There is not a single card reader in Great Britain – with the exception of prototypes probably – that can read the new cards. This essentially means 4.7 Billion pounds well spend on a piece of plastic that does not serve any other purpose than a standard old fashioned ID. One would think that the production of card readers would be set to the highest priority. This is seemingly not the case as Identify Minister Meg Hillier mentioned that “there’s no prospect in the immediate future for the government directing anybody [...] to buy those things”.

Minister Hillier did point out that the British government will not direct anybody to purchase card readers in the near future. They do expect on the other hand that organizations will start buying card readers once a critical mass has been reached.

via Dailytech

The last incident came to light this Sunday. The Times Online is reporting that an USB Stick was found outside a Brewers Fayre chain pub in Cannock, Staffordshire which contained confidential passwords, security software and the source code of the Government Gateway. The data on the stick could be used to access the personal details of more than 12 million individuals who registered on the system including names, addresses, national insurance numbers, credit card information or passwords.

The system had been shut down shortly after the USB stick was found (again) to protect the data of the citizens. According to government officials the system has not been breached by then. Even more pressing than the discovery of the data on the stick is the source code which could be used to exploit the system to a much larger extent.

Investigations are in full swing and should reveal additional information soon. Gordon Brown commented on the incident with the words: “It is important to recognize we cannot promise that every single item of information will always be safe because mistakes are made by human beings.”