By Andy McCue, 3 November 2004 12:18
NEWS The UK's biometric ID card scheme will cost the government £500m a year by 2008, leading to the price of new passports more than doubling to £85.
Home Secretary David Blunkett revealed the costings for the controversial scheme to MPs at a Home Affairs select committee hearing yesterday.
The proposed cost of the standalone biometric ID card will actually drop to £15 but the cost of the separate passport will increase to £70 from its current fee of £42.
From 2007 everyone applying for a new or renewal passport will pay the higher total fee of £85 and receive a separate compulsory ID card, containing either iris, facial or fingerprint biometric data, in addition to their passport.
The total cost of rolling out the ID card scheme, which includes a National Identity Register database of citizens' details, is predicted to be as much as £3bn, according to the Home Office.
Following Blunkett's response last week to criticisms of the scheme by the Home Affairs select committee, the ID card bill is expected to be included in the Queen's Speech later this month.
Separately in the US, consultants BearingPoint has been chosen to work on a new electronic US passport.
The new passport will contain an embedded chip containing existing data on US passports as well as a digital facial image and "biographic" data.
The project, which is being run by the Government Printing Office (GPO), will make US passports compliant with International Civil Aviation Organisation standards for biometric machine-readable travel entry documents.
Comments
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1. anonymous
If the Government think the cost is currently going to be about £3Bn it will probably £60Bn by the time its implemented. Will this increase the cost of a passport to £1700?
2. Graham Tattersall
If the Biometric National ID Card scheme isn't killed off soon, it could bankrupt the UK!
Blunkett's idea that these cards will ultimately replace all other "cards" for the purpose of identification, security and access, means that MILLIONS of card reading terminals, all totally dependent upon real time, 24/7 access to the "national database" will be required for just about every kind of "organisation" in the country.
The Home Office has CONTINUALLY REFUSED to provide the funds for the DESPERATELY NEEDED National Computer System for our police force, and yet it proposes that even "bobbies on the beat" will carry portable biometric card readers, so that officers will be able to "instantantly identify" any crime suspects or individuals.
The TRUE cost of implementing "Blunkett's Dream" or maybe a better name would be "Our Nightmare", is likely to be SEVERAL THOUSAND TIMES GREATER than the costs of the National Database our police need, and their projct has been shelved on the grounds of excessive cost!
3. anonymous
It makes me not want a new passport. I simply don't trust the government with my information anymore. I just don't to be part of a national ID scheme and will resist it to the end.
4. Eric Friend
So if the cost of the passport has doubled, or even just gone up from the 'expected' increase to £77 to £85, what does that equate to on their £3.1 billion headline cost of setting up the scheme? And are the £400M+ per year costs of running biometric passports in ADDITION to the setup costs?
Stop this madness now, go sign NO2ID's petition - www.no2id-petition.net
5. Martin Kürten
Wake up and smell the coffee!!
You are so funny, folks! All comments regarding this article simply show that most of you must deeply suffer from being isolated on your small island. Do you ever leave your rock, watch TV or read a paper? Hello!!! Germans have to carry their ID card since 1960, when it was introduced by our government on behalf of the allied forces (in fact you fellas!) and we are ok with that. The only “infringement of civil liberties” I noticed so far is I have to have it with me when I leave my house.
You are afraid of data being stored in one big database? So what? All data they saved in Berlin about me can also easily be retrieved from any phone directory except for my height, the colour of my eyes, the photo and (regarding to future plans of implementing ID cards in Germany including biometric information) my fingerprints and the structure of my eyes’ iris.
You are also afraid of being charged for your ID card? Again: So what? We also have to pay for it. The actual fee is 8 Euros (remember: we already have the new currency!!) plus the cost for new photos. I received my renewal ID card in 1999 and it will expire in 2009. I presume it’s enough time to save the money even if I had to pay the unaffordable amount of £70.
By the way, I recently visited Manchester. It’s extremely funny to see that Britain is so far behind the development in Europe. For example, I was amused to see that you still stick to separated taps for hot and cold water. So damn old-fashioned! When will you folks notice that we already have 2004? You make me sick with all your traditions inhibiting important progress. What are you afraid of loosing? Your rich cultural heritage can’t feed you forever. You are neither superior nor inferior to any other country in Europe except in learning foreign languages.
6. anonymous
Mixing cold and hot water has nothing to do with ID cards... It is a matter for personal choice and not compulsion. If you are happy to live in Germany and have an ID card, I have no problem.
However, I come from an even bigger island than Britain. I am an Australian living in England and I reject compulsory ID cards the same way we rejected them in 1984 in Australia.
Sure, lots of our private data is accessed by many organisations, but the biometric card will bring it all together and will change this liberal society forever.
I am not sure how liberal Germany is, but the words 'police state' come often to mind. In any case your ID cards have not stopped illegal migrants and have not provided you with extra security, so why do you have them then?
N.S.
7. anonymous
Dear Martin,
61.4 million visits abroad by Brits in 2003 good enough for you? That's pretty much one for every person in the country. (ONS Stats)
As for not having a single tap for hot and cold - yes, we can have them if we want, but we prefer no to get hot water siphoned back into the cold water, giving us typhoid and cholera. You get ill if you want to.
As for the ID card costing 8 euros - if only! The way governments run IT projects, we'll be lucky if it still costs £70 on introduction.
Our rich cultural heritage brings in lots of tourist money (except Manchester which is, I'll admit, a bit of a dump). Suckers!
And finally, at least we are born free, not into a Napoleonic police-state where you have to take id with you.
Papers, papers...