Red flag: Verify to be marked 'undeliverable' by gov projects watchdog The UK government's troubled £154m digital identity project Verify is to be flagged red by Whitehall's major projects watchdog, meaning delivery looks unachievable - according to sources. The rating is expected to emerge in the Infrastructure Projects Authority's annual report later today, which scrutinises over 130 large and …
"I'd love to see how on earth they calculate them."
Simple: ignore all the hidden and generated costs et voilà, remains de savings only.
"During the PAC hearing, civil service chief exec John Manzoni was also grilled on not remembering whether he'd looked at the business case for Verify."
A pretty stellar ooops, this one.
You can't (or couldn't) get your NI record and pension forecast without one and the scheme had changed between my first request and my second some years later.
I have no idea where either is and would have to request a third if I wanted to repeat the exercise. Which I would immediately throw away as I would have no immediate future use for it.
You used just to have to phone up and give them your NI number. You could do that with a text box on a form.
"A Cabinet Office spokesperson told The Reg: "Verify is a world-leading example of how to enable people to use services securely online. This has been a challenging project - but challenges like these are to be expected when the government is working at the forefront of new technology.
"Verify is now at a point where it can be taken forward by the private sector, so people will be able to safely and securely access both private and public online services.""
....9....10.
KABOOM*
Whoever said that surely has a special place in hell reserved for them?
*Spin meter blowing its top.
As usual taxpayer picks up the cost and then its punted over to the private sector where despite doing no extra work, bar slapping on a shiny shiny front end somehow massive profits are made, usually because the government then signs a cushy contract with the new provider and requires everyone to use their services....
Up to 2016, the Government Digital Service was claiming that 25 million people would be signed up to Verify by 2020 – based on current estimates, the real figure will be more like 5.4m.
Easily fixed. Do what the Australian government did when the same situation was facing MyHealth, change the signup from voluntary (opt-in) to compulsory unless you manually, explicitly opt-out. That'll fix the numbers for them (though not the other problems with it).
Since half the people who try can't get in, how would compulsory help? Those are a cumulative 5m accounts, not people; whatever the position on fraud (which we are told is both out of control and none detected), it's designed so one person can have many, and no doubt some of those with providers who have gone will have taken out a second one, not to mention those who try to put in a tax return 366 days after the previous one.
Australia has lots of good ideas, like compulsory opportunity to vote so there's no intimidation to keep people away and no opportunity to masquerade as someone who will not turn up. (They even invented the secret ballot.) In this case, better to look to NZ or Canada. 'Platforms', we are told, have canonical registers; Verify doesn't. Much better either to have a proper distributed Jury service status register or to make the compulsory EU resident's database optionally available for UK citizens.
It sounds great - an identity which guarantees that it is YOU i.e. a person registered with the government, a bank, a doctor who is making contact with an online service. If that is where it stopped, it would be fine. However, when politicians get their hands on the concept it turns into something quite different like the National Identity register. For that, there would be thousands of people able to access your information, 1% (on average) being criminals. It was proposed that (as a starter only) with information to be added without your knowledge and with no means of correcting or challenging the information the following (I quote):
(1)For the purposes of sections 4 and 5 “personal information”, in relation to an individual (“A”), means—
(a)A's full name,
(b)other names by which A is or has previously been known,
(c)A's gender,
(d)A's date and place of birth,
(e)external characteristics of A that are capable of being used for identifying A,
(f)the address of A's principal place of residence in the United Kingdom,
(g)the address of every other place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere where A has a place of residence,
(h)where in the United Kingdom and elsewhere A has previously been resident,
(i)the times at which A was resident at different places in the United Kingdom or elsewhere,
(j)A's current residential status,
(k)residential statuses previously held by A, and
(l)information about numbers allocated to A for identification purposes and about the documents (including stamps or labels) to which they relate.
Note that it fails to mention photos directly and the usual hassle of having to pay to update them on a regular basis.
This will permit a number of interesting consequences:
1. Criminals will be able to take your identity more easily since the information will be public (despite the governments best efforts).
2. If there is a criminal activity in or near any of the properties you have lived in, you will be hauled in front of a court to prove it wasn't you.
3. There will be many errors which you will not be able to correct - wrong addresses, wrong dates which will have nasty consequences in trying to get loans, take out insurance etc. etc.
Wouldn't it be nice if there could be an identity system which simply permitted you to identify yourself? In the uk IMPOSSIBLE - too many bureaucrats and politicians trying to create the police state.
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