Katherine Courtney and the Science and Technology Committee

Katherine Courtney’s oral evidence to the Science and Technology Committee makes interesting reading.

Q264 Chairman: Has that grown since the original concept by David Blunkett four years ago and is it likely to grow again?

Ms Courtney: I do not believe it has grown. If you look back to the original consultation at the time of what was called an entitlement card scheme, it did include similar aims and objectives. Obviously, we have since refined and clarified them to be more specific. In responding to feedback on the consultation and on the scrutiny of the draft legislation, we have, for instance, stated the aims of the statutory purposes quite clearly on the face of the Bill in order to attempt to make sure that we have the scope of the scheme quite clearly defined.

Er…

Let’s see, this thing has been touted as the cure all for every problem society faces during the time since the malodorous Blunkett first proposed this execrable scheme. Only recently has the government propose linking this thing to voting records. So, that’s “yes” then.

Q265 Chairman: In terms of managing this project, you are absolutely clear what it is aiming to do, what its purposes will be, and you will build the technology around that?

Ms Courtney: Yes, the technology is an enabler to achieving this objective.

Feck me! Once again, the technologically illiterate spout utter bollocks. The answer, translated into plain English is: I haven’t a clue, but the consultants boffins reckon it will all work okay. I trust ‘em, so should you.

Q266 Bob Spink: There is a perception in the House of Commons, and indeed in the public, that the emphasis has certainly changed if the parameters have not. Certainly the emphasise between them has changed dramatically over the last years and months. Is this your perception?

Ms Courtney: No, it is not my perception. I am not sure what the change of emphasis you are referring to is, so it is difficult for me to respond.

Q267 Bob Spink: It is moving away from “this will tackle terrorism” to “this will help us to tackle illegal immigration, benefit fraud and ID fraud”.

Ms Courtney: I think the original consultation around the principles was triggered by a Cabinet study into identity fraud, and so one of the clear aims of the scheme has always been to tackle identity fraud. As the original consultation was, as I said, called an entitlement scheme, the focus there was also really about accessing services and making sure that people who did not have rights to free service were not abusing the system and defrauding the system. I do not see that the emphasis has changed.

Q268 Bob Spink: It must be that the public, we in the House of Commons and the media have got it wrong then? Thank you.

Ms Courtney: I never said that.

Maybe she didn’t, but her political masters have touted this thing as a cure for terrorism, then changed their minds, told us it will be a solution for making our lives easier when we want to prove our identity on a “daily basis” when opening bank accounts, when accessing public services, when shopping – particularly on-line, solve illegal immigration and, yes, good old identity fraud. Yes, let’s waste spend around £6bn (or much more) on a problem that, in reality, is around £27m per annum. Mr Spink, the House and we have it right. Courtney is a vacillating poltroon. It gets worse. Skipping forward a little:

Q271 Chairman: We will come back to the procurement process. Clearly there are many experts who say, and I do not just mean parliamentarians who always have a vested interest, that this is not a feasible project, it is not do-able. What evidence do you have which says that you can actually do it? Where is that evidence?

Ms Courtney: We have been looking at this for many years, actually several years before I joined the programme as a matter of fact. Before the policy decisions in principle were even taken, quite a lot of feasibility analysis went forward. In parallel with the consultation on the principles of the scheme, the Passport Service at that time also commissioned a feasibility study from the National Physical Laboratory into the proposed technologies, so there were feasibility studies done around in particular two of the key technologies: the biometric technologies and the smartcard technologies. Those studies came back showing that the technical risks to a programme like this were medium risks and were manageable and actually the important thing to focus on was of course the business risks and making sure that we are getting the business process right and all the other factors around how you identify a person and register their identity, and then confirm it.

Well, if that’s not so much meaningless “management speak” I don’t know what is. It didn’t impress the chairman, either his response was:

Q272 Chairman: I find that answer, with the greatest respect, absolutely astounding. Two weeks ago, the Committee was in the United States talking to the Department of Homeland Security who said exactly the opposite to what you have said.

Quite. Further on, we get to the high failure rates in the government’s own trials:

Q298 Adam Afriyie: You were showing some confidence in the match rates but the false non‑match rate for fingerprints is 1 in 100; the false match rate for facial recognition was 1 in 10; and the false non-match rate for iris was 1 in 100.

Ms Courtney: Are you quoting from our enrolment pilot?

Q299 Adam Afriyie: Yes, the false non-match rates from your own pilots.

Ms Courtney: I think it is important to reiterate that the enrolment trial was a trial of process and customer experience. It was not designed as a trial to look at performance of the technology per se. The NPL study recommended that we run such a pilot to look at all the business process issues around how you would register multiple biometrics for a representative sample of the population. We will be running, during the course of the procurement, again subject to parliamentary approval, operational testing of the technical systems to be able to evaluate what the actual live performance is.

So, as I understand it, Courtney is saying something along the lines of “The trial gave the wrong answer – so we’ll ignore it and change the question. It doesn’t matter that the technology didn’t work as expected, the customer experience was wonderful.”

Q301 Adam Afriyie: We have had chip and pin, multi-modal biometrics (face/iris/fingerprints), testing systems, enrolment systems and verification checks. These are all to do with technology. What are the known limitations in the proposed scheme and how are you looking to address them?

Ms Courtney: Known limitations in respect of?

Clueless, clueless, clueless. It was a simple question, the answer speaks volumes. Then there’s the issue about points of contact; where people will be verified against the system:

Q313 Bob Spink: How many points of access to the scheme will here be?

Ms Courtney: I would like to clarify that we are not talking about access to the system. I think that word is often used and misconstrued. We are talking about designing a system here which allows people to present identity information and have it confirmed.

Q314 Bob Spink: We are finishing very shortly and we only have 30 minutes. Could you just address the question specifically and, if you need to add to it, perhaps you could write to us.

Ms Courtney: I cannot give you a number or the volume of verification transactions that we would expect to see on the system.

She doesn’t know – hasn’t a clue. Further dithering and elusive non-answers underline the point before the committee moves on:

Q320 Bob Spink: So there is an assumption that the policymakers are taking that the technology will work? That is an assumption?

Ms Courtney: It is an assumption based on expert advice that was gathered at the time.

Q321 Bob Spink: Why have you not trialled the technology to find out whether it will work?

Ms Courtney: We have been trialling the technology.

Indeed – go back to the answer to questions 298 and 299. Sheesh! However did this incompetent get her position? Oh, no, they are going to trial it.

Q322 Bob Spink: The 2005 trial was not a technology trial. There has been no large-scale trial on any scale at all that is comparable to what we are going to do of the biometrics. In fact, we do not even know what biometrics we are going to be used yet.

Ms Courtney: Trialling the system that suppliers will be proposing during the procurement phase of the scheme will take place during the procurement phase of the scheme. We cannot trial a system that we do not have yet, if you see what I mean. We have lots of experience from other operational systems: IDENT 1, NAFIS, other systems at the Home Office that operate on a very large scale quite successfully.

Q323 Bob Spink: When will you be trialling, how will you be trialling, and what is your budget for trialling?

Ms Courtney: I have to say that all of that is actually subject to us receiving the Royal Assent on the legislation.

So there is no clear idea about budget, either. Oh, hang on a minute:

Q325 Bob Spink: Do Ministers know the cost of trialling? Have you given those costings to Ministers?

Ms Courtney: Ministers are aware of all of the costs of the scheme, yes. The costs of trialling are included in our business case.

So there is a budget, they just don’t want to tell us, is that right?

Q327 Bob Spink: As a serious group of professionals you cannot sit here and look this Committee in the eye and tell us that you have not even started the trialing of the technology yet and yet the system will be up and running in two and a bit years’ time. Surely you are not telling us that.

Says it all really. Do go and read it, it makes depressingly funny reading. Laugh, cry, do both. In short, Katherine Courtney doesn’t know how much this will cost (nor her arse from her elbow by the sounds of it), if she does, she isn’t saying, she has no idea whatsoever about the level of usage, nor how many access points are likely to be needed, the technology is a complete mystery to her – she is, herself, ignorant of the technology she speaks of so resorts to management gobbledygook in an attempt to disguise her ignorance. In that, she fails miserably and the committee are having none of it.

This stuff is straight out of “Yes, Minister” except that “Yes, Minister” was funny.

 Hat tip wtwu