Extending e-government to e-society: usability lessons from the UK ID Card Trial

The United Kingdom’s Government is embarking on an ambitious project to issue 60 million citizens with a biometric identity card. The card is intended not only to provide identity checking for access to public sector services but also for private sector ones, creating a gold standard identity document for both physical and online authentication. Whilst the many technological, legal and social issues of biometric systems are widely covered, little direct evaluation of usability issues appears in academic literature. We present unique first-hand evidence concerning the usability difficulties of biometric systems, evaluating this and making recommendations on the impact usability should have on the design, implementation and accreditation of biometric identity systems which employ the Identity Card Scheme in the private sector.