Chips with everything ... and everyone

GNU LABOUR

In case anyone thought the campaign against ID cards had fallen asleep over the summer, we're treated to a forthcoming speech by University of East Anglia researcher Dr Emily Finch. She says that fraudsters will not be daunted by the introduction of ID cards, but will simply adapt their methods when they are introduced. Far from reducing crime, the introduction of the cards may actually lead to an increase in identity theft.

'Chip and PIN' has not reduced fraud, apparently. Not only is it painfully easy to see someone's PIN being typed onto a keypad, but sales assistants do not even attempt to verify the identity of the person offering the card. Dr Finch used a card with a man's name on it and was never challenged. Furthermore, criminals are applying for credit cards using other people's details by means of the terribly sophisticated method of going through their rubbish to find out such details.

The problem is not, Dr Finch argues, one of increasing the information held on the cards, but of encouraging those people who have to do the verification to be vigilant and not just rely on the technology to do the job for them.

Dr Finch's speech is being given at the British Association's festival in Dublin tomorrow (7 September). I await the government's reaction with interest (actually, no I don't, because it's totally predictable).

[EDIT: Don't rule out compulsory use of the VeriChip a generation from now.]