ID Cards: Pear-shaped by 2016

Charlie Stross combines his skills as writer of near-future SF with his experiences of working in the software industry to give us a report on the state of the National Identity Register, May 2016. It's not pretty.

The program is costing the country, and you personally, close to �2Bn a year, rather than the initially projected �5Bn over a decade, and it has totally failed to achieve its objectives. It is, in fact, the biggest fiasco since the Poll Tax.

... All because of the quid pro quo the French government demanded in return for closing the Sangatte refugee camp (i.e. that the UK adopt an ID card), and Tony Blair's Americanophilia (which caused him to demand that the British ID card follow the example of the US REAL ID Act and use biometric authentication), and the gravy-train instincts of the usual government IT project contractors.