UK Home Office Set To Scrap National ID Cards

mjwx writes "In what would seem to be a sudden outbreak of common sense for the UK, the Home Office has put forward a plan to scrap the national ID card system put into place by the previous government. From the BBC: 'The Home Office is to reveal later how it will abolish the national identity card programme for UK citizens. The bill, a Queen's Speech pledge, includes scrapping the National Identity Register and the next generation of biometric passports.' The national ID card system, meant to tackle fraud and illegal immigration, has drawn widespread criticism for infringing on privacy and civil rights. However, the main driver for the change in this policy seems to be the 800-million-pound cost. Also in the article, indications of a larger bill aimed at reforms to the DNA database, tighter regulation of CCTV, and a review of libel laws."

Comments

Hardly "sudden"

[Anonymous Coward]

In what would seem to be a sudden outbreak of common sense

Hardly a "sudden" outbreak. We had an election that was hardly a surprise (it was held at basically the last minute it could be, as everyone expected). As a result the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have formed a coalition governement. Both coalition parties have pledged for a long time to scrap ID cards. It was also set out in their initial coalition agreement and it's one of the "freedom" things they feel they have a common platform on. Anyone who is surprised by the suddeness of the plan to scrap ID cards is... well, foreign. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course.

Nothing to do with cost..

[malkavian]

It had long been thought by everyone (other than the last government, who just got sent packing) that the ID cards just wouldn't work the way they were meant to (i.e. they don't protect anyone, and are just infringements on privacy and civil liberty, costing the citizenry money they shouldn't have to pay).
The £800 million was supposed to be recouped by the Government by charging to have the card (they were intended to be mandatory eventually with every passport). In other words, another tax to fund a scheme that wouldn't work as advertised and gave the populace no benefit while giving even more personal info to the government.
It'd been a promise since the early days (years back) by every other party to scrap this waste of time and money if they ever came into power. Labour were hoping to have it in place and active (making it much harder to scrap) before they were voted out. Thankfully they failed.

Re:800-Million pound cost

[TDyl]

"and issue the cards for free."

The cards were never going to be issued for free; they were going to be forced on us and we would have had to pay for them (in fact the 15,000ish who had purchased the cards before the election have been told they will not get refunds but, instead, will have a souvenir of "historical" note).

The purchase price of the cards was meant to cover the operating costs of the scheme; government don't pay - we do. They take our taxes, then want more stealth taxes.