British Passport - Next Generation Biometric Passports and National Identity Registration

Next Generation Biometric Passports and National Identity Registration

There had been plans, under the Identity Cards Act 2006, to link passports to the Identity Cards scheme. However, in the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement that followed the 2010 General Election, the new government announced that they planned to scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity Register, and the next generation of biometric passports, as part of their measures 'to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.'

The Identity Cards Act 2006 would have required any person applying for a passport to have their details entered into a centralised computer database, the National Identity Register, part of the National Identity Scheme associated with identity cards and passports. Once registered, they would also have been obliged to update any change to their address and personal details. The schedule for putting passport applicants' and renewers' details on the National Identity Register (NIR) has not been announced

The identity card was expected to cost up to £60 (with £30 going to the Government, and the remainder charged as processing fees by the companies that would be collecting the fingerprints and photographs). In May 2005 the Government said that the cost for a combined identity card and passport would be £93 plus processing fees.

The next generation of biometric passports, and which would have contained chips holding facial images and fingerprints, were to have been issued from 2012. Everyone applying for a passport from 2012 would have had their 10 fingerprints digitally scanned and stored on a database, although only two would have been recorded in the passport.

In May 2006 a "Renew for Freedom" campaign was launched by the NO2ID opposition group, urging passport holders to renew their passports in the summer of 2006 in order to delay being entered on the National Identity Register. This followed the comment made by Charles Clarke in the House of Commons that "anyone who feels strongly enough about the linkage not to want to be issued with an ID card in the initial phase will be free to surrender their existing passport and apply for a new passport before the designation order takes effect". In response, the Home Office said that it was "hard to see what would be achieved, other than incurring unnecessary expense" by renewing passports early.