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Home Office

Answer

Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what evaluation he has conducted of the security of the proposed national identity register; and what weaknesses have been identified. [210160] Mr. Browne: The ID Cards Scheme has not yet reached the Gateway 1 stage of the Office of Government Commerce classification of major programmes which is the stage at which a formal security evaluation is required. However it is likely that the evaluation will conclude that the scheme will be part of the country's Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). As such it will be subject to Government security accreditation in accordance with the Manual of Protective Security and the relevant international standard (ISO/IEC 17799). A pan government security accreditor has been appointed from the Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (CSIA) and a team of specialist security consultants appointed to manage the accreditation and end to end resilience and security of the scheme. A formal Threat Assessment has been commissioned and input received from the National Infrastructure Co- ordination Centre (NISCC) and the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). These will form a key part of the security evaluation. The Communications Electronic Security Group (CESG) which is part of GCHQ and the National Technical Information Assurance Authority are fully engaged in the project. Finally both an Accreditation Panel and a Security Working Group, involving all security stakeholders, are already in place and meetings held on a regular basis.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

210160; 430 c1268W

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Databases Identity cards National identity register Proof of identity Registration Standards Security

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk