I have never been a fan of the ID card scheme. I think its an expensive and ineffective solution, that despite assurances wont solve the age of problems of fraud criminality and bureaucratic mistakes, indeed someones already managed to clone the cards in 12 minutes. The Register seems to agree so do the Banks, even retailers think twice.
Obviously if the cards themselves are prone to fraud, and ineffective methods of proving our identities the government and the IPS really has other ideas Really its not the card they are interested in but in producing mega databases of everone which can be used in all mannor of ways. I really think that this will mostly impact normal people criminals will simply used cloned cards and never have a real identity.
I certainly will not be registering or queuing up to get one once the scheme goes live in Manchester (which is one of the Trial areas).