Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500
- 502)
TUESDAY 20 APRIL 2004
MR JOHN
HARRISON, MR
ANDY JEBSON,
MR RICHARD
HADDOCK AND
MR NEIL
FISHER
Q500 Chairman: So rather than the
model that one might have at the moment where some of our police
stations, but not all of them, have on-line fingerprinting access
to the database, that sort of thing will be pretty commonplace?
Mr Fisher: I think it will be
very commonplace.
Q501 Chairman: Mr Haddock, do you
share that assumption?
Mr Haddock: No, I do not. I think
technology implementation has come a lot slower than planned in
general. Do we have a paperless office yet? That was supposed
to happen 20 years ago. Paper does not go away and I want a card
that when I look at it, it is on the desk and I can pick it up
and tell my face, my name, my fingerprints on it, so I know just
at that level that it is my card and I can look at the optical
media to see my embedded hologram, so if I put it in a reader,
I can verify myself, so you need levels of identification and
security for different aspects of society. For some general access
such as perhaps just walking through the bank door and as long
as you have some sort of ID, it is okay, but to access your account,
now you need to electronically validate it, so I do not think
it is going to be a ubiquitous database in the sky and I sure
as hell hope not.
Q502 Chairman: Mr Jebson and Mr Harrison,
you are both interested in system design perhaps more than card
technology. How quickly does the Government have to decide whether
it is Mr Fisher's vision or Mr Haddock's vision for the future?
How quickly does the Government have to decide in order for the
entire project to go ahead or is it a decision which can be delayed
until some way down the line?
Mr Jebson: No, it is not. I would
say within the year. One thing I would add, and I think it echoes
some of what has been said here, is that four years ago I was
sitting in a committee discussing Smart cards and whether they
were going to come out into the wide world or not and one of the
major objectors at that point in time was the representative from
the retail traders' association because he felt he was being forced
down a path on behalf of his members of chip and pin. Sitting
here as a citizen today, I am extremely unhappy that they have
not implemented that already.
Mr Harrison: I think that the
Government needs to make the decision about the overall architecture
relatively quickly. It can then probably delay work on many of
its implications for some time, but the longer it delays and the
longer it fails to spell out the positive benefits of the card,
the greater the risk of public rejection.
Mr Haddock: If you have the ability
to call for evidence, one thing you might wish to consider is
to call for evidence which gives you specific proposals on the
costs and implementation plans of given architectures and have
people come to present to you in real dollars, cents and time
how much they think a given architecture which they can describe
would cost you and how long it would take to implement it and
have people tell you from their own expertise.
Chairman: We will bear that in mind for
future evidence sessions. Thank you, gentlemen, very much indeed.
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