U.K. moves closer to national biometric ID, but questions persist

The U.K. government won a major victory in Parliament last week on the issue of national biometric IDs, bringing the United Kingdom one step closer to ID cards incorporating biometrics. The main purpose of the biometric ID is to combat forgeries, but Stewart Hefferman, COO of Swindon, U.K.-based TSSI Systems commented: “The main concern with ID cards is forgery. The government has chosen biometrics to prevent this, but this needs careful implementation. Biometrics alone will not prevent forgery, and with it, fraud”. For example, despite strong encryption, the Dutch biometric passports have already been hacked.

Hefferman says there is a simple solution to this particular problem: a belt and braces approach. Storing the data as an algorithmic encryption will make it impossible for even the most sophisticated fraudster to read or substitute.

-read more in this report; and see TSSI Web site