Home Office issues only half the planned ID cards
Tom Whitehead writes in the Daily Telegraph:
The Home Office has only issued half as many ID cards to foreign nationals as it had predicted because of “wrinkles” in the programme.
The setback emerged as the head of the Government agency tasked with producing the cards signalled they could include chip and pin technology to help combat identity fraud.
Last November, ministers predicted that between 40,000 and 50,000 non-EU nationals would have cards by the end of last month in the first roll out of the controversial scheme.
But by the end of last week just 22,500 cards had been issued.
Toby Stevens, writing on his blog at Computer Weekly, is puzzled by the “Chip and Pin” comment:
I’m lost at what’s being achieved here. So, to prove my identity, I put my ID Card in an ATM and enter a PIN to provide a relatively weak binding: but seeing as nearly every member of the economically active adult population has an ATM card, why would I want to do that? To what purpose?
