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ID cards: the truth
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Biometric Passports Launched, So No Justification for ID Cards!6 March 2006 For a long time the government has been arguing that we need to have biometric ID cards in order to comply with new international standards for passports. The simple truth is, we don't. To comply with the new standards biometric passports just need a digital photograph that is machine readable - they don't need fingerprints, iris-scans, nor do they need a huge identity register database. This week the new biometric UK passport has been rolled out - NO2ID spells out clearly how this makes nonsense of the idea that passport developments make ID cards inevitable: http://www.no2id.net/news/newsblog/?p=372 The new passports will be fully compliant with ICAO regulations, including a digital version of the holders photograph on a chip embedded in the passports. The cost of the new passports has risen to £51 to cover the cost of this new technology.
Have the Home Office shot themselves in the foot? Only this morning Andy Burnham claimed on the Today Programme that the introduction of the NIR was simply something that would be done anyway because of the introduction of biometric passports ...
... The £51 cost of the new passports also reveals the government claims that passport price hikes to £93 would be needed to meet the ICAO requirements are a bare faced lie by Home Office ministers.
We now have passports which meet the ICAO standards and allow us to remain in the US Visa Waiver Scheme. Further use of such arguements to justify the introduction of ID cards will be a stunning display of contempt for the British people and parliament.
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NO2ID campaign Defy ID network |
