No business case for ID cards says government

"The government has, for the first time, admitted publicly that it cannot justify its controversial £5.4bn National Identity Scheme in financial terms," reports Computer Weekly.

"The admission came from James Hall, chief executive of the Identity & Passport Service, in a response to the report from the scheme's external watchdog, the Independent Scheme Assurance Panel, published this week.

"Hall said, 'Many of these benefits [of the NIS] may be hard to quantify and potentially harder to articulate in financial terms within the scheme business case.'"

The article closes with Computer Weekly stating its opposition to the government's attempts to suppress the findings of its Gateway Reviews, which assessed the Scheme's viability. The government fought in court to keep these details secret, even in the face of recommendations by the Information Tribunal to publish them.