Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 207The rise in costs cannot be entirely explained by the costs of meeting internationalobligations. Other countries are implementing biometric passports without similar priceincreases. For example, the US Government has proposed a maximum cost increase of20% for new passports. The German Government advertised their new passport costs of59 euros by emphasising that it will cost almost half as much as those in the UK. 483This situation arises because of the blurring of the boundary between passports andidentity cards, and the resulting administrative costs. According to UKPS,"The large increase in the average unit cost per passport in 2006/07 isbased on a number of our improvement initiatives, in particularAuthentication by Interview (AbI), the Personal Identification Project(PIP) and facial biometric chips (ePassports) being implementedcompletely. As explained throughout this Plan, these steps areessential if we are better to safeguard our customers’ identities."The reality is that these initiatives are only required to support ID cards. TheGovernment is a victim of confused thinking if it believes the increased costs ofpassports cannot be attributed to international obligations.The figures suggest that the costs of passports are rising to meet the national ID registerat a notional half-way point, and then will rise again to finally incorporate additionalcosts of the national ID infrastructure. The quality of the debate on these matters willnot improve without a clear understanding of the ICAO standards and the USobligations, along with a comparative study of what other countries are planning.Improvements in Government Cost AssessmentsArguably the Government has made a number of positive steps to better understand thechallenges of IT projects, and in particular, to understand the challenges ofimplementing the ID card programme. One step is a set of reports and studies that werecommissioned to better understand the technology that may be used in the project;another was the use of ‘Gateway Process’ reviews to ensure that programmes are oncourse and are feasible.Unfortunately in both cases the Government has not been sufficiently open andtransparent on the outcomes of these studies and their assessment of the costing andfeasibility of the ID Card programme. The reasons for this are explained below.Sparse StudiesThis bill represents a substantial increase in Government IT expenditure, creating whatwill be one of the largest single IT projects in the world. It is surprising that so little isknown even at this advanced stage of planning. As mentioned above, this uncertaintywill only increase costs, and could possibly lead to the failure of the project.483 ‘Biometric passports are to cost 59 euros’, heise online, June 2, 2005, available athttp://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/60204.