'We listened,' says passport and ID card chief

With £1 billion pounds shaved from the spending plans, the introduction of some choice, and opening up the biometric collection market, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's speech today rung in a few changes to the controversial identity card scheme.

The chief executive of the Identity and Passport Services (IPS) discussed the new aspects with IT PRO, explaining what it all means and looking to the future. "It's a big announcement," James Hall said.

"There's a very clear delivery plan now... it very much focuses on where we get benefits from ID cards most quickly," he explained.

According to the new plans, the cards will be doled out first to foreign nationals and airport workers. The year after, young people such as students will be given the option. From 2011, when the biometric passports are available, people - including airport workers, but not foreign nationals, for clear reasons - will be given the choice when they renew their passport to get a biometric one or to get an identity card, or both.

"It's a constrained rollout to ... a world where people have a choice," he said.

"We've been listening to what people have had to say," he added, although lobbyists and the opposing government parties who have called for the system to be cancelled are unlikely to be convinced.

But both the biometric passport and the ID card would be linked back to the National Identity Register (NIR), so there's no avoiding ending up on that database.

"I suspect many people will think both are useful to have," Hall mused.

For the meantime then, anyone with a passport can avoid having an ID card. But could the government make them compulsory in the future? "The government has already said that this is not a decision for now, it's a decision for later," Hall said. "This is not something we even need to think about for years to come."

"If we prove the utility of them, people will choose to have them... compulsion could become a moot point," he added.

As well, allowing for some limited choice helps take some of the thunder from opposition party arguments - a nice side benefit given the Conservatives have promised to drop the scheme if elected. "It's hard to argue against a scheme which is largely voluntary," he claimed. "Why would anyone want to stand in the way?"

Some of the advice the government received said the system should be consumer-lead. "This should be a consumer lead process, with consumer choice paramount," explained Hall.

And it could very much become a matter of consumer choice, as one of the main changes to the implementation plan is a move let private sector companies collect biometrics, rather than have the government handle it - and pay for it. Indeed, this aspect is where some of the billion pound in cost savings has come from, Hall admitted.

"We are very committed to maximising the role of the private sector in the scheme," he said. "And create a market in collecting biometrics." Hall compared it to going to have your photo taken for a new passport. Many shops take such photos, he said, suggesting digital photos and fingerprints could be collected using a similar model. "I would like the market to decide the supply methods, while we decide the standards."

"I suspect we'll only be doing it [collecting biometrics] in exceptional circumstances if we need to see or interview someone," he said.

He did note the potential for security concerns with such a model. "People will want to be confident that their information will remain secure," he said.

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