Biometric ID card due for release

Rob Stringer

The first steps of the government’s controversial national ID card proposals are to be taken with the introdution of a biometric card for immigrants.

The card, to be unveiled by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, will contain a picture, digitally-stored fingerprints and information on the card-holder’s immigration status, and will partly replace a paper-based system of immigration stamps.

Immigration officials will store the details centrally, and are expected to eventually merge them into the proposed national identity register.

The UK border Agency will begin to issue the card from November, initially to non-EU students and marriage visa holders, who many officials believe to be most prone to abuse immigration rules. Both categories of migrants will be required to produce their card if they wish to extend their stay in the country.

Critics, including Phil Booth, head of the national No2ID campaign group, have called the introduction of the biometric cards a "softening-up exercise" aimed to win over sceptics of the national ID card scheme. He told the BBC that "The Home Office is trying to salami slice the population to get this scheme going in any way they can."

Ministers claim that the cards will assist in preventing illegal immigration, as according to the Home Office website, it will ‘enable holders to confirm their identity, immigration status, and right to work or study and access public services’, as well as ‘help public agencies, employers and educational establishments to more easily understand the migrant's entitlements.’

But Booth says that "The volume of foreign nationals involved is minuscule so it won't do anything to tackle illegal immigration.” He adds that "They've basically picked on a group of people who have no possibility of objecting to the card - they either comply or they are out."

The Conservative party openly supports the biometric cards for immigrants, but maintain that a national identity register is ‘unworkable’.

www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/idcardsforforeignnationals/

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