines to scan faces of travellers at UK airports 19 August 2008 – Passengers test new face scanners 4 October 2008 – Security fear over airport face scanners 5 April 2009 – Airport face scanners 'cannot tell the difference between Osama bin Laden and Winona Ryder' But that was just unionised UKBA staff moaning about losing their jobs. Wasn't it? | |||
| So far so simple. UKBA, playing it by the book, have got this new equipment that takes advantage of the facilities offered by ePassports. Does the equipment work? They don't know in advance. So they conduct a trial. Depending on the result of the trial, either the idea can be dropped, because the equipment doesn't work, or it works well and UKBA can start to deploy these smart gates at airports elsewhere. | ||||
| 24 February 2009 | Six months after the start of the Manchester Airport trial, UKBA announced a 10-point delivery plan, which comprised 10 "pledges". Pledge no.7 was, by August 2009, to "have completed delivery of new facial recognition technology in 10 terminals, giving British passengers a faster, secure route through the border". (UKBA's 10-point delivery plan used to be available here, on the bia.homeoffice.gov.uk domain. Don't bother clicking. The domain has long since disappeared. There is what looks like an accurate copy available here down at the bottom of the page.) | |||
| Presumably the Manchester Airport trial must have been a success. Presumably the equipment was found to work, presumably it was established that it was a wise investment of public money to deploy smart gates equipment at 10 airport terminals around the country, and presumably it was accurate to assure the public that their experience of automated passport control would be "faster" and "secure". | ||||
| 16 April 2009 | Always worth checking these things. Someone wrote to Sir David Normington, permanent secretary at the Home Office, reminding him of the uninterrupted history of failure of biometrics based on facial recognition, asserting that the public would be sceptical about smart gates, and saying: There was no answer from Sir David. | |||
| 26 June 2009 | But a couple of months later, an answer came through from Brodie Clark, Head of the Border Force at UKBA. "Your letter has been passed to me to respond", said Mr Clark, and: Asked to confirm that smart gates would be "faster" and "secure", was Mr Clark, on behalf of Sir David, going to try to get away with saying only that they were "available"? Asked to confirm that the Manchester Airport trial had been a success, was he going to say simply that the technology would benefit from further testing? No. Mr Clark adds: and ---------- * Some of us harbour the suspicion that Mr Clark had to be leant on to write that. † As we now know, the only way to deliver an improved service is to abandon use of the smart gates. | |||
| 3 February 2010 | The history of biometrics based on facial recognition really is a history of failure. If UKBA now had reliable facial recognition equipment, then some sort of a technology revolution must have taken place. Someone, in a letter dated 4 August 2009, asked Brodie Clark to publish the revolutionary Manchester Airport trial results. The same request was made of his boss, Lin Homer, chief executive of UKBA, in a letter dated 8 August 2009. The trial results were not published then and still haven't been published. There is still no respectable evidence in the public domain that UKBA's facial recognition technology works. On 3 February 2010, Lin Homer wrote: and
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| 23 February 2010 | Lin Homer kindly arranged a meeting, which took place at the Home Office on 23 February 2010. The meeting was attended by someone and by Karen Kyle (UK Border Agency), Marek Rejman-Greene (Home Office Scientific Development Branch), Alex Lahood (UK Border Agency), Henry Bloomfield (Identity & Passport Service), and Mike Franklin (UK Border Agency). No useful information about the reliability of UKBA's facial recognition technology was imparted at the meeting. In his informal minutes of the meeting, Alex Lahood wrote: A year after the 10 "pledges" of the UKBA delivery plan assured the public that the technology works, Lin Homer and Alex Lahood are still talking about trials. Why? | |||
| It is normal to publish the results of trials. It is suspicious when trial results are not published. The efficacy of biometrics has been asserted ever since 9/11, over 10 years ago. Public money has been spent throughout that period and continues to be spent on projects which depend for their success on biometrics being reliable. Not once have the Home Office supplied any trial results proving that they are investing public money wisely. For all we the public know, our money is being wasted on technology that doesn't work. If it doesn't work, using that technology cannot improve the security of the UK border. In which case the Home Secretary and the Shadow Home Secretary are talking nonsense when they say that failing to do biometric checks impairs the security of the border. And it is nonsensical to pillory Brodie Clark and force him out of UKBA for not using technology that doesn't work. | ||||
| 5-7 May 2010 | By this stage we have had it confirmed to us by UKBA press releases, newspaper articles, letters from Brodie Clark and Lin Homer and the informal minutes produced by Alex Lahood that UKBA conducted trials of facial recognition technology at Manchester Airport. Mr John Vine CBE QPM is the Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency. He conducted an inspection of Manchester Airport between 5 and 7 May 2010. In his report, Mr Vine lists a number of problems with the smart gates in use there. And then, at para.5.29, he writes:
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| It is hard to believe that the Home Office have been wasting public money on biometrics. But if we must entertain that thought, must we also make room for the thought that the Home Office haven't even been conducting the trials they keep talking about? How else are we to understand the Independent Chief Inspector's words, "We could find no overall plan to evaluate the success or otherwise of the facial recognition gates at Manchester Airport"? | ||||
For 10 years the Home Office have been investing public money unwisely in projects which depend for their success on mass consumer biometrics technology being reliable – it isn't.
Not just twice:
You really couldn't be more wrong about Whitehall, Mr Oborne, if you tried.
Whitehall has become a law unto itself, unelected, unaccountable, out of political control, wasting public money by the lorryload, operating in secret, to an unknown agenda. (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/715/715vw.pdf, see Ev W7)
Look at FiReControl, the project to establish regional centres for 999 calls to the fire brigade. The National Audit Office estimate that a minimum of £469 million of public money has been wasted. Do you seriously believe that that is all John Prescott's fault? (http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/10/its-all-johns-fault.html)
Look at NPfIT, the NHS computerisation plan that is costing us £11 billion. Even the intervention of the Prime Minister can't turn Sir David Nicholson's head. (http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/10/less-for-more.html)
Never heard of Sir David Nicholson? That's the problem. Massive openness needed. More reporting of Whitehall needed, in the nationals, by Peter Oborne and others.
Ministers do what their officials tell them. Otherwise they get spat out, like Liam Fox.
Theresa May is trussed up by her officials. The question isn't why she didn't follow the sensible plan Mr Oborne advances. It's why Whitehall didn't. And there, Mr Oborne, we have to look to you to investigate and report. (http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/11/brodie-clark-alone.html)
But three times:
Mr Oborne
As you must know, senior officials don't get booted out of Whitehall just for incompetence. That's one of the recruitment criteria. And they don't get booted out for disobeying ministers. That's the job. So why was Brodie Clark suspended/fired/"resigned"?
It's a rare event and there's only ever one explanation -- vested interests are threatened.
What vested interests?
Perhaps Mr Clark will tell us on Tuesday. Or perhaps you will start doing some investigating and reporting. I've made a start for you -- http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/11/brodie-clark-alone.html Look out for the connections between Mr Clark, Raytheon, IBM, Morpho, CSC, VFS Global, ...
Mr Oborne
As you must know, Whitehall doesn't like a public fuss. They don't want Theresa May and Yvette Cooper talking nonsense about biometrics in the House. It makes Whitehall look incompetent. Horror.
Think what happened the last time. Sir David Normington and Sir Gus O'Donnell called in the police to find Chris Galley, the Tory mole in the Home Office. Damian Green ended up in the nick for nine hours and the House of Commons was invaded by the police for the first time since the Civil War.
So the Home Office won't have wound up poor Theresa May and pointed her at the microphones unless there was a serious requirement to take the risk of making a fuss.
Brodie Clark must have been about to say something. Or John Vine must have been about to reveal something. That's what Mr Vine is paid to do and he's good at it.
Whatever the threatened revelation, it was enough for O'Donnell, Normington, Ghosh and maybe others to press the panic button.
Don't waste our time, Mr Oborne, talking nonsense about ministerial responsibility and an inviolably perfect Whitehall. Get on with finding out what rattled Sir Gus O'Donnell's cage and Sir David Normington's and Dame Helen Ghosh's -- especially hers, as she's likely to be appointed by O'Donnell and Normington as our next head of the home civil service.
You have a job to do, Sir. In the national interest. Get to it.
http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/11/brodie-clark-alone.html
http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/10/its-all-johns-fault.html
http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/10/you-just-cant-keep-good-man-down.html
http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/10/whose-bust-is-it-anyway.html
