ONLY 2,000 people have signed up to find out more about the
ID cards trial in Greater Manchester.
The £30 voluntary scheme will be rolled out across the region by the end of the year as a trial for the national card.
Anyone living in Greater Manchester - plus Manchester Airport workers - is eligible to get a card but the Home Office insists it's not surprised by the level of interest so far.
Nationally, 10,000 people have registered with the website to get an application form - just 2,000 in the north west.
James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, told the M.E.N: "I don't think that 10,000 people is very low when you think that we haven't really marketed the scheme yet.
ID cards news and video
"People are a bit confused about whether this is really going to happen so we will be ramping our communications up in the coming weeks.
"People who register their interest on the identity card website will be sent an application form. It will be a simple case of registering, applying and then picking up your card."
Home Office bosses say Greater Manchester was picked for the pilot scheme because of the large number of young people and business travellers.
They say volunteers are likely to want to be able to prove their age in pubs and travel in Europe without their passport.
The first ID cards are to be issued next week to volunteers at the Home Office, the Identity and Passport Service, and the organisation responsible for issuing the cards. The scheme will be extended later in the year to Greater Manchester residents and airside workers at Manchester and London City airports.
It will be expanded to people in other parts of the north west next year.
The plan is for the cards to be rolled out nationally on a voluntary basis by the end of 2012.
But the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have promised to scrap ID cards if they win the next election.
Speaking at the Labour Party conference last month, Gordon Brown said the cards - which have been a key Labour policy - would not become compulsory.
The first meeting of the independent panel to scrutinise the process took place in Manchester this week, with the new National Identity Commissioner, Sir Joseph Pilling.
For more information on ID cards go to
www.direct.gov.uk/identity
Information on the proposed ID cards will effect businesses go to
www.businesslink.gov.uk/idsmart
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Jay B, oldham (16/10/2009 at 11:09)
each one of these fools even after all the negative press these card have received has still wasted £30 a pop for these.
the schem has now been virtually scrapped with Brown announcing its not going to be compulsory.
still thats a nice £60000 for the government.
Seemingly Ignored, Heald Green (16/10/2009 at 11:11)
Angelene19, Manchester (16/10/2009 at 11:23)
keyjockey, Manchester (16/10/2009 at 11:26)
".....But the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have promised to scrap ID cards if they win the next election...."
They can be sure of my vote and about 1.9 million others in Greater Manchester.
Mark,Radcliffe. (16/10/2009 at 11:34)
Seemingly Ignored, Heald Green (16/10/2009 at 11:37)
Technobabble, Manchester (16/10/2009 at 13:02)
(a) The ID cards are not yet recognised as an alternative in Europe to a passport.
(b) You need to first have a passport anyway just to get the card, so where's the saving?
(c) There are other, cheaper, and more widely recognised methods of proving your age. The ID cards costs £30 to the government, PLUS £30 to the outlet you get it from for the privelidge of processing your application. Plus of course the £77.50 for the passport you need in the first place.
Incidentally, has anyone noticed that shops and supermarkets have upped the age at which you will be automatically challenged when buying age-restricted products? Used to be if you looked under 21 when buying drink etc they would ask you for proof-of-age, now it's if you look under 25! Could this possibly be a form of collusion to increase the number of people who need to prove they are themselves, and thus artificially create a market for a "convenient" form of ID??
In the know (16/10/2009 at 13:07)
Card about £30
Passport about £90
I might consider getting one myself
PW, Manchester (16/10/2009 at 13:09)
Mark,Radcliffe. (16/10/2009 at 13:13)
irrelevant, Salford (16/10/2009 at 13:29)
Technobabble, Manchester (16/10/2009 at 13:39)
To reiterate: you CANNOT yet use the ID Cards in Europe, you need a passport before you get a card anyway, the cards cost an actual total of £60 (not £30), and a passport is currently £77.50.
Also once you are on the ID Card/NIR system, you are on it for life; you cannot opt-out at a later date. And if you fail to keep your details up to date with with the government, they fine you £1000. But if a government employee screws-up, gets your details wrong, thus causing you serious problems then they are actually immune from legal repercussions. A recent high-court case reinforced this.
Mr Paul Teeque - DEMOCRACY IS ALIVE IN MANCHESTER! WE WON!, Proud of his fellow mancs!!! (16/10/2009 at 14:25)
Why can't people use there Driving License? It has >>>
Picture
Date of birth
Full name
Address
WHY WHY WHY!!!
Anthony , Accrington,Lancashire (16/10/2009 at 14:36)
Jay B, oldham (16/10/2009 at 15:18)
their original idea was that these cards would replace both your driving licence and passport and not cost as much as them both put together.
but they've rushed things through, prices have escalated and they havent actually sorted out that these cards would be recognised as replacements to passports.
as usual, labour come up with a reasonable idea but never see it fully through. they just give us drips and drabs.
ebble, manchester (16/10/2009 at 17:01)
Simon Evans (16/10/2009 at 17:19)
It is just as well that the biometrics are not in use, because the Home Office's own research showed that they will not work in practice when large volumes of cards are checked.
Note that the card fee is £30 until the end of next year, it may then go up. The £30 cost of getting your photo and other biometric details recorded is only an estimate. We do not know what shops and Post Offices will actually charge.
But on a positive note: EU law says that all EU nations have to accept each other's ID card. So illegal immigrants will soon be buying forged UK ID cards to get into the UK, because the Border Agency has no effective means of checking them. (And you thought ID cards would increase border security!)
Never mind, the next government will scrap the whole programme, they say. Anyone who spends £60 getting an ID card will be able to use it for about 8 months before it acquires curiosity value and goes to the back of the desk drawer.
Is It Me? (16/10/2009 at 17:26)
Andanotherthing, Mcr (16/10/2009 at 18:16)
How much more marketing does he need? The fat lady is singing James.
Brock, Hulme (16/10/2009 at 18:23)
Amounderness Lad, Caithness (16/10/2009 at 18:29)
Talk about flogging a dead donkey, in fact you would probably get more enthusiastic response from the poor dead donkey.
citycentre, manchester (16/10/2009 at 22:50)
The card itself is of little value or relevance, what the government really want to achieve is the creation of, or aggrregation of a number of existing, a huge database containing a massive ammount of personal data about every single person in the county, and allowing unprecedented numbers of officials and officers to be able to access this information, that we are to be forced to provide and fined for failing to keep up to date.
Horatio Dogsbody, Flixton (17/10/2009 at 01:13)
As for biometrics, the authorities shoving them down our throats claim that one's biometric attributes are unique to them. To that I say PROVE IT. Prove that not only are a person's biometric attributes actually unique but also that they can never, ever, be duplicated anywhere in the World. It is already known that some people's DNA profiles are not unique and the authorities have only sampled a fraction of the population, as they have with other biometric attributes. If they are unable to prove that it is absolutely impossible for a persons biometric attributes to be duplicated then it is pointless using biometrics for identification purposes. By absolutely impossible I mean absolutely impossible, not merely some fantastic odds against. With odds exceeding 14 million to one against it is extremely unlikely that I will ever win the National Lottery but it is not absolutely impossible, provided that I buy a ticket!
The foreigner (17/10/2009 at 06:30)
Horatio Dogsbody, Flixton (17/10/2009 at 10:03)
This scam is nothing to do with personal identity, most people have all that they need to prove their age and identity already.
This is about monitoring and control of every detail of citizens' private lives by an overbearing and dictatorial government, mainly to provide information to another foreign government about anyone wishing to travel to its territories.