‘Britain to use national identity cards to check illegal workers’

AHMEDABAD - Britain is set to eliminate the problem of illegal workers during the current decade through implementation of its ongoing project on issuing national identity cards to protect jobs for all the legal citizens, a British official said here Monday.

‘Within the current decade the national identity card with a British national will also become as familiar as a passport required to travel abroad,’ Henry Bloomfield, deputy director of science & innovation (identity & passport service) of the British government said while delivering a key-note address at the two-day international conference on security and identity management (SIM 2009) which began at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) here Monday.

He said that the uniqueness of the national identity card would be such that a British national staying abroad would still be able to have online access to all information required by him under the British social security system without any problems.

The national identity card has an electronic chip and a ‘PIN capability’ to make the entire system secure to access online. The airports in Heathrow (London) and Manchester have already started carrying out trials on the ways to identify a citizen through the national identity card in Britain, he said.

Bloomfield said that the private sector in Britain comprising an entire gamut of businesses would be able to use the national identity card of job applicants to do background check including criminal record verifications.

Ramnath Chintagunta, chief general manager (CGM) (IT), Global IT Centre, State Bank of India (SBI), Mumbai said that there is a significant element of ‘under experience’ in ensuring security of the networks in many Indian banks.

‘Security breaches and the menace of viruses are on an uptrend in Indian banks,’ Chintagunta added.

Later talking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference, Ken Gratten, dean of the City University of Britain said that both the department of science and technology of the British government and department of information technology of the Indian government would be working together on a project to prevent identity thefts which occur not just in the industry but also in the areas of immigration application processing for issuing visas.

Rajnish Dass, senior faculty IIM-A and chairperson of SIM-2009 said that the national identity card system proposed in India would eliminate various types of frauds happening in the banking system especially related to loan application processing.