Report - Guardian

206 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005“These changes will also lay the foundations for the Government’sproposed national identity cards scheme – which would help tackleidentity fraud, organised crime, illegal immigration, and terrorism, aswell as making it easier for UK citizens to travel and to carry outeveryday transactions securely and conveniently. The UKPS would bea key part of the new Home Office agency that would be establishedto run the scheme.” 480Yet in March 2005 the Passport Services made clear that it intended to include onlydigital photographs in all passports beginning in 2006. 481 While this is ideal forpassports, digital photographs are not the biometric foundations of the identity card. Theform of verification that the Government foresees for identity cards requires additionaland more accurate biometrics such as fingerprinting of multiple fingers.Even without the use of additional biometrics in the immediate term, the costs of thepassport are increasingly disproportionate. For example, the Passport Service intends torequire interviews for all first-time applicants. Such a process is relatively unnecessaryfor the issuance of passports, and our research could not find any other country thatintends to implement a similar process. The US, for example, only requires thatdocumentation be included in all first-time applications (e.g. birth certificate), but doesnot require this documentation for renewals. The interview process is appropriate only ifthe Passport Service is intent on collecting biometrics that require face-to-face meetings,involving the collection of fingerprints and iris scans. Digital photographs are notdependent on such interviews.The Passport Service is also implementing a central database, containing data relating toevery passport holder. According to the Passport Service, “current research hasidentified that there could be significant benefits in storing the data on a person-bypersonrather than a passport-by-passport basis.” By introducing interviews and acentral database the Passport Service is developing the infrastructure for the identitycard. This is likely to cost more than if it was merely developing the infrastructure for astandardised biometric passport.Consequently, all these additional programmes and services force the Passport Servicesto raise the costs of delivering biometric passports. According to the Passport Service, 482the cost of passports, in their current form with a single digital photo, is set to increaseby 91%.2004/2005 2005/2006 2006/2007Passport Output ('000s) 6386 6910 6853Average Unit cost per passport £35.60 £42.36 £67.93Table 6 - Unit costs per passport, UK Passport Service Corporate and Business Plan, 2005, p.30.This is a remarkable increase, and it is important to note that this does not even includethe costs of issuing the identity card with additional biometrics.480 ‘UK Passport Service: Improving Passport Security and Tackling ID Fraud’, Reference: UKPS001/2005 - Date:24 Mar 2005, available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/n_story.asp?item_id=1282.481 ‘UK Passport Service, Corporate and Business Plans 2005-2010’, UKPS, available athttp://www.passport.gov.uk/downloads/UKPS_CBP_2005-10.pdf.482 ‘UK Passport Service, Corporate and Business Plans 2005-2010’, figure 4.1 on page 30.