By David Meyer, 10 October 2006 08:55
NEWS
The UK's identity cards scheme will cost £5.4bn to set up and run over the next 10 years, according to the government.
Home Office minister Liam Byrne announced the figure on Monday, establishing for the first time a governmental estimate for what will be one of the world's largest IT schemes.
The cards will store biometric data - including fingerprint, iris and facial recognition information - a feature that will be introduced in passports from 2008, said Byrne.
From 2010, anyone applying for or replacing a passport must also receive an ID card, although parliament will have to pass another law to make them compulsory for all citizens.
Byrne claimed the cards will be a "powerful tool to combat identity fraud which underpins organised crime, terrorism and abuse of the immigration system". This perspective is challenged by civil liberties groups, who maintain that the scheme will be overly expensive and open to abuse.
The figure of £5.4bn covers the 10 years from this month to October 2016. Fifteen per cent of the figure is technology-related, with the rest dealing with personnel and premises costs.
It differs markedly from previous estimates for the scheme's cost, such as that £19bn figure calculated by a team from the London School of Economics last year.
The Identity Cards Act was signed into law in March this year. Section 37 of the Act requires a cost estimate for the scheme to be presented to parliament once every six months.
The scheme acquired a new leader recently with the appointment of James Hall, a former managing partner at Accenture.
David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
The only way ID cards will cost 5.4 billion over 10 years is by creative accounting... oh hang on, we are about to be given an accountant as new leader of the country without having voted him in... silly me.
2. Radical Meldrew
Taking this government's propensity to grossly miscalculate and mismanage IT expenditure, I prophesise that we will hear a future report from the ID card spokesperson stating that £5.4bn is a woefully inadequate sum and at least another £10bn is required.
Anyone prepared to bet that I will be wrong?
3. Graham Coles
What do you mean 'The first time' ...
This figure sounds remarkably just like their estimate from the first time; no surprise there then. Doubtless it includes the requirement for people to keep these cards with them and use them for ten years without replacement. Anyone can see that won't work as they will get worn out, lost and broken.
It also appears to be another of deja-vu as we once again hear all the same old tired and disreputable arguments.
'It will help stop terrorism' (No, it won't)
'It will help fight crime in a big way' (No, it won't)
'It will control illegal immigration' (No, it won't)
I note they haven't dragged out the old line about 'saving big businesses millions' at the expense of billions to the taxpayer yet, but maybe they lost too much credibility with that one last time.
I guess we'll just have to vote conservative and have the whole scheme scrapped so the 5-25 billion pounds it will cost can be diverted onto more essential areas such as manpower where it might *actually* help with crime, terrorism and illegal immigration.
4. Jeremy Wickins
This seems like a deceptively small figure. It can only come through a combination of "creative accounting" as a respondent as already said, and the rest contributing a great deal from our own pockets in the form of direct payment for the card,and in raised prices at places that use the readers, because of charges levied by the government for access to the database.
5. Karen Challinor
could we have a cost breakdown rather than a flat figure perhaps ?
and while I'm asking for the moon can we be told exactly who will have access to our personal data and under what circumstances ?
6. Roger Huffadine
I vote for Karen's cost breakdown - How about Silicon doing a FoI to get the exact figures?
7. anonymous
Radical Meldrew & Karen Challinor have hit the nail on the head. However, don't let's hold our collective breath while we wait for a cost breakdown - that would look too much like democracy & accountability - remember those?
It all just adds up to more reasons for making sure we have a change of government at the next election.