As the Labour Party Conference gets under way in Manchester, a Government minister attempts to spin its unpopular and intrusive ID Card proposals in a better light. They won't be any less intrusive, but they might be cheaper.
How much cheaper? The Home Office won't say. After all, this is surely just an attempt to make the scheme sound less unacceptable, in case there are any critical debates during Conference.
According to the Beeb, Home Office Minister and former IT consultant Liam Byrne told a fringe meeting that he has undertaken a full-scale review of the controversial scheme in recent months. He said he was wary of taking a "big bang" approach. Which is what everyone else in the industry has been saying for ages.
"There are opportunities which give me optimism to think that actually there is a way of exploiting systems already in place in a way which brings down the costs quite substantially," Byrne said. He was speaking after Roger Smith, director of human rights group Justice, urged the government to use the current "lull" in the project to scale down the plans.
Was Liam Byrne speaking for himself or for the Home Office when he added:
"Ultimately, in today's world, unless we can prove to a sceptical public informed by a 24 hour news cycle that we have got those checks [on the security of the system] in place then people won't use it and its purpose will be undermined."
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