ID cards are here - but police can't read them

[mrfrapp]

The first UK ID cards have already been issued - but no UK police officers or border guards have any way of reading the data stored on them.

Currently no police stations, border entry points or job centres have readers for the card's biometric chip, the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) revealed in response to an FoI (Freedom of Information) request by silicon.com about the £4.7bn identity cards scheme.

The news comes in spite of the first ID cards being issued to foreign nationals in November last year, with the IPS expecting to issue 50,000 ID cards by April this year.

http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39391135,00.htm">more

The Government weren't kidding when they said ID cards will be optional. According to Ms Hillier, it's optional for the police too.