The government is being accused of inflating the price of biometric passports to disguise the cost of its identity card scheme.
The issue was raised in the Commons this week by Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg after Home Office minister Liam Byrne said 70 per cent of the cost of ID cards ‘will be spent anyway on introducing biometric passports’.
Clegg is calling for a full comparative analysis of the costs of both projects, arguing the discrepancies in cost estimates give rise to ‘the suspicion that the costs of biometric passports are being artificially inflated to give an impression that the cost of the ID cards project is lower’.
What do you think? Email us at: feedback@computing.co.uk
Related stories
what do you think?
Post your comment
Send an email to the Computing editor at feedback@computing.co.uk
Reader comments for this story
del.icio.us
digg this
reddit!related content
latest news
Partnership with Intel will see hardware and software upgrade to improve film creation 08 Jul 2008
Virtualisation specialist also warns that full-year sales will be below expectations 08 Jul 2008
Fraud should be reported to police, not banks and consumers must have more protection, says Committee 08 Jul 2008
More news
latest in depth
Warmer datacentres and print management spearhead green push 03 Jul 2008
Open source tool in development to measure workload-based data centre carbon output 02 Jul 2008
Cutting fuel costs and improved services high on airline’s agenda 03 Jul 2008 More in depth
Advertising Marketplace
Search for solutions, reports & analysis
- Enterprise Accounting Solutions
- Business Intelligence Solutions
- Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
- Supply Chain Management
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- Project Management Solutions
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Security Solutions
- Systems Management
- Networking and Communications Solutions
Sponsored links
Featured jobs
United Kingdom | Douglas Borough Council
Chief Executive's Department ICT Manager Douglas Borough Council are looking for a motivated and accomplished person to provide primary ICT support for Douglas Corporation, user administration, and the development of our ICT infrastructure, systems and ... more >United Kingdom | London School of Economics and Political Science
London School of Economics and Political Science The Library Analyst Programmer (fixed term 24 months) Salary: £30,201 - £36,563 pa incl The Library is at the heart of LSE, one of the world's greatest ... more >Leeds, United Kingdom | NHS Connecting Health
Project Manager, Leeds, up to £53k NHS Connecting for Health is an agency of the Department of Health supporting the NHS to deliver better, safer care to patients, by bringing in new computer systems ... more >Manchester, United Kingdom | Peel Communications Limited
Business Development Manager (IT & Comms), Manchester, (£35k)with Company Car, Healthcare & Pension. Additional team bonus subject to performance and Manager discretion. A leading property and transport Group with multi-purpose developments throughout the UK ... more >
More job opportunities