The A to Z of ID cards

Q is for Questions

The London School of Economics (LSE) has been one of the fiercest critics of the ID cards project. In 2006 it called for the project to be taken away from the Home Office and given to the Treasury.

At the time professor Ian Angell, head of the LSE's department of information systems, said: "We don't know what to believe anymore. Contradictions, guesswork and wishful thinking on the part of the Home Office make a mockery of any pretence that this scheme is based on serious reasoning."

In 2008, in response to consultation on ID cards secondary legislation, the LSE claimed that the £30 cost of a card was too high and would stop people from getting a card. It added business needed more guidance on how much it would cost to use the cards to verify identity, warning the lack of information would "severely hamper the take-up of the card by private companies".

It said that the government also needed to further clarify what data from the National Identity Register would be accessible to outside bodies.