The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) will unveil animated fingerprint characters this week to promote the scheme to businesses, ahead of a consumer campaign in early 2010. The first wave of activity aims to build recognition among those businesses that will be regularly presented with cards by consumers. These include those in the retail, finance and education sectors.

‘The government is wasting vast sums of taxpayers’ money on the scheme,’ said shadow home secretary Chris Grayling. ‘Instead of marketing the scheme, it should be scrapping it.’ The Conservative Party has pledged to axe the cards if it wins the next general election.

It’s really shocking that a government which a) doesn’t have money to spend on needless projects and b) needs a big idea which works to catapult it into the next general election to give it a snowball’s chance in hell of winning should be continuing with its ID cards adventure. But it’s also not surprising. Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s committed the Home Office to a wholesale redefinition of identity for the 21st century (one defined by government, surprisingly enough), so despite his attempts to have us believe ID cards are dead, we still have a fight on our hands.

(via No2ID and Liberty Central)

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The Register has noticed that the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) is looking into using biometric, ID card-based data for its disclosure process:

Proposals to use ID cards are being quietly developed alongside official “research” into how to incorporate fingerprint data into employment background checks, which was alluded to in the Criminal Records Bureau’s most recent business plan.

“This research is still in the early stages of feasibility and several options are being considered as part of this work, including options for the use of ID card data and fingerprints,” a CRB spokeswoman said.

“We really are in the very early stages of looking at the possibility of introducing biometrics into the Disclosure service. It would therefore be inappropriate to comment or speculate on any detail as yet.”

Forget for a moment the false dawn of biometrics, does anyone really think this won’t happen, considering how desperate the government is to find new, underhanded ways to compel people into having ID cards? Despite what Alan Johnson would have you believe, the government’s identity strategy is dependent on everyone having an ID card. And as the Register points out, the Independent Safeguarding Authority’s (ISA) impending Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will put enormous extra pressure on the CRB, who will no doubt look for the most seductive solutions to reduce their already appalling error rate.

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security – if you don’t want this nightmare scenario, then it’s time to join NO2ID.

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