ID cards ‘could fight illegal working’
In an article on Monday’s Home Office ID Cards cost estimate, Richard Ford, writing in The Times, notes further function creep:
In a new tactic the Home Office is promoting identity cards as a way of tackling illegal immigration and illegal working: key political concerns of the public. The Home Office highlighted how they could be used to cut fraud on the public services by making production of the document a requirement to access health, education and social security benefits.
The document outlining the costs said that, for example, the card could be used for “registering with a GP, applying for benefits, a national insurance number or bank loan, or enrolling children in school”.
It is the first time that it has been suggested that people taking their children to school should use an identity card to prove that they are in the country legally, and that their children are entitled to state education.
In 2003 a Home Office official, Nicola Roche, told MPs: “There is no expectation (that) the cards will be used to check children starting school. This is about the adult population, it isn’t about children.”
October 10th, 2006 at 12:55
More lies,half truths,spin,bullshit etc,to try and justify the indefensible.Why don,t they just scrap the idiotic scheme and stop wasting OUR money.Oops silly me forgot,Blair is never wrong.
October 13th, 2006 at 06:24
The only way that’s going to be effective is if every bank, dentist, doctor, school and DwP office has a biometric reader. Which will cost (as per the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill Regulatory Impact Assessment (Annex A, page 42) rather than the equivalent document for ID Cards):
Reader: £3000-£5000 (each reader)
PC for reader: £1000 (each reader)
plus £21,000 for cabling at each location (derived from a estimate of £1 million for 47 airports and ports).