The introduction of ID cards will not only increase the power of the state over the individual. It will also transfer £3.1 billion from the state to the big companies that are now among the most persistent lobbyists for the scheme, circling around ministers with promises of glamorous high-tech solutions.
The ID card programme is so huge that the government is likely to divide the work into several contracts, so different members of this circling pack will get a bone. Firms are as likely to get to the front of the pack by way of strong political connections as any proven track record of competence.
Siemens, for example, has made sure it is among the big dogs by hiring Sovereign Strategy, a lobby firm with former Labour minister Jack Cunningham on its board. The company also funds the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), a key Labour-linked think-tank. Siemens was behind the failing information systems at the Home Office and Passport Office that left asylum seekers and travellers in difficulties.
Atos Origin is already running trials for the ID card and can look forward to bigger contracts when the card goes live. Atos got a head start over its rivals when it bought out SchlumbergerSema, a firm that already had strong links to the Labour government (see Know Your Enemy, January 2004). Atos has also hired Lord Barnett, a former Labour cabinet minister, as its UK chairman, and funded the IPPR think-tank.
Like Siemens, the company has been involved in some notable public sector failures. For example, Atos ran the NHS computer system that was supposed to let doctors book hospital appointments from their desktops. The National Audit Office found the scheme was underperforming woefully (see Know Your Enemy, April 2005). Atos also runs disability benefit testing for the government, recently proposing centre closures that campaigners say would leave disabled people struggling to get benefit assessments.
Computer giant Unisys is another big dog in the contractor pack. Unisys sponsored the Fabian Society seminar in July at which Home Office minister Tony McNulty made a fresh attempt to sell the scheme by apologising for the governments over-enthusiasm in overselling the card in the past. The company also helped to pay for a recent procurement conference with Katherine Courtney, the Home Office mandarin in charge of the programme. Unisys was formed from the Burroughs Corporation, a firm founded by the grandfather of avant garde author William Burroughs, who wrote fantastical tales about authoritarian and corrupt systems of power which seems somehow appropriate.
The track record of Unisys includes introducing an ID card system in Panama. The multi-million dollar deal came unstuck in 2002 when Panama’s electoral commission cancelled the four-year contract for the high tech digital cards. Unisys was sacked after a Colombian man was found illegally holding 500 blank cards and the company admitted that it too had 30,000 blank cards, all of which should have been handed to the Panamanian government. While the electoral commission dismissed rumours that the blank cards were part of a voting fraud or drug crime plot, they terminated the contract over general security concerns. Unisys responded by suing the Panamanian government.
Unisys also run Malaysia’s Mykad identity card, introduced to help the country expel an estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrant workers. The Mykad is generally judged a success, but even a relatively efficiently-run scheme such as this has experienced problems. Government staff have already been arrested for illegally issuing Mykads.
Going further back, in 1996 Unisys were removed from a contract to register Massachusetts voters after state officials called their work shoddy and inferior. In 1995, the company paid the state of Wisconsin $2.2 million in fines for poor work running medical benefits. In 1998, 13 Unisys employees were jailed after a gang stole nearly half a million dollars from the state of Florida health insurance system. A grand jury panel found that: While Unisys corporate officials did not direct such offences to occur, we find that there existed a corporate culture which tolerated the employees’ misdeeds. Unisys called these charges unfair, but the firm left its $86 million a year contract two years early as complaints about poor service built up. In 1990, meanwhile, Unisys paid the US government $190 million in fines. A federal investigation called Operation Ill Wind found they won defence contracts through fraud and bribery.
In 1990, Unisys sold a personnel tracking computer system to Saddams Ministry of the Interior. This could have been used to organise the secret police pay cheques, but could also have been used to keep tabs on Iraq’s population. Unisys also sold computers to Iraqs defence department.
When the Roman emperor Vespasian was attacked for taxing the urine taken from Roman toilets to help cure leather, he replied, Money has no smell. Two thousand years later companies such as Unisys seem still unbothered about odours attached to their cash.
The introduction of ID cards will not only increase the power of the state over the individual. It will also transfer £3.1 billion from the state to the big companies that are now among the most persistent lobbyists for the scheme, circling around ministers with promises of glamorous high-tech solutions.
The ID card programme is so huge that the government is likely to divide the work into several contracts, so different members of this circling pack will get a bone. Firms are as likely to get to the front of the pack by way of strong political connections as any proven track record of competence.
Siemens, for example, has made sure it is among the big dogs by hiring Sovereign Strategy, a lobby firm with former Labour minister Jack Cunningham on its board. The company also funds the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), a key Labour-linked think-tank. Siemens was behind the failing information systems at the Home Office and Passport Office that left asylum seekers and travellers in difficulties.
Atos Origin is already running trials for the ID card and can look forward to bigger contracts when the card goes live. Atos got a head start over its rivals when it bought out SchlumbergerSema, a firm that already had strong links to the Labour government (see Know Your Enemy, January 2004). Atos has also hired Lord Barnett, a former Labour cabinet minister, as its UK chairman, and funded the IPPR think-tank.
Like Siemens, the company has been involved in some notable public sector failures. For example, Atos ran the NHS computer system that was supposed to let doctors book hospital appointments from their desktops. The National Audit Office found the scheme was underperforming woefully (see Know Your Enemy, April 2005). Atos also runs disability benefit testing for the government, recently proposing centre closures that campaigners say would leave disabled people struggling to get benefit assessments.
Computer giant Unisys is another big dog in the contractor pack. Unisys sponsored the Fabian Society seminar in July at which Home Office minister Tony McNulty made a fresh attempt to sell the scheme by apologising for the governments over-enthusiasm in overselling the card in the past. The company also helped to pay for a recent procurement conference with Katherine Courtney, the Home Office mandarin in charge of the programme. Unisys was formed from the Burroughs Corporation, a firm founded by the grandfather of avant garde author William Burroughs, who wrote fantastical tales about authoritarian and corrupt systems of power which seems somehow appropriate.
The track record of Unisys includes introducing an ID card system in Panama. The multi-million dollar deal came unstuck in 2002 when Panama’s electoral commission cancelled the four-year contract for the high tech digital cards. Unisys was sacked after a Colombian man was found illegally holding 500 blank cards and the company admitted that it too had 30,000 blank cards, all of which should have been handed to the Panamanian government. While the electoral commission dismissed rumours that the blank cards were part of a voting fraud or drug crime plot, they terminated the contract over general security concerns. Unisys responded by suing the Panamanian government.
Unisys also run Malaysia’s Mykad identity card, introduced to help the country expel an estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrant workers. The Mykad is generally judged a success, but even a relatively efficiently-run scheme such as this has experienced problems. Government staff have already been arrested for illegally issuing Mykads.
Going further back, in 1996 Unisys were removed from a contract to register Massachusetts voters after state officials called their work shoddy and inferior. In 1995, the company paid the state of Wisconsin $2.2 million in fines for poor work running medical benefits. In 1998, 13 Unisys employees were jailed after a gang stole nearly half a million dollars from the state of Florida health insurance system. A grand jury panel found that: While Unisys corporate officials did not direct such offences to occur, we find that there existed a corporate culture which tolerated the employees’ misdeeds. Unisys called these charges unfair, but the firm left its $86 million a year contract two years early as complaints about poor service built up. In 1990, meanwhile, Unisys paid the US government $190 million in fines. A federal investigation called Operation Ill Wind found they won defence contracts through fraud and bribery.
In 1990, Unisys sold a personnel tracking computer system to Saddams Ministry of the Interior. This could have been used to organise the secret police pay cheques, but could also have been used to keep tabs on Iraq’s population. Unisys also sold computers to Iraqs defence department.
When the Roman emperor Vespasian was attacked for taxing the urine taken from Roman toilets to help cure leather, he replied, Money has no smell. Two thousand years later companies such as Unisys seem still unbothered about odours attached to their cash.