Compulsory ID cards for UK citizens within five years

[IDemo]

Critics warn UK is "sleepwalking towards a surveillance state"

By Andy McCue

Published: Tuesday 14 February 2006

UK citizens will be forced to register for biometric ID cards when applying for a new passport within two years after MPs voted on Monday night to make the controversial scheme compulsory and to not put the costs under independent scrutiny.

In the end Prime Minister Tony Blair's enforced absence from the ID cards vote due to a faulty plane in South Africa didn't matter as the government comfortably defeated a threatened backbench Labour rebellion, albeit with a reduced majority.

A late round of lobbying by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in Blair's absence ensured the government won the crucial votes in the House of Commons and overturned amendments made to the ID cards bill last month by peers in the House of Lords.

A halved majority of 31 saw MPs narrowly vote to reject a wrecking amendment that would have made it completely voluntary for citizens to register for an ID card when applying for a passport.

[LynnTheDem]

1. Your papers, please.

Hitler was just trying to keep the German people safe.

Bloody frigging hell. Wake up, peoples!