UK Causing All Both Small And Great To Provide Biometric Info
Pastor Dale Morgan
UK Causing All Both Small And Great To Provide Biometric Info*
Mar 18th, 2007 11:11 AM
Labour will force everyone to give fingerprints at ID card interview centres
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph
Ministers plan to force all adults to travel miles at their own expense
to fingerprint scanning units so their details can go onto an identity
card database. From 2009, everyone will have to attend one of 69
"interview centres", whose locations are revealed today for the first time.
People without their own transport, such as the elderly and the less
well off, will be hit hardest by having to make round trips that in some
cases will be more than 100 miles. Somebody living in Cambridge would be
forced to make a 62-mile round trip to Bury St Edmunds, while people in
Blackpool would have to travel 54 miles to Blackburn and back. In
Stranraer, residents face a 128-mile round trip to Kilmarnock.
The revelations are the latest blow for the Government's crisis-hit ID
card scheme. Ministers claim the scheme, which will see the first cards
issued in two years' time, will cost £5.4 billion, although experts at
the London School of Economics say the total bill could be £19.3
billion. Biometric passports, which hold similar personal details to ID
cards, will be issued later this year. There will then be a two-year
period during which people will be able to apply for a passport without
also being forced to apply for an ID card.
From 2010, all passport applicants, even if they are simply renewing
their old one, will also have to apply for an identity card.
Last night David Davis, the shadow home secretary, branded the latest
revelations an "outrage" and repeated the Conservative pledge to abolish
ID cards, which he dubbed the "plastic poll tax".
Labour also wants all first-time applicants for a British passport to
travel to the same 69 centres for interview, when they will be asked
about things like previous addresses and bank accounts.
If the party wins the next election, it will make ID cards compulsory
for all British citizens over the age of 16, whether they have a
passport or not. In its ID cards "Action Plan", the Government has
confirmed that when people are forced to enrol for an ID card,
"fingerprint biometrics (for all 10 fingerprints) will be recorded and
stored in the National Identity Register". It is possible that iris
scans will also be taken. Ministers also published a report to
Parliament on the cost of the scheme last October, which did not include
plans to cover interview costs.
Mr Davis said: "It is bad enough that we will be forced to pay for an ID
card, but to have to pay to go to a Government centre to be interviewed
and fingerprinted is an outrage.
"These costs will hit low-income families and pensioners, who might
otherwise not want passports, hardest. Conservatives will abolish this
costly plastic poll tax. It will hit the taxpayer, not the terrorists."
The 69 locations for interview centres are: Aberdeen, Aberystwyth,
Andover, Armagh, Barnstaple, Belfast, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Birmingham,
Blackburn, Boston, Bournemouth, Bristol, Bury St Edmunds, Camborne,
Carlisle, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Coleraine, Crawley, Derby, Dover,
Dumfries, Dundee, Edinburgh, Exeter, Galashiels, Glasgow, Hastings,
Hull, Inverness, Ipswich, Kendal, Kilmarnock, Kings Lynn, Leeds,
Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, London, Luton, Maidstone, Manchester,
Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Newport, Newport (Isle of Wight),
Northallerton, Northampton, Norwich, Oban, Omagh, Oxford, Peterborough,
Plymouth, Portsmouth, Reading, Scarborough, Shrewsbury, Sheffield, St
Austell, Stirling, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Swindon, Warwick, Wick,
Wrexham, Yeovil and York.
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007.