Among the worries: Its cost; renewing the biometric testing; replacing ID cards; enrolling difficulties; difficulties with card reader machines; non-cooperation from the public; civil liberty; privacy and legal implications; problems for disabled users; security concerns; and the creation of a new offense of identity theft.

Although the team of experts found that an ID card system in principle could create "significant, though limited, benefits for society", it attacks the current proposals as "too complex, technically unsafe, overly prescriptive and lack[ing] ... public trust and confidence,” according to Britain’s Guardian.

The authors warned that the "successful identity theft of a person's biometric data would mean that their fingerprints or iris scans are permanently in the hands of criminals, with little hope of revoking them."

The report also lambasted the card's nearly-$500 price tag and its attendant card-reader costs, the fact that it might not even be legal under the rules of the EU, the apparent lack of a clear need for the card, and the fear that such an ID card will be something without which a person cannot function - in other words, the card becomes more important that the person it is only supposed to represent.

The proposal faces stiff opposition from all political viewpoints, according to the Guradian which reported that Conservative Party leader, Michael Howard, who has previously said he personally supports some kind of ID scheme, says that Conservative MPs would vote against the current bill. And The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Mark Oaten, called the government "out of control" over the project.

Phil Booth, national coordinator of the NO2ID campaign, told the Guardian, "The Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly, the Greater London authority, the chief of the Metropolitan Police, three of the four largest unions in the land comprising millions of members, and tens of thousands of private citizens are telling them that their ID scheme is a bad idea."

The British ID plan should worry Americans. Some have suggested a launch of the ID card there could lead to a national ID card in the United States.

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