Nick Heath writes on the Silicon.com web site:

Plans to cut £1bn from the cost of the controversial ID cards project by making people enrol on the high street could be unworkable, after a government report warned the process could be vulnerable to fraud.

The Home Office had hoped enrolment for cards would take place in Post Offices, but this could be thrown into doubt by a report by the Business and Enterprise Committee that found “many or even most identity services may well be too sophisticated to provide across the [post office] network”.

This is the latest blow to hit the ID card project – the government has already announced it does not plan to make the cards compulsory and has recently dropped plans which require airside workers and pilots to have the cards. Retailers were also hoping to benefit from up to £6bn in extra business because of the increased footfall from being involved in enrolment.

The Department for Transport (DfT) advised the committee that it was becoming increasingly difficult for Post Office staff to spot high quality fake passports that were being used for over the counter checks when applying for driving licences. Passports would also be used as one of the ways of verifying identity when enrolling for ID cards.

This entry was posted by andrew on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 23:45 and is filed under (In)security, General, Neutral, UK News Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.