Leader: ID cards victory for silicon.com campaign

Today represents something of a landmark day in silicon.com's ongoing ID Cards on Trial campaign following the savage defeat inflicted on the flawed legislation by peers in the House of Lords on Monday evening.

We launched the campaign just over six months ago to lobby the government for greater transparency and to address cross-party concerns from academics, politicians and IT experts about the estimated cost and the viability of the technology proposed for the controversial national ID card scheme.

Since then we, along with other critics and opponents of the ID card bill - notably the London School of Economics (LSE) and No2ID - have exposed the Home Office cost estimates of £5.8bn as nothing more than back-of-a-cigarette-packet guesswork and wishful thinking.

As part of our ID Cards on Trial campaign we asked the Home Office to give public guidance on set-up costs, break down in detail how it calculated the running costs and how they will be paid for, and guidance on the likely costs for other departments and private sector firms to use the verification service.

The silence was deafening. The LSE came up with extremely detailed cost estimates of the ID card scheme totalling £19bn and rising to £30bn if the cost of integrating all the public sector departments and agencies that would have to use the system was taken into account.

Even IT vendors started lining up to take pot shots at ID cards - most notably Microsoft, who said the plans would increase the likelihood of people's personal information falling into the hands of criminals.

Again the silence from the Home Office was deafening - in fact the press office stopped even answering our queries on the subject. Instead it chose to hide behind that well worn excuse of "commercial confidentiality" and specially selected excerpts from a Home Office commissioned report by KPMG into the cost assumptions.

The Home Office also refused requests to reveal what colour light the bill had been given on its first Gateway review by the Office of Government Commerce saying only that it had cleared its first hurdle.

Home Office explanations as to how the technology behind the scheme will work and how the data will be used and what databases will be linked up have also been inconsistent and unsatisfactory, ranging from a full-on compulsory national ID card that would be needed to access all public services and some private sector ones to something that would be nothing more than a glorified - not to say costly - Chip and PIN scheme.

Yet despite growing public and political concern over the cost and feasibility of ID cards the bill squeezed through a vote in the House of Commons late last year, but only after Labour MPs were forced to toe the party line and vote in favour of it after Prime Minister Tony Blair had made it a key election manifesto pledge.

That all changed on Monday, however when peers finally had their say on Charles Clarke's legislation. They rejected out of hand government claims that detailed costs cannot be revealed because it would breach commercial confidentiality.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil best summed it up when he said: "There is a widespread anxiety in this House about the lack of information. We are dealing with a comprehensive system of surveillance and the idea government should get a blank cheque from us for it is odious."

The House of Lords have so far voted in favour of three major amendments to the ID cards bill with further ones likely at next week's vote. In the absence of anything of substance to defend its proposals the Home Office and Clarke, however, are still maintaining they will not back down on their refusal to reveal more detailed cost estimates.

That means months of further political wrangling while the bill passes back and forth between peers and MPs. Ultimately Blair could still force the bill through using the Parliament Act later in the year but after this key battle in the Lords opponents and critics now hope any delay may even be long enough to see Gordon Brown take over as Prime Minister and ditch the bill completely.

The Lords vote marks a small but significant victory for silicon.com and other critics of the ID card plans put forward by the Home Office but while the tide finally seems to be turning in favour of common sense the battle is still far from over.