HM Govt vs The LSE, Round XII!

Oh dear, the government does not seem to be getting on well with that pesky team from the London School of Economics, who insist on putting the ID card scheme under continuous scrutiny.

Apart from claiming that the scheme doesn't need to undergo full and rigorous testing before being implemented (!), the recent governmental response to a parliamentary committee that, well, pretty much wanted to know the same things as the LSE Identity Project team did, includes a string of attacks on the academics.

"Senior team members behind the Identity Project have maintained prominent positions in organisations that oppose ID cards in principle both before and during the development and publication of the Identity Project Report, yet this was not disclosed in the team’s publications or in mainstream media activity by the authors," yelled the report. "Instead, such publications were presented as being objective and independent research."

It gets worse. "At an initial meeting, they were unable to provide a
representative with sufficient technical expertise to discuss their report in adequate detail," the government claims, no doubt thinking of their own leading IT boffins behind the scheme, like Baroness "key sections of the industry are telling us that the technology can work" Scotland.

In any case, a source in the LSE tells us, the team had not been unable to provide a techie representative at all, they just couldn't do so on the day proposed by the Home Office, as he had been away.

Anyway, there's more: "Meeting formats later suggested to the Home Office by the LSE Identity Project Team risked breaching procurement rules for engagement with suppliers".

The LSE team have no idea what that means, and neither do we. Suggestions would be most welcome...