Leaked plan reveals backdoor coercion tactics

A leaked Home Office document reveals that teachers, nurses and 16-year-olds will be the new soft targets for the ID card scheme and National Identity Register (NIR). 'The National Identity Scheme Options Analysis' describes how the Government intends to go about 'coercing' citizens onto the National Identity Register and sets out a possible marketing strategy for the scheme.

It was published on Wikileaks on 29 January 2008 and could represent government thinking possibly as recent as December 2007. The document suggests that the government is moving away from the idea of introducing ID cards via passport renewals.

Ironically, the document goes on to recommend an approach that targets a 'trusted relationship' group - those who already undergo vetting/CRB checks, such as teachers, nurses and carers - in the second half of 2009, followed by a group of young people in 2010.

It goes on to reveal that the NIR may be introduced surreptitiously, by allowing individuals to 'enrol at a lower level of assurance' only later to be asked to provide fingerprints.

NO2ID National Co-ordinator Phil Booth says: "The charade is over. While ministers try to bamboozle the British public with fairy tales about fingerprints, officials are plotting how to dupe and bully the population into surrendering control of their own identities."