ID cards: Seven years of missed deadlines and U-turns

silicon.com breaks down how the government's original vision compares to today's reality...

Picture the scene: the year is 2016 and ID cards have been embraced by the British public, with most UK citizens now carrying their very own card.

This increasingly unlikely scenario is how the government initially envisaged the ID card scheme would turn out way back in 2006.

Since the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) laid out this grand plan three years ago, its vision has withered beneath repeated delays to the cards' rollout, cuts to the cards' capabilities and the Tory pledge to axe the scheme if elected next year. Public support for the cards too is dwindling, down from 79 per cent of the general public in 2002/03 to 56 per cent this year.

silicon.com travels back to the birth of the ID cards scheme in 2002 to chart the seven years of setbacks that have left the scheme in a very different shape to the original vision promised by the government.

The rollout of ID cards to the UK public

• Original vision: In its original consultation paper in 2002 the Home Office said ID cards would be rolled out to the general public in the UK from 2007/08.
• Situation today: ID cards will be rolled out to the general public in the UK from 2012. However, the Tories have pledged to ditch the ID cards scheme if elected next year.

What happened?

• July 2002 - The Home Office produces a timeline projecting ID cards will be rolled out to the general public from 2007/08.
• March 2006 - The deadline for the rollout is moved after the draft ID cards bill is rejected five times by the House of Lords. The date for it being compulsory for certain members of the UK public to get an ID card is pushed back from 2008 to 2010. UK citizens applying for a passport from that date will be forced to also get an ID card.
• October 2006 - The Tories pledge to abandon the ID cards scheme, with Conservative Party leader David Cameron describing the scheme as wrong and a waste of money.
• January 2008 - The launch date for rolling out the cards across the UK general public slips for a second time, this time from 2010 to 2012.
• October 2009 - The Identity and Passport Service misses its October deadline to issue the card to Manchester residents, who were originally supposed to be the first UK nationals to get the cards. The delay means people working or living in Manchester had to wait until 30 November before they could enrol for an ID card.

The plan to make ID cards compulsory for UK nationals

• Original vision: The Home Office initially stated that everyone in the UK would be required to carry an ID card by UK law.

What happened?

• November 2003 - The Home Office states that it will be compulsory for all UK residents to carry a card from 2013 but will need a decision by the Cabinet and a vote in Parliament before passing into law.
• October 2004 - The pledge that the cards will be compulsory for UK citizens is repeated by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett. A Home Office press release talks about "a single, universal ID card for all UK nationals, to be issued alongside passports".
• March 2008 - The government ditches plans to force UK citizens to get an ID card when they renew or apply for a passport.
• March 2008 - Then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announces that a parliamentary vote on making ID cards compulsory for UK citizens will now be delayed until 2015.
• June 2009 - The government drops its commitment to make it compulsory for UK citizens to carry ID cards in a parliamentary announcement by Home Secretary Alan Johnson. ID card critics, such as pressure group No2ID, point out that anyone who applies for a second generation biometric passport will still have biographical and biometric details entered onto the ID cards central database, the National Identity Register.

The biometric information to be held on the ID card

• Original vision: Iris scans were proposed as one of the biometrics that could be stored on the card's microchip.
• Situation today: Iris scans were dropped from inclusion on the card, and the card's chip now stores a digital copy of a facial photo and fingerprint scans.

What happened?

• November 2003 - Iris scans are listed by the Home Office as one of the biometrics that could be used on the card.
• December 2006 - The Home Office drops proposals for the card's microchip to store iris scans, deciding that a scan of fingerprints and a facial photo will be sufficient. The decision prompts criticism from John Daugman, professor of Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition at Cambridge University. Daugman claims that fingerprints and facial photos are not distinctive enough if identity checks need to be made against the 45 million-strong adult population, and that checks against this number of people would result in one billion possible false matches.

Plans to make airside workers and young people the scheme's early adopters

• Original vision: Young people and airside workers were initially scheduled to be the first adopters of the ID card. Workers at two airports were to be forced to carry the cards from 2009 and students were to be issued with the cards from 2010.
• Situation today: Young people across the UK will not get the cards before the general rollout in 2012 and plans to make it compulsory for airport workers to carry a card have been dropped.

What happened?

• January 2008 - Leaked Home Office documents show that young people across the UK aged between 16 and 25 will be able to apply for an ID card from 2010.
• August 2008 - The IPS delays the date from which people aged 16 to 25 will be able to apply for a card to 2011, a year later than originally suggested. The delay follows an online consultation with young people which saw heavy criticism of the plans to make teenagers and students one of the first groups in the UK to get the cards.
• November 2008 - Airport workers and air crews at London City and Manchester airports will be forced to get an ID card as part of airside security checks, according to the Home Office.
• May 2009 - The latest IPS delivery plan for ID cards no longer mentions young people getting the cards ahead of the rest of the UK in its key milestones timeline. Instead the delivery plan document talks about large numbers of young people being able to get the cards in Manchester after they are made available to the public from November 2009.
• June 2009 - The Home Office drops plans to force airport workers and air crew at Manchester and London City airports to have an ID card in the face of stiff opposition from staff unions. The government announces a voluntary scheme where workers at the airports will be able to choose to get a card from 30 November 2009.

The ID card as a security tool

• Original vision: The card will be the "gold standard" for identity security by tying an individual's ID to the card using their biometrics.
• Situation today: The Home Office has admitted that the majority of checks on the cards will be visual only, that there are still only a handful of readers able to read the cards' microchip and that it has changed the base technology that will be used in the National Identity Register following a security breach.

What happened?

• May 2007 - The IPS reveals the majority of checks using ID cards will not match the biographical and biometric data stored on the card's chip against the central ID cards database, the National Identity Register. Readers of silicon.com point out this would mean that the cards generally rely on visual checks, which could be fooled by forged cards.
• August 2009 - A security researcher claims to have cloned an ID card issued to a foreign national. The Home Office however stands by its earlier guarantees that cards would be impossible to forge.
• September 2009 - Nearly a year after ID cards were introduced for foreign nationals there are still no ID card readers able to read the biometric and personal details stored on the cards' microchips at UK borders or in UK police stations.
• October 2009 - The first card readers in the UK are introduced by the UK Border Agency, which issues 12 card readers to its staff for use at ports and in enforcement operations.
• October 2009 - The IPS changes its strategy on how to store ID card data after a centralised database it had planned to use suffers a security breach. The decision follows the discovery that 34 civil servants had breached their access rights by looking at the records of acquaintances and celebrities on the system.