ID card plans are 'still on track'
The roll-out of identity cards is not being scaled back despite plans to include sensitive employees from just two airports in the next stage, the Home Office has said.
Plans to issue cards to people employed in sensitive jobs or locations will be piloted on workers at London City and Manchester airports from next year, it was confirmed.
Critics of the scheme said this represented a "complete roll back" from the Government's original intention. But a Home Office spokeswoman said plans remained "on track" and that the Government had only said the roll-out to sensitive employees would begin in 2009.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Phil Booth of the NO2ID campaign said ministers had performed a "complete roll back" by moving to restrict trials of ID cards among airport workers to just two venues: Manchester and London City.
A spokeswoman for the Home Office said that they had previously stated that the second half of 2009 would mark "the start of the roll-out" and that it was "still on track in that way".
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is expected to unveil plans for private firms, shops and the Royal Mail to bid for contracts to fingerprint millions of people for the new identity cards.
The Government is aiming to contract out the task of gathering biometric data for new passports and ID to the private sector, according to the Daily Mail.
Applicants will have all 10 fingerprints and their faces scanned. The data will then be passed to the Identity and Passport Service to be stored on the new, computerised National Identity Register.
A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed that the Government wanted to create a network of places where people could easily go to complete the application procedures for the biometric documents.
Ms Smith, who is delivering a keynote speech on ID cards, is also expected to disclose that the cost of the scheme - previously estimated at £4.5 billion - is now put at closer to £5 billion.
