IDENTITY THEFT - UK IDENTITY AND CREDIT/DEBIT CARD FRAUD

According to the News of 7th April 2009 it was stated that UK ID cards could be fitted with chip and pin technology to help combat identity fraud however no mention was made as to Government accountability towards the Public and especially since £millions have already being fraudulently stolen from the Financial Industry in terms of such technology. Prior to taxpayers money bailing out collapsing Banks last year “bird seed” was scattered around in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />UK in the form of “data losses” by Gov Departments while UK driving Licence data surfaced across the Atlantic in the US. Its accepted that certain Gov Heads have little understanding of Data Protection or have any financial qualifications as to their handling of budgets and so one can only surmise that such ignorance be also applicable to ID Theft too after all to be qualified is to be accountable whereas to remain unqualified pushes blame onto others whom are!. Then one must consider Financial Institutions like Banks whom must not admit to security breaches in preserving character else face loss of customer deposits.  

 

Physicalness is to paper money/person as a keyboard and connectivity is to digital money/person. Parallelism now exists – two systems unsynchronised. Card transaction are usually about an account number protected by a PIN at an ATM/POS to which historically Banks advised their customers to keep watch over their accounts to detect any fraudulent access. This serves to demonstrate “static card” identity allowing duplicity by others and a system that cannot differentiate reality from fantasy.

 

UKBiometric Identity cards – Two choices present themselves:-

 

(1)     High Volume Data ID Cards (HVDIDC) – People orientated accountability/responsibility.

·         Biometric Data digitised and stored on a Card having mobility

·         Data storage environment = Public Domain

·         Data local - open to abuse  

 

(2)     Low Volume Data ID Cards ( LVDIDC ) - Government orientated accountability/responsibility

·         Biometric Data digitised and stored on a Secure Database – No mobility

·         Data storage environment = NOT Public / Access only / Limited / Authorisation

·         Data remote – access only (ref – read only) 

 

If (1) is adopted then the Public become wholly responsible for cloned data of themselves on Silicon at great expense while affording the Financial Industry a justifiable reason to offer Identity Protection Insurance – a cloning tax addition to income tax, council tax, purchase tax, service tax etc. In adopting (2) card data would be minimal – a unique number ( National Insurance No UK ) as a record key by RDF tag into a database extracting information as to person status and immediate authentication. Disadvantage: Government need for ID insurance protection in being accountable towards taxpayers.

 

Currently the Home Office outlay on ID Cards is some £650 million to which card data is first stored on a database before being cloned off onto an ID card. In all events this represents two sets of identical data and if “one” were to differ by either a “0” or a “1” in error which would be accepted true leaving the other as false?. In respect of identity theft through “Static Cards” and cloning Chancellor Brown along with Mr Blair and the Home Office knew of a method to reduce such fraud in 2005 by “Card Inconsistency” but did this simply line a waste paper basket?.  

 

Does New Labour realise that if just one record on a £Multi_Mega_million Terabyte database is found to be in error the whole database is suspect having no integrity and not worth the cost of the 13 amp fuse that serves to powers it!.

 

Old News:

10 03 2008 UK Government fails to implement Data protection policies. The Department of Health, the Treasury, the Ministry of Defence and the House of Commons all said they had never been submitted to an independent audit checking their compliance with the Data Protection Act. Twelve of the 14 Gov Departments admitted they had not allocated funds for the correction of incorrect data, while the other two departments said they did not know. Tom Ilube, CEO of Garlik, said: "With HMRC and DWP data breaches fresh in people's minds, these admissions reflect a surprising disregard by Government for the value of our personal information. "These gaps and the absence of independent audits point to the root causes of the recent data breaches - a lack of robust accountability."

28 04 2008 UK voting system 'open to fraud'. There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the last seven years, and there is a "genuine risk" of electoral integrity being threatened. This is partly because "previously robust" administration systems have now reached "breaking point". It claims the benefits of postal and electronic voting have been "exaggerated" - particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion

12 05 2008 LIE DETECTORS adopted by the Government against taxpayers. Anti-fraud minister James Plaskitt announced last week that the scheme would be extended. Now employers have given a cautious welcome to the idea of using the Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) system to identify people who may be lying when they phone in sick

17 05 2008 Children - voted in by-election. It is alleged the youngsters voted after mistakenly being sent polling cards.

25 12 2008 Hundreds held over fake documents. Five hundred people have been arrested for trying to use fake documents to get into the UK in the past year, the Home Office said. The UK Border Agency said it stopped nearly 210,000 people boarding planes to the UK without proper documents from 2003 to 2007.

19 01 2009 Anger at account fraud - Lloyds TSB. A FRAUD investigation has been launched after a stranger went into a bank and changed the personal account details of customer. He went through a set of security details with Lloyds TSB, but was amazed when the member of staff on the other end of the phone told him his address had been changed to a house in Reading, more than 150 miles away.

07 04 2009 ID cards 'could use chip and pin'. ID cards could be fitted with chip and pin technology to help combat identity fraud. James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service said adding chips might allow the cards to be used in ATM machines in the future. Meanwhile, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced which companies would be given contracts worth £650 million for cards and biometric passports.