The A to Z of ID cards

S is for Selling the cards

Since the cards are not compulsory the government hopes to instead stimulate take-up by allowing the cards to be used for everything from claiming benefits, to opening bank accounts.

But it is looking increasingly doubtful whether the cards could find a wider use, with UK payments association Apacs claiming the security features that would have made the cards useful for checking identity in large money transfers and online transactions have been stripped from the scheme.

To counter some of these criticisms over the usefulness of the card chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service James Hall recently suggested that chip and PIN functionality could be added to the cards.

The current form of providing someone's identity is to check the individual against a document - such as a utility bill.

But the IPS argues that there are a number of problems with this: utility bills can easily be altered or forged, and criminals can steal documents and use them to assume other identities. ID cards will provide a much stronger form of identity authentication, the government insists.