Mr. Black was responding to a Government announcement that it is reducing the estimate of the total cost of the scheme by £975m. They are proposing to achieve these savings by removing the iris recognition element of the scheme and by dropping individual checks for applicants. He believes that in both instances the security of the ID cards could be undermined.
Mr. Black said: "This is about Labour desperately trying to spin the ID card as being good value for money. In fact, the costs remain stubbornly high at £5 billion, the benefits remain totally unproven, and the damage to our civil liberties remains considerable.
"In addition to the reduction in security, Labour intends to let the private sector bid to collect our data. That way they don't have to include it in their costs and we all end up paying private companies for the privilege. Who will ensure our personal data is safe? Labour's record in doing so is laughable. The dangers of using the private sector for this scheme were evidenced by a recent scandal in which a US company lost thousands of driver's details.
"It is time to scrap the whole sorry scheme. This latest desperate attempt by Labour to save it will only increase the risk of our personal data going missing and the amount we will be forced to pay. Instead, the money should be used to pay for more police and intelligence officers. Labour's obsession with being able to keep tabs on us all won't make us one jot safer."
