Government will ask businesses to bid to become centres to
collect biometric data for ID cards, in the latest move in its plan
to create a biometric database of the population.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is today expected to call on
businesses to help the government run booths where people could
give their fingerprints.
The Post Office is being tipped to be one of the companies that
could provide this service.
A Post Office spokesman said, "The Post Office is very pleased
to have the opportunity to explore new work from the Home Office as
any new business we can get helps strengthen and secure the future
of the Post Office network."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to introduce ID cards at a
cost of £5.4bn over 10 years.
The national identity card scheme will be launched this month
with ID cards issued to foreign nationals from outside the European
Economic Area.
The project has
been criticisedby campaigners and MPs following recent losses
of personal data from government departments.
Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve slammed the "creeping
growth of a surveillance society" at the Conservative Party
conference.
He said the public was "fed up with the creeping growth of a
surveillance society, which intrudes into their private lives and
loses their personal data".
Grieve said the government had "created the worst of all
worlds". It had increased surveillance while levels of crime had
heightened. "We're less free. We're less safe," he claimed.