Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 195This analysis suggests that the provisions in Section 14 of this Bill are inadequate insecurity terms, and fail to establish a sound basis for the security of data held in theNational Identity Register.Access to Data Held in the National Identity Register withoutSubject ConsentThere are also worrying security deficiencies in Sections 19 to 23, that cover access todata in the National Identity Register held without the consent of the subject (this willsubsequently be referred to as ‘covert access’).Inadequate Controls Covering Access without ConsentA large number of organisations can gain covert access to National Identity Registerdata, the only constraint imposed on them being a requirement to show that the datacannot reasonably be obtained in another way. In practice, this constraint is so weak asto be virtually useless.There is, for example, no requirement that such requests should be subject specific,which means that organisations with covert access rights can undertake ‘fishingexpeditions’ in the National Identity Register.Whereas a person who is seeking to verify an identity would have to nominate a subject,the police and others appear to be free to make requests that are not subject specific.This will mean, for example, that requests such as: ‘supply fingerprint and addressrecords for all who live in Worcester’, or: ‘provide the identity records of all thosewhose fingerprints might be a partial match for those attached’, are permissible. Ittherefore appears that those with covert access will be able to interrogate the NationalIdentity Register using full database search and extraction capabilities.The ability to make such access requests without nominating a subject has serious safetyand security implications. Although it might help in fighting crime, it will also createnew risks for honest citizens. For example, those whose fingerprints are innocentlyfound at crime scenes could have to account for their presence to the police, who wouldhave the ability to identify them using the National Identity Register.Although the size of any consequential risk is unknown, it is clearly present if largelyunconstrained police access to the National Identity Register is allowed. In consequenceit is far from certain that benefits in fighting crime will be sufficient to offset new risksfor law-abiding citizens.The Ability of Government Agencies to Impersonate UK CitizensOne bizarre provision within this part of the Bill is that organisations that have rights tocovert access can obtain the passwords and security answers that are supposed to verifysubject access and subject consent for third party access. Since the only possible use ofthis data is to impersonate the subject in respect of the giving of consent, it has to beconcluded that the Government is inadvertently making provision to allow the policeand other agencies to impersonate the subject in this regard. A likely consequence is