ID scheme costs ignore interrogation “black hole”
8 November 2007
NO2ID [1] says that the latest report on the cost of the ID cards scheme should be greeted with derision. Once again burying its six-monthly ID scheme cost report on a bad news day [2], the Home Office admits that there are "considerable uncertainties" [3] in its estimates. This report is the first to factor in the cost of public resistance [4], and opens the door to fee increases over what was promised [5].
Phil Booth, NO2ID's National Coordinator, said:
"The interrogation centres are late, fingerprinting is late, and the first contracts won’t even be agreed until next summer – all this points to huge budgetary overrun.
“The conveniently sliding budget looks only to the rosiest future, and fails to acknowledge the biggest black hole of all: compulsory interrogation of the entire adult population. With all those costs borne by the citizen, the Home Office is keeping billions off the true cost of the scheme.”-ENDS-
Notes for editors:
1) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the
database state. Scroll down
http://www.no2id.net for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives
that NO2ID is actively opposing.
2) The IPCC report into Jean Charles de Menezes was published today.
3) See p3 of ‘Identity Cards Scheme Cost report, November 2007:
http://www.ips.gov.uk/identity/downloads/2007-11-06_Identity_Cards_Scheme_Cost_Report_November_2007.pdf 4) ibid. p6 – “Reduction in forecast future passport volumes, due to customers delaying passport renewals…”
5) ibid. p3 – “We have not included an estimate of this income as this depends on the future fee strategy and the emerging market in Identity Services.”
For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator,
national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839, Guy Herbert (General Secretary,
general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308, or Michael Parker (Press Officer,
press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166.
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