Detailed plans for the controversial national identity card are being published.

Home Secretary John Reid will unveil an action plan for the scheme, as well as a separate document detailing progress on boosting Britain's border controls.

The Government has said the ID cards project will cost £5.4billion to set up and run over the next 10 years.

It will force every Briton over 16 to pay for a "biometric" card which stores fingerprint and iris scan details from eyes.

Ministers have confirmed that ID cards will be "implemented rapidly", starting with biometric cards for foreign nationals in 2008.

A 13-page costings document published in October said biometric travel documents would be issued to refugees by next June, with the first identity cards for British citizens following in 2009.

The most controversial aspect of the project is the creation of a massive new computer database to hold a wide range of information on every person in the country, including their fingerprints.

Passport fees have risen 57 per cent in a year - from £42 to £66 for a standard service - to help pay for new security measures which form the basis of the ID card's fingerprint and iris scan biometrics.

Campaigners have condemned the scheme as a "white elephant" which will severely damage people's privacy.

http://news.aol.co.uk/id-card-plans-...19000509990003

No U-turn on ID database, says Reid


Home Secretary John Reid has denied that he had performed a U-turn after dropping plans for a massive single database to hold records for the national identity card scheme.

The controversial National Identity Register (NIR) was originally proposed as a single "clean" computer system built from scratch to avoid repeating mistakes and duplications in the Government's computer systems.

Plans designed to keep costs down will see the information spread across three existing IT systems.

Mr Reid said: "Doing something sensible is not necessarily a U-turn. We have decided it is lower risk, more efficient and faster to take the infrastructure that already exists, although the data will be drawn from other sources."

Mr Reid also announced proposals to force foreigners already in the UK to register their biometrics, such as fingerprints and iris scans.

"We are going to look at how we could do it for people who are already here," he said.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said a consultation paper would be published in the New Year.

A "strategic action plan" published by the Home Office on Tuesday said biometric details gathered for identity cards would be stored on an existing system in the Home Office.

Biographical information connection to the NIR will be held on a computer system in the Department for Work and Pensions which currently holds details of everyone with a National Insurance number.

The third system to be used will be an existing database at the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), which will include details related to the issue and use of the ID cards.

http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?...mentid=1638807

Well this is gonna be a first class recipe for disaster, and ain't it just my luck I have to renew my passport in 2009

Just as well I'm a law abiding citizen, only had a run in with the law once in my 25yrs and that was my dad's fault :X