Originally Posted by
Roger
No, this is quite wrong.
Take a look at
What data will ID cards store?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8176174.stm
for the up to 49 pieces of information - where 'a piece' of information can be lots of collected data.
This even includes date of death, though it's not clear to me how and when this piece of information would require checking.
If 'ID cards' were simply that - identity cards - people wouldn't have reservations.
My Swiss ID card is essentially that, for the time being at least, without all that other stuff. I regularly use it for EEA travel as it is more convenient than a passport. I also use it for TSA checks in the US without a problem. After all, it has a photo and looks official, so it must be good. Mind you, my Oyster card was accepted as ID in Mexico City.
And of that list how many of those pieces of information DO NOT get supplied by you at time of application or stored by the passport service in the production of your UK passport outside of biometrics which up to date passports have anyways and the security questions....?
In applying for a UK passport the passport service already knows and stores quite a lot of information about us and encodes it in to the passport I don't see how an ID card is any different.
I think you'll find the answer is next to none....