ID cards: Seven years of missed deadlines and U-turns
Nick Heath writes on the Silicon.com web site:
Picture the scene: the year is 2016 and ID cards have been embraced by the British public, with most UK citizens now carrying their very own card.
This increasingly unlikely scenario is how the government initially envisaged the ID card scheme would turn out way back in 2006.
Since the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) laid out this grand plan three years ago, its vision has withered beneath repeated delays to the cards’ rollout, cuts to the cards’ capabilities and the Tory pledge to axe the scheme if elected next year. Public support for the cards too is dwindling, down from 79 per cent of the general public in 2002/03 to 56 per cent this year.
silicon.com travels back to the birth of the ID cards scheme in 2002 to chart the seven years of setbacks that have left the scheme in a very different shape to the original vision promised by the government.
