Theparliamentary public accounts committee(Pac) has praised the waye-passportshave been rolled out, but
says the government has some work to do to convince the public
about the need for separate ID cards as a result.
The Pac says the information held on e-passports is similar to
the information contained in the proposed ID cards, and the
government's plans for a separate ID card may be unwarranted.
Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the Pac, said, "The introduction of
the first generation of e-passports was an excellent example of
successful project management and procurement by the
Identity and
Passport Service.
"The introduction from 2009 of second generation e-passports,
digitally storing holders' fingerprints as well as their
photographs, will present an even more demanding implementation
challenge."
The Pac is also concerned about the reliability of the chip in
the passports. Leigh said, "The best manufacturer's warranty that
the Identity and Passport Service could get for the electronic chip
embedded in the passport was for only two years, even though
passports are valid for ten years.
"The public will want to be told just how durable the chip is
and, if it stops working, who will pay for a replacement. The
prospect of e-passport failures contributing to yet further delays
at border controls is not an enticing one."
Leigh says, "Most of us are going to have to have both an
e-passport and an identity card. The Home Office needs to explain
why an e-passport could not serve both purposes. At the very least,
the Identity and Passport Service should reduce areas of overlap as
the identity card project progresses and make sure that the
combined fee for the two documents is minimised."
A Pac report examines how lessons learnt from the introduction
of e-passports will be incorporated into future projects, the cost
of authenticating applicants' identities, passport fee trends, the
measures being taken by the Identity and Passport Service to hold
down passport fees, and working with others to reduce costs and
improve border security.