Parliamentary Question re Identity Cards Programme meetings

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Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman has received a Written Parliamentary Answer from Des Browne, the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration regarding the recent meetings held by the Identity Cards Programme with the private sector in the last 6 months.

They seem to have attended about 20 conferences and seminars, and had meetings with at least 60 companies.

You may well wonder what meetings, if any, there have been with people or groups who are worried about the privacy and security of the proposed scheme, or who are opposed in principle to some or all aspects of it.

Perhaps our FOIA request for meeting diaries, minutes, agenda etc. will make things clearer.

"Identity Cards Programme

Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the (a) conferences, (b) seminars and (c) meetings with private sector representatives attended by members of the Identity Cards Programme team in the last six months. [208287]

Mr. Browne: In the last six months, members of the Identity Cards Programme team have:

(a) Attended the following conferences

Biometrics 2004

CIFAS Executive Forum

e-Government Exchange

e-Government Summit

National Fraud Forum

Risk and Security Management

UK and Ireland Fraud Liaison Group Annual Conference

Whitehall Industry Group Fraud Solutions Workshops;

and conferences organised by:

Experian

The Financial Services Authority

Institute for Public Policy Research

Institution of Electrical Engineers

International Association for Biometrics

Royal United Services Institute

Telecommunications Users' Fraud Forum;

(b) Participated in the following seminars

BT Syntegra Consultation Event

Naked Science: The State of Identity (Science Museum/Dana Centre);

and four seminars organised by Intellect the trade body for the UK based information technology, telecommunications and electronics industry.

(c) Held meetings with the following private sector organisations:

ABTA

Airline Operators Association

APACS

Atmel

Atos Origin

Authentec

Aware

Axon

BAA

BAR-UK

BATA

Bioscrypt

British Bankers' Association

BT

Callcredit

Cap Gemini

CBI

Cherry Corporation

CIFAS

Cogent

Consult Hyperion

CoreStreet

Datacard

De La Rue

Director of Foundation for Science and Technology

EDS

Equifax

Eye Ticket Corporation

Experian

Finance and Leasing Association

The Football Association

Fujitsu Microelectronics

Generics Group

Giesecke and Devrient

Hewlett Packard

Idenix

IFTO

Infineon

Intellect

Indian

Lasercard

London City Airport

NERA Consulting

Oberthur

OCE

ORGA

OVD Kinegram

Passenger Shipping Association

Precise Biometrics

Premier Electronics

Prudential

Royal Bank of Scotland

Setec

Sharp Corporation

SMARTRAC

St Microelectronics

Visa Europe

Meetings have also been held with

Small Business Service

Inland Revenue MPPC Payroll Group

Financial Services Authority

where private sector organisations have been in attendance.

For the purposes of this answer, the following definitions have been used. "Conference" means an event organised by an external organisation where a member of the Programme Team has been invited to participate or attend. "Seminar" means an event which was arranged by the Programme or by an external organisation where identity cards was the only or principal item of discussion. "Meeting" means any other meeting which involved a private organisation, where identity cards were the primary subject. Meetings with organisations which are currently providing services to the Programme team or with organisations which at the time were bidding to provide services to the Programme Team have been excluded."

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The ongoing saga of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme has resulted, at last, in an Internal Review a letter and a printout via snail mail, rather than via email. Do you think it is worth complaining to the Information... Read More

3 Comments

Great Work!!!! thanks. however - i am also interested in knowing what lobbying orgs the government has talked to. at first i though holy crap there are no enlightened citizen rights first organizations on the list. but the question only asked about private sector. i mean this makes it look like a big brother shoe-in but perhapos thats unfair

Just to be clear, the information above is as the result of a "normal" Parliamentary Question from a Member of Parliament, nothing yet has happened with our Freedom of Information Act request.

A couple of other Written Answers to Parliamentary Questions shed a bit of light on the £6.5 million plus being spent on PA Consulting and others

Although it is now more than 6 months ago, the Home office refused to attend the "Mistaken Identity" ID Card meeting held at the London School of Economics on 19th May 2004 (same day as the "purple flour" was thrown by amateur protestors in the House of Commons Chamber, despite the multi-million pound "security" screen)

They did, however, manage to attend and "officially support" an industry event the week after.

I made this point to David Blunkett from the floor of that IPPR event (you know, card-burning outside etc) that it wasnt much of a consultation when the same week sees Intellect and the Home Office meet (without any representation from civil society) and then LSE hosts a PI/FIPR event with Law Society, Lord Philips etc but no-one from HO any barely anyone from industry.

It's also worth working out which public relations firms have been engaged. I quizzed one PR woman at the IPPR event but she was reticent.

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