Brown to sell ID card data to offset project's high cost

Published on Monday 7 August 2006 00:48

PERSONAL details on the identity card database will be sold to private-sector companies to offset the soaring cost of the scheme, Gordon Brown has indicated.

In a dramatic change to his previous scepticism over the scheme, the Chancellor is now embracing the spread of surveillance to routine transactions.

Charging private-sector companies - including high street banks, e-businesses and retailers - to verify their customers' identities would offset some of the 8 billion cost of the scheme. Business leaders are also keen to combat consumer fraud, which costs the industry 425 million a year, although technologists are divided as to whether the identity card would achieve this.

However, concerns over the security of the technology were highlighted after computer experts showed they could clone the details contained in chips on electronic passports. But Mr Brown is now studying how to expand the use of biometric information to thwart identity fraud and crime, allowing banks to share confidential information from government databases.

The Chancellor has set up a taskforce, headed by Sir James Crosby, former HBOS bank chief executive, to study identity management which will consider widening the ID card project.

A source close to the Chancellor said: "This is going to be a key issue over the next ten to 15 years about identity management right across the public and private sectors."