Hi-tech equipment could misidentify one in 1,000 people, say experts
By Marie Woolf, Francis Elliott and Sophie Goodchild
The Indpeendent on Sunday, 16 October 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article320003.ece
One in 1,000 people could be inaccurately identified by the hi-tech scans
being planned for national ID cards, experts have warned.
The Government is planning to use face, iris and fingerprint scans to identify
people on ID cards. But studies have found that being scanned in the wrong
type of light or in shadow could lead to an inaccurate ID, because biometric
technology is flawed.
Internal reports for the Government warned that manual labourers whose
fingertips are worn or nicked, could find their fingerprints are not
recognised. Men who go bald risk being identified as someone else, experts
say. Pianists, guitarists and typists – whose fingerprints can be worn down –
could also face inaccurate readings.
Government trials have found that the biometrics of black, elderly and
disabled people have a higher chance of being incorrectly matched against
their true ID. People with eye problems also have a relatively high chance of
inaccurate identification.
Fingerprint systems can make errors in the identification of one in 100,000
people, while facial recognition scans have falsely identified one in 1,000
individuals.
Qinetiq, the defence technology company that advises the Government, has
warned that biometrics now being used to identify people on a small scale –
such as people entering football grounds, office buildings or shopping malls
– – may be insufficient for a national database of up to 64 million people.
The company, which develops and assesses biometrics, says urgent development
work needs to be done before ID cards are rolled out in 2008. It said a
biometric scan in the United States failed because it concluded a man who
went bald and had a wrinkled forehead had an upside-down face.
On Tuesday, the Government is expected to face a rebellion by MPs when the
Commons votes on the ID cards Bill. Around 20 Labour MPs are expected to vote
with the Tories and Liberal Democrats against the proposals.
Tomorrow, the Government will hold a “road-show” in the Home Office to
demonstrate that the biometric scans work. Sources close to Charles Clarke,
the Home Secretary, said the tour of the technology around the country had
found little public resistance to biometrics. The Government believes that
using a combination of three scans will cut down the risk of inaccurate
recognition.
An internal government report, prepared for the Home Office by the consultants
Amtec, warned in May 2003 that “no biometric system can ever be 100 per cent
accurate”. The study identified serious flaws in the technology and said they
may not be accepted by the population.
“All biometrics will face some acceptance problems to some degree. Some of the
general population do not have the body part (or sufficient quality of the
body part) required for measuring any one biometric except face,” he said.
“Some face-recognition techniques are exposed to instability, in particular
because of some people’s voluntary change of appearance, the effects of
ageing, and differences in illumination between environments.”
Why the bald and pianists may fail test
* A bald man with a wrinkled forehead fooled the technology into thinking his
face was upside down.
* Manual labourers, pianists, guitarists and people who type a lot can fail
scans because their fingerprints are worn down.
* Disabled people have a higher than normal rate of misidentification, as do
the elderly and black people.
* People with eye problems more often fail iris scans.
* Accident victims risk failing biometric scans if their physical
characteristics change; identical twins can be muddled up because they look
too similar.
* Being photographed then scanned in a different light can cause
misidentification.
