The home secretary indicated on BBC One's On the Record programme that
his personal view was that a voluntary scheme would be pointless.
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Xeni Jardin
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.xeni.net | YIM: xeni_jardin
Monday, 24 September, 2001, 04:55 GMT 05:55 UK
ID cards 'high priority' for government
The UK government is considering making identity cards compulsory as part
of a crackdown on terrorism.
But Home Secretary David Blunkett says he will not be rushed into making a
snap announcement on cards or any other anti-terror measures.
He said: I'm giving it a fairly high priority in terms of the discussions
and the consideration behind the scenes.
There are much broader issues about entitlement and citizenship and not
merely security in terms of some form of identity card which we are
looking at very seriously indeed.
He also maintained that improvements in electronic thumb or fingerprint
technology or even iris-prints meant the threat of forgery would not
make the system redundant. ...
