PEOPLE in Greater Manchester will be the first in the country to get identity cards.

The region has been chosen to launch the voluntary scheme. Residents will be able to apply for a £30 card from the autumn. The controversial cards are then expected to be introduced nationwide and will be mandatory for foreign nationals.

ID cards latest

James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, said: "We wanted a sizeable metropolitan area with a good diversity of population and a large number of young people. Manchester fitted the bill, particularly with its universities and colleges.

"We believe young people will be among the first to take up the idea of having ID cards. Moving to adulthood is a time when you consistently have to assert and confirm your identity for all kinds of reasons, including taking out a loan, or renting a flat.

"They don’t have the same ID footprint that older people have and the new ID card, which is simple and convenient, will hopefully prove ideal.

Convenient

“Many people currently use their passport for such purposes but it is not a terribly convenient method, and 300,000 of them are either lost or stolen every year.”

 The credit card-size ID cards will carry the same details as a passport, including a photograph, but will also have the holder’s fingerprints securely encrypted onto an electronic chip.

But critics say the scheme – for which the government has already awarded contracts worth £650m – is nothing more than an expensive risk to privacy.

Labour backbenchers blasted the Home Office for was spending so much when Britain faced cuts to other key services.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: “Manchester is being used as a guinea pig. All in all, this looks like a complete mess.

“It makes no sense that if you live in the area you will pay for an ID card, but not if you are just visiting. ”

'Complete mess'

The government claims the scheme will also offer increased protection against identity fraud and help protect communities against criminals, illegal immigrants and terrorists trying to exploit multiple identities.

The government has backtracked on plans to make the cards compulsory in the face of stiff opposition.

But one Labour backbencher told the MEN: “There is now a consensus in the Commons in favour of scrapping this altogether. It is a cost issue.”

Dave Page, co-ordinator of Manchester No2ID, said the cards were a discredited, unpopular farce.

Boycott

He said: “People are aware that the national identity scheme is nothing but an expensive risk to their privacy. The government claims that the cards add convenience but this just means that it will become impossible to live your life as normal without one.”

The news of the voluntary scheme comes as airline pilots said they would boycott a compulsory ID card scheme for workers at Manchester and London City airports which will also be launched in autumn.

Manchester Airport has already been announced as one of the trial sites for the compulsory card scheme for all ‘airside’ staff.
Jim McAuslan, general secretary of pilots’ union Balpa, said his members would resist with all legal means possible.

He said: “This is coercion and a case of Big Brother knows best. Our members are overwhelmingly against the government’s national ID card scheme trials for pilots and other airside workers.”