ID card rollout begins

[Peter Tomlinson]

Roland Perry wrote:
> In article <8EFC9C32F2DA4AAF9B2228EB1CC43F87@Jinja>, James Firth 
> <james2@jfirth.net> writes
>>> And I'm still interested to know if one of these ID cards will allow 
>>> the
>>> holder to travel inside the EU (without their apparently less
>>> authoritative foreign passport), but most indications are "no".
>> What lead you to this conclusion? I was under the impression that the 
>> image
>> of the "white bull" would ensure this, and the Daily Telegraph has 
>> this to
>> say:
>>
>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3081375/Jacqui-Smith-unveils-the-UKs- 
>>
>> new-identity-card---with-no-sign-of-Britain.html
>> "Those cards, which will be voluntary, may look different and display
>> different information but they will enable the holder to travel 
>> without a
>> passport around the EU."
> The Telegraph's assumption was mine initially, but I've been told 
> otherwise a few times, but admittedly not at very high level. Now's 
> the time to get a definitive high level statement I think.
Neither have I seen or heard any clear statement. Indeed HO and its 
agencies have been buttoned up for at least a couple of months.

In answer to the earlier question after my "Better to ... check 
locally..." sentence, my comment was pragmatic: local check means 
checking against a PKI run by the govt that wants to make the check, 
rather than having to access another country's system. How many years is 
it since the eESC 2003 Open Smart Card Infrastructure for Europe [1] in 
which we came to the conclusion (although it is not explicit in the 
docs) that EU countries were not ready to have a federated PKI network? 
Obvious, of course: 5. Are they ready now?

Peter

[1] Available at www.iosis.org.uk because EU money to support the eESC 
web site ran out.