The cost of issuing passports and ID cards, including set up costs, is estimated to be £5.4 billion in the 10 years from October 2006. This does not include costs falling to other organisations using ID cards to verify identities. The decision to use ID cards is for each organisation, based on its assessment of the benefits and costs for its particular business. Costs will depend on the types of identity check that each organisation wishes to make and the infrastructure it already has in place or plans to put in place to use identity verification services.
The total quantifiable financial benefits of the scheme once it is fully rolled out that can currently be estimated range from £1 billion to £1.7 billion per annum. The benefits arising from reduced fraud are estimated to be in the range of £550 million to £980 million per annum, of which benefits to private sector organisations are estimated to be in the range of £321 million to £518 million per annum.
Clearly she's hinting that there will be net savings by the reduction of fraud. All well and good on the basis of the kind of fraud they are estimating for. However, what isn't accounted for is the kind of fraud that will be opened up by the cards and the NIR -because that would be admitting that there may be some and of course it is politically 'inexpedient' to make that admission.
And then there's the cost of time for the constant production of documents -or the arguments over ones right not to produce them on this occasion- and the inevitable court time and expense in claims and counter-claims of abuse of authority, discrimination etc over the actual practice of the use of cards given that it will be petty, power-tripping officialdom who will be doing the 'asking'....
Identity Cards: 7 Nov 2006: Written answers (TheyWorkForYou.com)
Filed in: ID_cards, UK, costs, data, crime
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