Today’s Observer brings news that the Government’s own security experts have many concerns about Labour’s plans to introduce mandatory ID cards:

In a potentially damaging revelation, which undermines claims that the scheme will enhance national security, the group has concluded that [ID cards] will be prone to corruption…

The Isap report goes on to warn that the scheme may not be embraced by government departments, suggesting the cards are not being well received in some Whitehall departments.

The panel also warns the initiative is struggling to fulfil its remit. It states that the scheme lacks a ‘robust and transparent operational data governance regime and clear data architecture’, suggesting there is confusion over its roll-out.

Released two months late, conveniently after the local elections, the Home Office has produced its latest ten year cost estimate for the ID scheme.

Campaigners NO2ID have pointed out that the report actually admits to an overall increase in costs but then dumps almost a billion pounds off its headline figure by creative accounting. This is done by delaying the rollout of the scheme to 2012, enabling ministers to omit a number of high volume costs that will occur after 2017/18, and dropping plans to check every applicant individually and take their fingerprints.

The Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne, says, “Minor changes in cost estimates cannot disguise the fact that nearly £5bn of taxpayers’ money will be squandered on a scheme that will fail to combat identify fraud, illegal working, crime or terrorism. This colossal waste of money should go on putting 10,000 more police on our streets instead.”

Today’s Guardian brings news of the latest poll asking the public for their views on ID cards. Overall, the public oppose them by 50% - 47%, which continues the recent trend of polls showing a majority against. (Looking at the state of the Home Office, would you trust the government to run ID cards successfully or sensibly?)

The proportion of people who strongly oppose ID cards has grown noticeably - from 17% to 25%, whilst only 12% strongly support them.

For more details, see The Guardian website, but don’t forget also, if you haven’t yet, to pop over to the Liberal Democrat ID cards petition and add your name.

1. Did you know there was a minister Responsible for Identity (seriously - that’s what they’re calling her these days).

2. Did you know she’s not just going to be running ID cards, which you’ll register for at 16, but the whole “check in” to “check out” system, as the Home Office is taking over the General Records Office, registrars of birth, deaths and marriage. Essentially they’ll be tracking you from cradle to grave.

The wonderful John Lettice dissects the decision so brilliantly I can only quote:

The uncontentious register that previously existed will, as of next April, be run by an organisation which proposes to make money out of compiling and continually updating the “biographical footprint” of every live individual in the UK.

Don’t forget, they’re going to be merrily selling all that information to government agencies and private companies alike through the planned identity verification service. As John concludes:

If you’re thinking of getting born any time after Q1 2008, you might like to consider doing it somewhere else.

A feasibility study of ID cards. As the government’s going ahead with ID cards, it must have been positive, right? (well, assuming logic prevails in government…)

So why has it been 1000 days since a Freedom of Information request was submitted for the so-called “gateway review” of the scheme?

Spyblog and former Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary Mark Oaten both asked for these documents - and our requests, complaints, appeals, yada yada have been handled together.

So far the legal costs have been £60,000 but with a QC on board, expect them to spiral.

And all this to cover up what - surely - must have been a glowing report encouraging the government to plunge ahead into spending the £100,000 a day they’re now pouring into the project.

Or could it be it wasn’t such a positive report?

Hopefully the Information Commissioner will prevail in the ongoing appeals and some day we’ll know…

A Freedom of Information request by Computing magazine reveals:

The government has spent £53m on consultants for the national biometric identity card scheme, and continues to use 83 external contractors at a cost of nearly £50,000 per day.

The figures are more than double the value of the original £19m pre-procurement consultancy contract signed in 2004.

Read the rest here.

The Identity and Passport Service (the guys building the ID cards database) has a slogan:

Everyone’s unique. Let us keep it that way.

Thanks to Ideal Government I have finally realised the absurdity of this statement. Are they trying to suggest that without Identity Cards there would be an outbreak of cloning?

Liam Byrne inhabits a parallel universe, it appears, in which Identity Cards are like nineteenth century railways.

The BBC has the full story.

Here’s hoping for a modern-day Dr Beeching to close them down again as soon as possible.

Once again, the government is evading scrutiny of the cost of ID cards.

They have gone to the High Court to block the publication of an Office of Government Commerce “Gateway Review” - a sort of feasibility study - completed way back in 2003 of the ID cards scheme.

Mark Oaten made a Freedom of Information request for the review back in December 2004, and the Information Commissioner eventually ruled in our favour. The OGC appealed to the Information Tribunal, who also ruled in our favour, giving the government 28 days to publish.

Those 28 days expired yesterday so… the government appealed again. Another victory for freedom of information.
See The Register for the full story.

Enough with the complaining about the delay in publishing this ID card cost report: time to complain about what it reveals.

Over the next 10 years, ID cards will cost £5.55bn. That’s up from an estimate of £5.4bn six months ago - but they also reveal today that, whoops, they got the numbers wrong in October and at that point the cost was just £4.9bn. So that’s a 13% cost increase, an extra £640m in total, pushing the total cost of an ID card for Joe Citizen to over £100.

And the icing on the cake? The Home Office has been spinning all day that the costs are really only £5.3bn. If you read the full cost report, this is the cost noted in table 3, which is something along the lines of “how much ID cards would have cost last October, if changes we’ve made to the scheme since then had been incorporated”. Also known as “a completely pointless piece of information we’ve included to make things look less bad.”

Hooray for transparent government!