New powers back up ID cards

Sweeping powers for police to make people undergo hi-tech identity checks will be introduced with ID cards, it emerged today.

The controversial new power was in draft laws being unveiled today by David Blunkett to introduce a compulsory ID scheme within 10 years to combat terrorism and fraud.

Despite deep divisions among ministers, the Home Secretary was pushing ahead with a tight timetable which will see the national computer register ready for launch in three years' time.

In the first stage, 10,000 volunteers will test the technology by having faces, irises and fingerprints scanned at the UK passports headquarters in London and sites in two other cities.

By 2007, unique "biometric" details will be embedded in new passports, adding £31 to the cost of renewal, with computer chips in driving licences two years later. ID cards - voluntary at first - will become compulsory for all by about 2014. The rush to introduce the new security scheme has divided the Cabinet and caused protests from civil liberties campaigners.

Home Office Minister Des Browne said: "These cards are not a danger to anybody - they are a boon to society. I think people increasingly understand that security needs to be backed up by biometric information.

"To live in the complex world of the 21st century, a robust system of identification is very important."

People will not be forced to carry their cards, unlike wartime papers which had to be shown on demand. But those who do not may be ordered to a police station to prove their identity if suspected of planning or carrying out a crime. Eventually every police HQ will be armed with scanners for cross-checking.

Carrying false identity papers, including a forged passport or driving licence, will become a specific offence for the first time, with jail sentences of up to 10 years for offenders. The scheme will cost £3.1billion to bring in. Most of the money will come from doubling the cost of a passport, although ministers say that would have happened anyway because the biometric details are set to become an international standard.

An ID card on its own will cost about £35 and the Government believes four out of five people will choose to have one by 2013.

Mr Blunkett is in talks with banks about combining a card with bank and credit cards, aiming to share costs and cut the annual £2 billion cost of financial fraud.

If the scheme becomes compulsory, people may have to show one before claiming state benefits or using NHS services in order to weed out foreign freeloaders and "health tourists".

Mr Blunkett said at the weekend: "This isn't some sort of fetish. It is about recognising the massive change that is taking place in the world around us. Some 35 per cent of terrorists, I'm told by the Security Service, use multiple identities and forge other peoples' identities."

Civil rights group Liberty branded the move an "identity tax" and predicted the technology would be unable to cope. Director Shami Chakrabarti said no government had ever managed such a huge scheme without a disaster.

Tory peer Lord Selborne, chairman of the Royal Society's science and society committee, said: "We want to know to what limit this biometric data is going to be put.

"If, for example, they came back in a few years' time and said, we want to put your DNA sequence onto the databank, I would be very alarmed."

Terrorism expert Professor Paul Wilkinson, of St Andrews University, said he did not believe cards would help combat terrorists. "The majority of the September 11 hijackers were travelling under their own names, so they wouldn't have been picked up by an ID system," he said.

But shadow home secretary David Davis said the plan should be hurried through. He added: "If a scheme can overcome these problems without sacrificing civil liberties, ID cards should be introduced soon, not in 10 years' time. The terrorist threat is real and is here today."