The National Identity Card: The £1bn Scheme was Launched in November 2009 But Proved a Hugely Expensive FAILURE!!

Confidential reports into trials of the £30 cards expose for the first time the chaos that surrounded their introduction.

The £1bn scheme was launched in Greater Manchester in November last year but proved a hugely expensive failure, with only 13,200 people signing up. It was scrapped by the coalition government days after it came to power. Today, The reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal how:

Senior Whitehall officials were urged to email friends and relatives to encourage them to buy cards because of fears about the level of demand;

• UK and overseas border guards refused to recognise the cards - with one traveller chased through an Italian airport after trying to use one as ID; 
• The Home Office discovered the cards could stop some credit cards from working properly.

The cards - which contained fingerprint and other biometric details - were championed by the previous Labour government as a way of preventing terrorism and identity theft.

The documents highlight particular concern about low take-up by staff at Manchester Airport.

By April  last year-2010, only 15 per cent of airside workers had enrolled for a card.

Reports reveal how the airport took the unusual step of appointing a full-time National Identity Card Administrator to drive up demand and considered a competition to promote the scheme.

The report also said: "One participant complained that the identity card interfered with other cards kept in the same wallet."

The ID scheme - which cost £292m before it was axed - was initially championed by Labour ministers as an anti-terror measure that would allow them to keep track of people in Britain.

But public pressure eventually forced them to concede that the cards should not be compulsory. Manchester was chosen to pilot the scheme but all 13,200 cards issued have now been cancelled.

Participants who forked out £30 for the documents have been told they will not get refunds. The Home Office refused to comment on any of the problems cited in the reports.

Home Office minister Damian Green said: "The identity card scheme was intrusive, bullying, ineffective and expensive."

But Leigh Labour MP Andy Burnham, who oversaw the biometric cards while a Home Office minister, said:

"The Tory-Lib Dem government are trying to make the cards a totem of what our government stood for - but I think they were a good idea and many people are still be in favour of them.

IDENTITY crisis: fall and rise of ID card

• 2002 An identity card scheme in the UK is mooted after the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. The government initially proposes a national 'entitlement card' to combat benefit fraud and illegal working

• 2003 Proposals for biometric ID cards appear in the Queen's Speech, with the aim of making the cards compulsory by 2013

• 2004 Legislation for the cards is put to MPs. Under the plans, a new national database is to be be created carrying names, addresses, and biometric details

• 2006 The ID Cards Act becomes law - although a further vote would still be required to make the cards compulsory.

• 2008 The compulsory roll-out of cards for foreign nationals begins, replacing paper documents.

• 2009 The government states the card will not be compulsory for UK citizens although those who apply for a new passport will automatically be added on to the ID database. Pilot schemes in Manchester and Manchester airport begin. People in Greater Manchester are the first in the UK to be able to buy the £30 cards.

• 2010 The trial is extended across North West of England. The new Coalition Government announces its intention to scrap the scheme. UK citizens who purchased the cards learn they will not be refunded. Biometric cards for non-EU workers and students will remain in place.
  
  (www.telegraph.co.uk)