Does the government want to put a chip in our brains?

The Office of the E-Envoy has asked IBM to lead the development of a chip for authenticating individuals' identity on the web.

The UK government is currently investigating possible alternatives to PKI (public key infrastructure) as a way of identifying people during transactions on government websites. It hopes better identification will help bring government services online more effectively.

IBM signed a contract with the government some months ago to develop what it calls the "empowerment model".

As part of the proposal, IBM has suggested the use of chips to be embedded in anything from credit cards to PCs and mobile phones as a method of signing digital certificates.

Steve Marsh, director of security policy at the Office of the E-Envoy, told silicon.com this technology will "address the liability and privacy issues people might have".

While the government claims the PKI trials - of which there have been two so far - were a success, it has been unimpressed with the way in which the industry has failed to produce a usable service for both the public and private sectors.

Marsh said: "We've been increasingly concerned the trust service market hasn't taken off."

The government has been working with IBM for about 10 months to develop the concept of the empowerment model, which will also allow people to be mobile with their digital signature.

Marsh said he is "reasonably confident in principle of how it works" and is now looking to IBM to build a demo with the co-operation of other industry players.

However, he added: "If industry isn't interested [the project] will sit on the shelf."