£25 fingerprinting charge could double ID card cost

Under plans announced by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, members of the public will have to pay when they provide their fingerprints to enrol for an ID card.

This charge could be more than £25 and would be in addition to the planned £30 fee for a card.

The additional charge will also apply to individuals providing fingerprints and photographs for a new passport - on top of the current £72 passport fee. The extra money will be paid by the public to the private firms that are awarded government contracts to collect fingerprints and photographs from anyone applying for an identity card or a new passport.

It had previously been assumed that the cost of submitting such data, which is compulsory, would be covered by the £30 ID card fee or the existing passport charge.

The disclosure is certain to be seized on by critics who claim that ID cards will be both unnecessarily expensive and vulnerable to fraud.

Ministers say the involvement of the private sector - which could allow shops, post offices or supermarkets to collect the biometric information - will make the scheme more convenient for the public and save the Government money by removing the need for an network of new offices to collect the data.

The Home Secretary set out the latest details of the scheme during a speech in London. She said that the total receipt from the charge was likely to be £200million a year.

Officials confirmed that with about seven million UK residents expected to apply for either an ID card or a passport, or both, each year, that meant the potential fee could be more than £25 per person.

Despite the rising costs Ms Smith insisted that the cards would prove popular and repeated her earlier claims that they will prove vital in combating crime and terrorism, as well as providing citizens with a convenient means of proving their identity.

"We all need to be able to prove who we are in a secure and convenient way. That is the goal of the National Identity Scheme and why the Government remains committed to identity cards. This is a long-term programme with major benefits for the country," she said.

Ms Smith also announced that London City Airport had agreed to a trial of the identity card scheme.

Workers at the site in Newham and at Manchester Airport will be the first to be issued with biometric cards, which will contain fingerprint information.

The airports will roll out the cards during an 18-month evaluation period.

A Home Office spokesman denied the trial was a scaling back of plans unveiled this year for up to 200,000 airport workers to carry the cards from the middle of next year.

The Government will waive a £30 fee for the cards in a concession to the airline industry and unions, who objected to being the guinea pig for the scheme.

The cost of the identity card scheme has been estimated at £4.7billion over 10 years.

The British Air Transport Association said plans for airport staff to be the first British nationals to carry the cards were "half-baked".

Its secretary general Roger Wiltshire said airport workers were already subject to rigorous security checks.

Foreign nationals from outside the European Union will become the first to be issued with the cards from 25 November.