No magic solution

2:54pm Thursday 8th May 2008

SIR - The government has just released its latest ten-year estimate of the cost of the ID card scheme.

Revised plans now involve franchising out the responsibility of collecting people's biometric and personal information to private companies.

Aside from an admission that expensive integration centres, such as the one now running in Leeds, are not up to the job, this could in fact increase the risk of ID fraud because more companies and institutions will be holding personal details about us. It is now proven by security experts that Biometric technology is not the magic solution to ID fraud the Government tells us it is.

It's now time for the Brown Government to learn from its election defeat.

One way in which it could do this would be to axe the failing ID cards scheme.

James Elsdon-Baker, Yorkshire NO2ID Co-ordinator, Granville Place, Otley