Initially the ID card will not be compulsory, but life will 
be "increasingly inconvenient" without it ... so most will 
register to for convenience.

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Businesses will have graded access to ID database

By Lucy Sherriff

Published Tuesday 13th September 2005 11:53 GMT

The Home Office said yesterday that businesses and public sector
agency access to the national identity card database will be allowed
on a graded basis, according to need. The idea is that so-called
trivial checks on people's biometrics should not be allowed to
overload the system.

According to The FT, Katherine Courtney, the ID card programme
director at the Home Office, said that the government wanted to build
safeguards into the scheme to avoid "people attempting frivolously to
use the system when there is not a business justification for that".

Situations when a check would be justified included car rentals, for
instance. A car hire firm would be able to access the database to
confirm a potential customer's identity. At the time of writing, the
Home Office has not been able to clarify exactly what information the
firm would have access to in this scenario.

Employers would be able to use the database to check on candidates,
and the database could be used to run much faster background checks 
on those applying to work as teachers, the officials said.

Courtney said it was unlikely that the ID card would be demanded for
everyday shopping transactions, but went on to outline plans for the
ID card to be linked into the next generation of chip and pin credit
and debit card readers.

She argued that integrating the cards into business and public life
would provide incentives for people to register for the card, even
before they become compulsory. In effect, life without a card will
become increasingly inconvienient, so most people will register for
one, just to speed things up.

                             -==-

Source: "The Register"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/13/id_access_database/


Cheers, Steve..

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