Robin Wilton's esoterica

It turns out that "e" has gained currency as an abbreviation for "e-government" in the UK public sector community.
Not entirely unreasonable, but it resulted in some unintentionally amusing quotes from last week: "We've done 'e', and now we're doing Gershon [efficiency changes]"
Janet Callender, North-West E-Government Group "'E' is another resource [we can use] to deliver our core programmes"
Jim Fitzpatrick MP Dare I say it, could this explain some of what's been going on? :^)

The House of Commons Home Affairs committee of MPs will hold an enquiry into the case made by police in support of a proposed (but rejected) 90-day detention limit.
The chairman of the committee, Labour MP John Denham, said: He was still "not particularly clear at all" how 90 days had been chosen as the preferred detention time limit.
I find it disturbing that the proposal got all the way through to parliamentary debate with this shortcoming, expecially bearing in mind how much pressure the Government applied in trying to push the bill through.

I have a trivia question for you: Where could you find the following, geographically co-located: Clapham Junction, Tower Hamlets, Sebastopol, Winnipeg, along with Salvation Corner, Daylight Corner and Suicide Road? And don't bother Googling for them, I think I have picked cunningly enough for that not to be a useful option. ;^) Spoiler warning: answer is in the Commments.

I promised some more on this topic from last week's conference, so here are some thoughts on what the four points of the Ministerial Declaration look like through my Identity goggles... 1: Inclusion: "No citizen left behind" This is a fascinating one to have as a first statement, in my view. From the broader e-government perspective it clearly means that we should take care, as we stampede towards the e-delivery of public sector services, that we don't thereby leave segments of the community behind. As we use IT to make services more accessible and responsive, we have to ensure that that doesn't actually take them beyond the reach of those who perhaps are most dependent on them. For instance, these days one is as likely to be given a URL as a Helpline number... so what about people who are sight-impaired or simply don't have the means to access the internet? Four recent reports on UK local e-government (including reports from the Social Exclusion Unit and the Royal National Institute for the Blind) have been critical of the extent to which issues like these are addressed. The declaration commits member states to 'actively include the disadvantaged'. In identity terms, what could 'inclusion' mean? Well, one set of examples surfaced recently in the great ID Card debate: it turns out that biometric facial recognition is measurably less reliable for certain ethnic groups. And of course, there are those who would find it impractical or impossible to present, say, fingerprints or iris scans to identify themselves. Factors like these need careful handling if the 'inclusion' objective is to be met. 2: Use of IT for efficient and effective delivery of services. This reflects a desire to cut the costs of interacting with government (for businesses in particular) and to cut the cost, for government, of delivering services. In identity terms there's a lot we can consider here. --- In the G2B context, removing 'friction' in the e-procurement supply chain by making use of federated authentication and authorisation. --- In the G2G context, federating authentication and authorisation between application 'silos', which improves user experience and user productivity while reducing the cost of managing identity across the enterprise. Similarly, federating identity is an important foundation for the all-important 'enterprise view' of provisioning and policy enforcement. --- For G2C interactions, efficient and effective delivery of services might mean, for instance, personalising the online experience and pro-actively offering the citizen relevant services or options. It might also mean providing some form of federated or single sign-on, or simpler ways for citizens to manage important records such as birth certificates and marriage licences. 'Efficiency' may also mean minimising waste, and therefore ensuring that benefit provision is closely linked to entitlements; which in turn might rely on establishing someone's identity or status, or simply accurately recording previous claims. In fact, it's hard to find 'effectiveness and efficiency' criteria which are not in some way linked to notions of identity. entitlement or status. 3: Deliver high-impact, customer-centric services. This one may look a little platitudinous at first sight, but I think it makes sense on inspection. After all, we are still at the stage where e-access to government services is not the norm or the assumed default. Until it is, one of the best ways to encourage take-up is to focus on those services which make a real difference to the citizen. The thing to avoid, after all, is the "big deal" reaction. (The opposite of love, they say, is not hate... it's indifference). Making things truly customer-centric, again, is likely to imply some consideration of the identity of the service requester. Delivering high-impact services tends to imply a high-trust relationship with the citizen. If the citizen doesn't trust the e-government service provider, they are unlikely to go online for anything high-impact --- and high-trust relationships are unlikely to be anonymous ones... 4: Simple, secure access to government services across the EU, based on mutual recognition of electronic identifications. Don't panic, I really don't think this is a charter for a European ID Card. The background information I link to below is usefully clear on the matter of electronic IDs versus Identity Cards, and section 6 of the Q&A is well worth a read for the note of realism it brings to that area of debate. This item of the declaration formulates a characteristically EU-style problem: first, it leaves it up to member states what forms of electronic ID those states implement and with what scope. Second, it reminds the states that what they do should not lead to the imposition of barriers to the free movement of labour, goods and services within the Union. Third, it recommends that member states reconcile the first two objectives by sharing information and experience, and basing their plans on stable and interoperable technical foundations. As I mentioned in Sunday's introductory post, this item is backed up by a broader statement outlining the need for interoperability between electronic authentication schemes of varying scale and extending across the public and commercial sectors alike. Under those circumstances, it's hard to imagine any viable solution which is not (a) federated and (b) based on open, interoperable standards. Here's a link to the background Q&A about the Declaration on the EUROPA website.

As you have probably noticed, I have added the 'Clustrmaps' widget to my blog. It's a fascinating tool, though I must admit I seldom have time to do anything other than briefly note how sparse my readership is in Africa, South America and most of the Former Soviet Republics...
One thing did spring to mind this month, though. In October I noticed a little red dot way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I zoomed in a bit and, sure enough... Hawaii. Thank goodness, it isn't there any more this month. (The red dot, I mean, not Hawaii). It's not that I have anything against people in Hawaii reading my blog; it's just that the idea of someone in Hawaii having nothing better to do was somehow incredibly depressing! Don't take this amiss, but if I ever get to Hawaii, don't assume I'll be reading your blog while I'm there ;^)

As Drew has already blogged, he was also at the Manchester conference, doing sterling work on the Sun stand along with Suzie Bacon and Les Baker from Sun, and Patrick McKenna from ActivIdentity. Among other things, Drew was demonstrating some very nifty ID technology, about which more later. So keep an eye on Drew's blog, and here too for some questions about how you spot valid credentials...

Just a little vignette. I was discussing RFID with one of the other delegates over a pint in the hotel bar, and (how can I put this delicately...) we both headed for a comfort break at the same time. Naturally we continued our conversation, and as we walked in through the door my interlocutor was saying: "so, if you take the analogy of, say, a laser-guided weapon..." Much to the surprise of the gentleman who was already availing himself of the facilities.

I spent most of last week in Manchester, attending a brace of e-government conferences. The first was UK-centric, the second (Thursday and Friday) had a Europe-wide scope, and was hosted by the UK as part of its current presidency of the European Union.

Both conferences were a great opportunity to find out first-hand about the leading e-government projects across the UK and EU, as well as a first-rate networking occasion. I'll post more over the next few days, but as a starter, here are the four items of the Ministerial Declaration which summarised the EU's strategy for e-Government:

• Inclusion: "No Citizen Left Behind"
• Use IT in support of efficient and effective e-government
• Deliver high-impact customer-centric services
• Use trusted identities to secure EU-wide service delivery

That last one is backed up by a broader statement setting out a strategic objective of interoperable electroninc identities between the public and commercial sectors, and between local, regional and national schemes. My sang froid award for the week goes to my friend and colleague Hellmuth Broda, Sun's CTO for EMEA. Hellmuth flew in from Zurich for a session starting at 9am. To get to Zurich he had to deal with 4 inches of overnight snow. His flight had closed when he arrived, but his loyalty card got him onto it at the last second. At the base of the boarding steps, the ground crew had just left a snowman and gone back into the warm. Then his flight waited for half an hour in the queue for the de-icer... The first available rail link train into the city from Manchester airport left just after 9am, so at the conference we were into fallback mode: the chairman of the session would flip the agenda a little, and I would stand in if Hellmuth still couldn't make it in time. At 9:43 Hellmuth walked into the room, just in time to catch a couple of the Q&A items, be introduced and step up to the lectern, where he gave his customarily polished performance, and finished on time to the minute. Nice work, Hellmuth.

William Heath's Ideal Government site got spammed off the Net over the last couple of days, but is back up again now. Speaking of ideal government, I will be in Manchester this week at the Ministerial Conference on e-Government. If you're there, stop by the Sun stand and say hi; either I will be there, or you can have a chat with Drew Wagar about identity (or steam trains! ;^)

It seems to me that an increasing number of news stories portray Tony Blair as autocratic, and so convinced of his own rightness that no-one else's opinion will sway him... unless it's George W Bush. That's just my impression. It's possible that I'm over-analysing the coverage. It's also possible that that's what the media say, but that it isn't the case. And finally, of course, it's possible that it's true and the media are reporting it accurately. For instance, repeatedly over the Anti-terrorism Bill, the Prime Minister's stance has been reported as: "It's better to be right and lose than to win". When the 90-day detention proposal was defeated, it was the rebel MPs who were out of step, not the Prime Minister. MPs criticise Blair for failing to allow 'special advisers' to appear before Commons Select Committees. And so on. The last time I remember the media worrying away at fault lines like these --- autocracy, defiance of MPs' opinions, and increasing appearance of arrogance in decision-making --- it was in the run-up to Margaret Thatcher's demise as Tory leader. I wonder if we are seeing the start of the equivalent phase for Mr Blair. How quickly we forget...

After a summer which seemed to last and last, we seem to have gone straight into winter this week. We spent the whole weekend under a blanket of fog in temperatures which barely crept above freezing. Fortunately, we live just off the north-west corner of Salisbury Plain, which rises to a few hundred feet above sea-level. Large sections of the Plain are set aside for military exercises, and a subset of that is out of bounds as firing ranges. It's more tranquil than it sounds, believe me. The interesting thing was that at the weekend, the Plain was above the low-lying fog. Here's a picture of the strangely eerie result.

Back on Nov. 8th. I posted William Heath's link to a truly shameful 'public opinion survey' on the Labour website. Revisiting the links today I find two things: I can't get to William's Ideal Government site... I get a 'suspended' page, which is worrying. William... are you still there, or have the Thought Police rounded you up for your habit of asking awkward questions? The survey page has disappeared, replced with this more anodyne offering, though if you search hard enough you can also unearth this remnant, vestige or dog-end. Strangely enough, there seems to be no trace of what the survey collected in terms of opinion. Good. I would hate to think that anyone saw that survey as a valid metric of public opinion on anything at all. Why was I revisiting it, though? Because today the House of Lords has signalled its intent to give the Anti-Terror bill 'a thorough going-over' (The Guardian); in other words, they are going to examine it again clause by clause on its second passage through the Lords, and propose amendments to anything they still don't like the look of. The House of Commons revolt on the 90-day detention limit (forcing a reduction to 28 days) clearly has not addressed all of their Lordships' concerns. The Prime Minister has countered by warning them 'not to defy public opinion' on the Bill, with a senior Downing Street official quoted as saying: "If the House of Lords in any way harries the bill before the peers tonight it will be particularly out of touch with public opinion" (same Guardian article). That's a very strange thing to say. First, it's the job of the House of Lords to review legislation proposed by the Commons, and challenge it if they see fit. That's one of the 'checks and balances' still remaining in our parliamentary system, though ultimately the Lords cannot veto a bill or insist that it be changed. They can only delay its passage into law, and suggest amendments. Second, I would argue that one of the benefits of having the (appointed, rather than elected) Lords is that they can take a view less swayed by the vagaries of wanting to cling to power. In the long run, some of the worst law is passed when the Commons over-reacts to the pressing public perception of the day. I also think the appeal to 'public opinion' takes the Prime Minister onto shaky ground, on a day when it appears that the much-publicised backing from senior police`officers for the 90-day detention did not extend to the Bill as a whole. Apparently a report by ACPO found that all 14 of the Bill's main proposals "would risk alienating Muslims", and that they could not support four of the proposals. All four are still in the Bill, which creates the impression that Mr Blair will cite the police's view when they say what he wants, but not if they don't. On that basis, 'public opinion' can hardly be claimed to be an informed source or input. Amnesty International describes the current Anti-terror proposals as "Draconian and dangerous": citing many of the concerns I raised on October 8th, September 16th, September 15th, August 8th, and elsewhere... They cite the vagueness of key terms in the Bill ('glorification of terrorism', 'encouraging terrorism', 'terrorism' itself), impracticality of some of the offences ('encouragement to terrorism' relies on the audience's reaction, not the intent of the speaker), sweeping nature of offences ('present in a place where instruction or terrorist training is being carried out'), and so on. Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, writes of her "growing concern that the UK's counter-terrorism measures amount to a sustained attack on human rights, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary". It is, she says, "undermining important human rights protections at home and setting a bad example overseas".

Former British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, is all over the headlines here at the moment, because of the publication and newspaper serialisation of his memoirs, which are apparently quite frank in some areas, notably when he describes the UK politicians who visited Washington while he was there as Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador and Plenipotentiary. I mention that last bit, the full form of address for an accredited ambassador, because to hear some of the ministerial comments about Sir Christopher, you might fail to get the impression that he was in Washington as the appointed representative of his monarch and his country's government. Head of post in Washington is traditionally seen as the pinnacle of a diplomatic career; so much so that it sometimes does not go to a career diplomat at all, but is awarded to a 'political appointee' by the government of the day. In the late 70s, Peter Jay was sent there by the then Labour Foreign Secretary James Callaghan, who died in March this year. Paul Barker of The Independent wrote:"His time as foreign secretary (1974-76) is best typified by a scandalous act of nepotism: appointing his son-in-law, Peter Jay, ambassador to Washington." But I digress. The Meyer memoirs, which I admit I have not read, have been described as 'gravely undermining the trust and confidence which must exist between civil servants and politicians'. And yet Sir Chiristopher submitted them to the Cabinet Office for approval before publication. Through the same process, Sir Jeremy Greenstock's memoir of his time at the UN has just been refused publication. So why did the Cabinet Office allow Meyer's book through unamended, if it is so unacceptable? I couldn't say. Presumably they either didin't object to it, or they thought its publication would benefit those criticised in some way which outweighs the embarrassment of being criticised. It seems unlikely that Sir Christopher didn't know what effect his book might have, or what the relevant code of conduct is. He served former Primer Minister John Major as the latter's Press Secretary. Some of the views reported by those who have read the book would clearly be uncongenial to current ministers, though. He is uncomplimentary in describing a number of serving politicians. He also asserts that Tony Blair could have done more to focus George W Bush's attention on the aftermath of the Iraq war, rather than the question of how to justify and prosecute it as quickly as possible. He also draws a causal link between link between Tony Blair's pro-war stance and the fostering of terrorist extremists in the UK. It is this which drew what I think is one of the most bizarre criticisms from the government: 'Local government minister David Miliband dismissed Sir Christopher's claim. "Christopher Meyer, I think I am right in saying, is an expert on foreign policy. He is not an expert on the domestic issues that are going on inside communities in this country." ' And yet, that is exactly what an ambassador is. Meyer was responsible for communicating UK policy to the US government, on matters of foreign relations, but also UK political issues relevant to what's going on in the world. Our government is very keen to portray the war against terror as one without frontiers, unless, it seems, what's at issue is home-grown terrorism. That said, Mayer does deserve some criticism on the basis of the effect his actions will have on those still serving as diplomats. Their life will be harder as a result; they will face a more restrictive code of conduct, and some ministers may indeed be more circumspect in what they reveal to their civil servants. I wonder if the droves of non-civil service 'political advisors' will be bound by any similar code of conduct.

Both the BBC and The Register noted that the ID Card proposals didn't have a very nice week this week. The BBC story on Wednesday concerned comments made by Dame Stella Rimington (former head of MI5, the domestic security, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism service) to the effect that she did not believe ID Cards would substantially help make us safer. She also said she did not think the security services would be pressing for their introduction. What adds piquancy to that point are the recent rows over politicisation of the police, and the Prime Minister's last-minute appeal for support for 90-day detention on the grounds that "it's not us asking for this, it's the professionals in law enforcement". If Dame Stella has accurately judged the views of her professional successors, her comment would mitigate any similar appeal on behalf of the ID Cards bill. The Register published its story a day later, but that gave it the opportunity to include news that the House of Lords rejected the draft bill, partly on grounds of who might have access to the verification service, but also because they were concerned about holes in the cost case. See my previous post...

Look, I know that nothing makes for a better article than the prospect of two people having a punch-up in public, albeit a verbal one. But I think we need to be very careful not to let our natural vicarious blood-lust divert us from the relevant facts. The BBC New site today reports a new row over projected costings for the UK ID Card proposals. As I mentioned last Sunday evening, Andy Burnham (Parliamentary Undersecretary of State at the Home Office) and Simon Davies (one of the authors of the LSE report on the proposals, back in June 2005) had two debates in quick succession on the subject. One on the 8th and one on the 9th of November. I was at the second but not the first, and I don't know for sure to which debate the BBC article refers. However, I can say this with certainty: during the discussion on the 9th., the Minister criticised those who he said were 'making wild claims' about the ID card proposals (for instance, about the possible cost of the scheme) not because they were truly concerned about the costs, but because they had other objections to the scheme in principle (the implication being that those other objections are less rational and/or would rapidly be demolished if aired in open debate). Now, I have two problems with this tactic: First, it may be true that there are people who have deeply-held objections to the scheme but choose to argue against it on the basis of other factors. So, for instance, there may be those who fear the privacy impact of a national ID register, but argue against it on grounds of practicality. That does not mean that either their arguments on grounds of practicality or their underlying concerns about privacy are invalid. Nor would it mean that their arguments on grounds of practicality should be summarily dismissed. Unfortunately, that is what Mr Burnham seemed to be trying to do in respect of the arguments on grounds of cost. Second, it seems clear to me that arguments against the scheme on grounds of cost could be easily proven or refuted if the cost projections were openly and fully published. The LSE report earlier this year was published using the best estimates the authors could get, derive or extrapolate, but without the benefit of a clear set of figures from the Home Office. Similarly, if it is not until now that the scope of the Home Office costings starts to become apparent (for instance, the fact that it will not include the cost of integration with other departmental systems, or the cost of verification systems such as biometric readers), then criticisms of the proposals should not be rejected purely becaue they are based on a 'best guess' in the absence of published figures. 'Mr Burnham said a report from accountants KPMG had concluded the government's estimates were robust".' But only excerpts from the report have been made public. Am I overly cynical to assume that those would be the excerpts which are most supportive of the proposals? I would be interested to know if anyone has requested a copy of the report under the Freedom of Information Act. The broader point about costings is this: it is now clear that the charge a citizen pays for a card will, at most, cover the cost of enrolment, credential issue and renewal, and operation of the register. The Home Office says that will cost £584m. It says it thinks use of the ID cards "could save the government between £310m and £575m in preventing fraud; between £30m and £40m in immigration control; and between £45m and £85m in reducing the cost of crime". But it is clear that the majority of those savings can only be accrued by departments other than the Home Office (for instance in cases such as fraudulent claims for healthcare or benefits payments), and that the cost to those departments of participating in the ID Cards scheme forms no part of the published cost case. That is a substantial hole, and deserves to be highlighted. Casting aspersions on the motivation of critics does not advance the argument. If the government's plans are cost-justifiable, the figures should be published in full and allowed to stand up in their own right.

I see from today's International Herald Tribune that the US Senate voted to bar detainees in Guantanamo from challenging their detention through US courts. If made law, this would have the effect of reversing a previous decision by the US Supreme Court that the detainees did have such a right. It seems to me that this turns the issue of detainees' rights into the proverbial political football. That is, an issue which is kicked around by a number of parties in pursuit of their own aims and with no regard to the well-being of the football itself. First, given that we are talking about apparently indefinite detention, that seems to me to lack natural justice. Second, it is to avoid this kind of outcome that the international community drafted the Geneva Conventions. Unfortunately, as has been extensively discussed, the detaining authorities have contrived to bypass or ignore such conventions. If the recent reports of so-called 'black sites' are to be believed, this has been done on a large scale and making use of the territory of a number of other states. I think that is regrettable in human rights terms, and in the long term will prove to have undermined the moral high ground which the 'war against terror' seeks to occupy.

I know I promised more about last Wednesday's meeting, but it was a busy week, and this has been a busy and somewhat truncated weekend. So; the meeting was hosted by Baroness Anelay, and the two main protagonists were Andy Burnham, MP (Parliamentary Undersecretary of State at the Home Office) and Simon Davies of the LSE. There were a number of Peers in attendance, and a small cluster of what I later found out were Party Whips. Messrs Davies and Burnham have squared up to each other before, either in print (Simon was intimately associated with the London School of Economics' report in the ID Cards Bill) or in person --- they had in fact had a similar debate the evening before this discussion. My role on Wednesday was just to provide a quick indication of the so-called 'industry perspective'. Below I ascribe particular views and statements to people, notably Mr Burnham. I cannot claim these are verbatim quotations, but they are made based on my recollection and contemporaneous notes. I believe they are accurate, but am open to correction by anyone whose memory is clearer than mine... Simon and the Minister exercised some of the familiar arguments about lack of clarity in the costings of the whole scheme, and one point which emerged (seemingly for the first time) was that the Home Office calculations are, to put it simply, for 'their end of the system' only. They do not include the cost of integration with any departmental systems, this being something the departments themselves will have to bear. "They will want to do this because of the benefit to them of making use of the National Identity Register (NIR)". It is pretty clear that the Home Office expects to pay for the registration and issuing processes and the operation of the database itself; I would infer from Wednesday's comments that the Home Office will not be paying for whatever is intended to read the credentials at the point of verification, or of course for the integration mentioned. Although it was not discussed in this meeting, I think this raises the question of how the 'client' departments are going to fund such things, given that they all have strict Gershon (cost-reduction) targets to meet. The relevance of this is that the government seem now to be quoting a cost of £30 per card. If that is only going to pay for the Home Office's costs, where's the rest going to come from...? From my own selfish point of view, the most useful clarification from the Minister came in response to the concerns I raised about the scope and scalability of the proposed system. The NIR is a centralised repository; according to the proposals, it will consist of the register of information, and an auditable record of every access request. I had also thought it would include 'entitlements' information about the user, but I was put right on that point. It will not. In my view, the latter is a good thing. Entitlements, along with other transactional and historic data about a user, do not belong in a centrally-administered Home Office database. They belong in the department which 'owns' them... or rather, the department which has 'data custodian' responsibility over them on behalf of the user to whom they relate. It was unfortunate, Mr Burnham said, if the Bill had given rise to the impression that the NIR would store entitlement- or attribute-level data about the user; indeed, Data Protection principles would probably prohibit this. The intent was for it to store those credentials which could act as the 'key' to unlock such data back at the owning department. Again, in my view that is a good thing. It represents a much more federated architecture, and one in which responsibility for the entitlement- and attribute-level data stays with those who have some form of charter for its use. I have a residual concern about the wisom of trying to co-locate the audit log with the NIR; I think that runs the risk of at least doubling the throughput required of the system, for a function which is not directly related to its primary purpose of accurate and timely authentication. I also have a concern about something Mr Burnham said right at the end of the session, in response to a comment by the Secretary General of the NO2ID campaign. He said "I can see no privacy implication in supplying a biometric to be stored in the National Register". That worries me. I can see a vey clear privacy implication. If I deposit a facial biometric with the National Register, that biometric could be checked without my knowledge or consent using 'passive' technology such as CCTV. I think as privacy implications go, that's a biggie, and I would feel happier if the Minister concerned was, well, concerned.

I'm here for a meeting tomorrow, and this evening have taken the opportunity to eat something which is almost certainly illegal in England. My starter at dinner consisted of:
--- Carpaccio of beef (i.e. raw and very thinly sliced) --- bleak roe (I dunno, I had to Google it. Turns out it is the roe of vendace (Coregonus albula), a Baltic sea-water fish. The roe is very small, salmon-pink, and lightly salty, with none of the 'fish-oil' taste you seem to get with caviar or lumpfish roe) --- raw onion --- sour cream --- a raw egg yolk It was fantastic. I don't think it is actually illegal to serve raw egg yolks in England, but I know you would be hard pressed to convince, say, a work-place restaurant (or, as we used to call them before they all got outsourced, 'office canteen') to serve you one. "Health and Safety", they will say, pursing their lips and whacking the whole plate under the grill for a few minutes just to make sure there aren't any nasty listeria bugs in the raw egg, sizing up the carpaccio as the ideal vehicle to a new and blossoming lifestyle in your digestive tract. One place I worked at instituted an 'omelette bar' as part of the "healthy choice" programme. It sounded great: you told them what fresh ingredients you would like scattered on your omelette, and they would cook it to order for you. There it was, gurgling to perfection in the omelette pan... and just as you thought it was heading for your plate in peak condition, it would be whisked away again and grilled until it had uniformly achieved the texture of carpet underlay. The mere appearance of floor-foam was not enough, either: the dangerous egg-based confection had to be repeatedly poked with a probe thermometer to make sure it was nice and dry all the way through. Mmm. Rubbery.

Mark Dixon continues his informed and practical look at the world of identity with this analysis of the different things upon which we base judgements of identity. A very useful step towards joining the online and real-world models of identity. Well worth a read.

... for the formatting glitch in last night's post (now corrected). It was rather late, and I forgot that BlogEd tends to interpret pairs of dashes as the begin-strikethrough and end-strikethrough tags, unless they actually appear in the middle of hyphenated words (like those last two). Such are the intricacies of modern life. Serves me right for not previewing before posting, though.

Great vignettes from the Anti-Terror Bill debate yesterday: 1: John Prescott greeting Chinese President Hu Jintao by grabbing him by the hand, smiling broadly and saying "We just lost a vote. We lost a vote in the Commons." President Hu, being an accomplished Chinese politician, was far too polite to react to this extraordinary self-inflicted loss of face. 2: The thought of Gordon Brown, with saintly innocence shining in his eyes, pointing out to a BBC interviewer that "it's only been six months since we won a general election". Ostensibly he was answering the question "Should Tony Blair resign over this defeat?". What a beautifully economical answer: 'how can you suggest that Tony should step down after only six months... even if that's all it's taken him to completely erode an election-winning majority?'. Mr Brown must have slept like a baby as he commuted back to Tel Aviv. 3: And today, Mr Blair still defiant in the face of defeat, remarking acidly that some of his MPs don't reflect the wishes of the population. I concede, it must sometimes be hard to reconcile the demands of the party whips, the constituency party, the constituents and, heaven help us, the MP's own conscience... Strangely, I thought that was how an elective parliamentary democracy is supposed to work, but apparently it is there to do as the Prime Minister says. It's the rest of us who are all out of step.

Yesterday was a very interesting one, for me at least, and the common theme seems to have been politics.

The excitement was tempered by the news from Jordan that there had been a series of bomb attacks in Amman, including one at the hotel I stayed in barely three months ago. I hope my friends at STS are all safe and unharmed.

Here in the UK, the Prime Minister suffered his first defeat in a vote in the Commons, over the 90-day detention plans put forward under anti-terror legislation. MPs settled for a compromise figure of 28 days, to the visible anger of Mr Blair.

The government's campaign to get this measure through has been an extraordinary one: the intervention of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to lobby overtly in favour of the proposal; the evident split between the Home Secretary's desire to find consensus and the Prime Minister's refusal to offer any compromise; the naked appeal to party political 'loyalty' on what is conventionally a cross-party, 'apolitical' topic.

And the episode I find most revealing: at 10:30 on Tuesday night, Labour whips were apparently still confident that they would win the vote. Gordon Brown (the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Tony Blair's successor-in-waiting) left for Israel where he was to meet both Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas --- two elected heads of state. By 3:30 on Wednesday morning, the Labour whips knew they were in trouble. Brown was telephoned on arrival in Israel and told to take the next plane back to London to help bolster the vote. This is an unusual step because there's a system of 'pairing' in the Commons, by which two MPs who know they will vote in opposite ways agree that both of them therefore need not actually turn up. It saves having elected representatives attend merely to go through the formality of registering two votes which cancel each other out, when they could be out doing more useful work, such as meeting with two heads of state whose relationship needs all the positive external support it can get.

Mr Brown's recall, therefore, had no practical purpose whatsoever, other than to serve the 'marketing spin' requirements of his increasingly desperate boss. It wasn't enough. The 90-day proposal went down by 322 votes to 291, with several dozen Labour MPs either abstaining or voting against the government.

Meanwhile, in the run-up to all this excitement, I had my first ever visit to the Houses of Parliament, though it was to the 'other side of the lobby': I took part in a briefing session in the House of Lords (!), where a cross-party selection of peers gathered in a committee room for a discussion of the ID Cards Bill. The event was arranged by the London School of Economics, and the Government's argument for the ID Card proposals was put by Andy Burnham, MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office. I was there to offer an industry perspective on the plans. I'll blog about that separately.

It's impossible not to be slightly awed by finding yourself in the country's 'engine of democracy', let alone when you are also expected to address a handful of Lords, Baronesses, party whips and an MP. Right at the beginning of the meeting, though, there was a priceless moment when someone's mobile phone erupted with a loud polyphonic burst... of Jimi Hendrix.

Footnote from the Irony Department: the Anti-Terror bill was being debated on the 9th of November, so my visitor's badge for the House of Commons reads "9/11") So, of course, do many of the banners being displayed today in the anti-extremist marches in Amman.

And to round off the day's political content, BBC4 was showing a re-run of the brilliant 1990 adaptation of Michael Dobbs' dark political satire, "House of Cards". Superbly written, and exquisitely acted (notably by Ian Richardson in the principal role of Sir Francis Urquhart), this was a joy to watch (again) and a great way to wind down after a long day.

A fascinating identity story surfaced in the media yesterday. A traveller returning to the UK through the port of Dover was stopped because a border check revealed that his passport had been revoked back in 2003: the details in the passport were an exact match for an entry in the Register of Deaths. It appears that he had stolen the identity of a child who died in 1963 aged 8 months. If that sounds oddly familiar, it may be because that‘s the same technique used by “Charles Calthrop“/“Chacal“, in Frederick Forsyth‘s thriller “The Day of the Jackal”. Forsyth published that book in 1971. ‘Buckingham‘ apparently assumed his false identity in 1983. Under the name of Christopher Buckingham, he got married, had children, worked in ‘normal‘ jobs (lately as an IT security consultant), and generally did nothing which would lead to any level of police interest. So when he was arrested because of the revoked passport, the only offence he could be charged with was that of obtaining that false passport in the first place. To the evident frustration of the police, he declines to offer any information about his real identity. They are therefore convinced that he must have something to hide, but currently can‘t prove anything. In the absence of any other offences, he has been sent down for 21 months on the passport charge. As far as I am aware, it is not illegal to use a false name in the UK; it only becomes an offence if you do so with the intention of deceiving (for instance, to evade prosection or perpetrate fraud). Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is simple: if you suspect that someone has done what ‘Christopher Buckingham‘ has done… how would you go about finding the identity which he abandoned 22 years ago? Answers via the Comment button, please...

Now, I am going to have to be very careful how I tell this anecdote, but I promise you it is true. I offered to send a copy of a presentation to someone at another company. They asked how big the file was, and I said "about 1.2 Mb, why?". "Just in case it gets blocked by the firewall on the way in. Don't worry if it does, though; we'll both get a notification. If that happens, I've got another account you can sent it to: firewall-bypass-AT-provider-DOT-name" It's the little things like that which make this job worthwhile.

This evening the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair (no relation) has spoken at a lunch with political journalists in Westminster to assert the 'chilling' evidence he has seen of the terrorist threat to Britain. This is quite an unusual step: Sir Ian's post as a senior police officer is not an elected one in the UK system: he is a career policeman. While one would expect anyone who rises to such a post to have a shrewd grasp of political realities, he is in a very different position from the equivalent, elected post in the US, say, and conventionally would stay out of political debates even when the latter concerned law enforcement. Yesterday, Tony Blair addressed the Parliamentary Labour Party and stressed the political dimension of the current row over anti-terror proposals. He reportedly referred to the political advantage of maintaingin a tough stance against terrorism relative to the other parties. In a more public address yesterday he invoked the memory of those killed in the 7/7 bombings, and of the rescue workers involved in their immediate aftermath. He has also repeatedly strssed the dichotomy between voting for the government and the law neforcement professionals, and voting against the proposed laws; voting for 90-day detention, or voting against the national interest. This has been partisan and emotive rhetoric of a kind which is usually scrupulously avoided in the area of anti-terrorism policy, where cross-party consensus is considered to outweigh the usual game of political point-scoring. Another gambit deployed by the Prime Minister was to, effectively, disown the policy. 'This is not a proposal thought up and put forward by the Government', he said, 'this is what the police and the security services tell us is essential if they are to be able to do their job'. The old "it's not for me, it's for my daughter" ploy. It was not an edifying sight. One of his party's MPs made what I thought was a telling point in reaction to this, when interviewed on the radio this morning: it's the job of the police to press for the most effective possible enforecement. It is not their job to balance that against the wider interests of civil liberties, public policy and geo-political outcomes. That is the job of elected parliamentarians. Except that according to the party leader, those who exercise that right are, by definition, acting against the national interest. This is not good policy-making, and it is certainly not as good as the country's citizens deserve.

At least, that's what today's headlines imply. One week after granting their police greater anti-terror powers, the Australian law-eforcement authorities have successfully forestalled a terrorist plot. Of course, I don't have any of the details, but this looks like a first-class piece of professional police work, and has also led to the arrest of Abu Bakr, whom the authorities had had their eye on for at least 18 months. Now, a more sceptical person than me might think this an extraordinary co-incidence. One day before the crucial next debate on the UK anti-terrorism bill, a major news story confirms the link between extended police powers and successful prevention of terrorism. Someone with a better memory than mine would probably also have recalled (without having to Google for it) that in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, news of the now discredited "ricin plot" broke with similarly fortuitous timing. And the acute of memory would also remember that Charles Clarke, on the eve of announcing the current draft proposals in September of this year, authorised the arrest of seven Algerian suspects who were then subject to a high-profile deportation; again, the link was made between requests for greater police power and timely instances of an apparent terror threat. I'm sure the timings are just co-incidental, though.

At least, as far as I can determine, it is not intended as a joke. Here's a balanced and objective information-gathering survey which is clearly intended to establish whether you are a reckless, anti-social, anarchic idiot... or a mindless puppet whose only role in life is to provide spurious justification for any policy the Labour party dangles in front of your vacant eyes. Good grief. Who writes these pages, and more to the point, who fills them in? Thanks to William Heath for the link.

As the government's proposals make their way through the House of Commons for their second pass, we're waiting to see what amendments (if any) they are prepared to offer in order to reduce the current level of oppsition. Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, has been sounding conciliatory about the 90-day figure for detention without charge, saying it's 'not critical' and holding out hopes that he would settle for a shorter period. However, the Prime Minister has been expressing a much tougher line, saying that "the case for 90 days is as compelling as ever". Well, that's probably true whichever part of the political spectrum you occupy. Personally, I think the case is just as compelling as it was: not very. Mr Blair also said that he had no fallback position, because to compromise on the 90 day period "is to compromise on the security of the country". This is, of course, a false opposition. Accepting 90-day detention without charge does not offer the alternative of uncompromised security. By definition, the government cannot offer absolute security: any level of security is the outcome of compromise, one way or another. The level of opposition to these proposals suggests to me that people view a 90-day detention as disproportionate. That certainly reflects the spirit of Londoners in the wake of the 7/7 bombings. However, I can also see a risk that this whole debate is getting polarised around inter-party haggling over some figure between 14 and 90. However disproportionate the 90-day limit, it should not be allowed to divert attention from the other shortcomings of the bill.

I went to a Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes) firework display yesterday evening. Setting aside any comments about the topical resonances of celebrating the execution of an anti-government protester from a religious minority, I have to say, the fireworks were fantastic. The village I went to is quite a small one - a population of at most a couple of thousand, compared to around 11,000 in the town where I live. The firework display, though, lasted for a good twenty minutes. These days, of course, it isn't enough to have stuff go whoosh, bang... you have to have music too. In this case they had a slightly weird assortment of movie music; the 70s version of 'The War of the Worlds' (with Richard Burton as narrator), the Fellowship of the Ring (well, the movie did have fireworks in...), Pirates of the Carribean (don't ask me...), and Star Wars Episode II for the finale. Cheesy though that may sound, the overall effect was very good. As for the fireworks themselves.. well, I would probably get into trouble for calling them that rather than 'pyrotechnics'. New colours seem to be making their way in to the repertoire; we've all seen red, green, silver and gold, with blue being a cool addition a few years ago. This year the new tech colours seem to be pink and orange. And of course the increasingly multi-functional items: ones which send up a whistling 'spinner' throwing off sparks, which then bursts into a 'chrysanthemum' of one colour followed by a cascade of another. The evening was windy and at times a little wet, and as everyone was in foul-weather gear I now have a new metric for firework displays. If you can see the display despite wearing a peaked cap, the fireworks aren't big enough.

I was talking to a colleague the other day about just having blogged on the subject of Mr Blunkett. He rolled his eyes with a weary resignation and said "why d'you want to go poking around in politics...?". It made me think. I don't really consider myself to be a very 'political' person; although I always vote, I've never joined a political party, and have been generally exasperated by such contact as I have had with political dealings at the local level. Looking back through my blog, though, quite a lot of it has been political fulmination on one topic or another, somewhat to my own surprise. What's behind it, then? Have I reversed the evolutionary process and regressed into some kind of politico-rantosaurus, driven only by instinctive aggression and a hind-brain the size of a walnut? Possibly, but I think there are a few other factors too. First, I have to acknowledge the seductive power of blogging itself. Not only does it delude you into thinking that you have a devoted readership and that what you say is somehow significant, it also exposes you to genuinely influential people who actually move things forward. I'm thinking, for example, of William Heath's Ideal Government blog, which broke new ground this week by becoming the first blog ever to host Ministerial participation in an online discussion. Blogging is more than just a modern form of vanity publishing; it is also a true instantiation of the Participation Age. Second, my preoccupation with all things identity-related genuinely raises issues which are far more accurately classified as political than technological: issues of privacy, consent, trust and so on. What architecture for ID cards best preserves citizens' rights? Are strict laws on 'breach notification' the best defence against identity theft? Do you know how many RFID tags you are carrying, and who is reading them? What's the impact of other 'passive' forms of identity recognition on your right to give consent? As long as these issues (and the technology which embodies them) reach ever further into our every-day lives, I think the topics of identity and politics are set to be tightly entwined. Finally (and this carries on from the point about reaching into our every-day lives), think of some of these delights of 21st century Britain: I can be arrested for being in the wrong place, irrespective of what I do while I am there; I can be arrested and detained for travelling towards somewhere, regardless of my intentions; I can be detained for heckling at a party political conference to which I have authorised access; I can be prosecuted for saying something because of the audience I say it to, not what I say; I can be arrested for what I think, rather than what I do. These, too, are issues of privacy, consent and trust. Policies like those are so radically intrusive that they need to be underpinned by a solid foundation of logic, consistency, accountability and conspicuous fairness. It's up to us to point out when they are not.