Thales wins first UK ID card contract
Gravy train starts here
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French defence provider Thales SA has won the first contract for the UK national ID card project.
The Identity and Passport Service is paying Thales £18m over four years to design, build and test a National Identity Register to support the cards. The total cost of the project is disputed, but will run to several billion pounds.
Last month the Home Office announced a short list of five possible suppliers for other parts of the project including making the actual cards. This leaves IBM, Fujitsu and EDS still waiting to hear what business, if any, they have secured.
Thales' £18m is just a drop in the ocean of the billions of pounds the government is predicted to spend on the ID card plan. The government's own estimates are that the scheme will cost around £5.6bn, but independent estimates reckon £19bn is nearer the mark. Either way, Thales et al still have plenty of pork to get their teeth into down the line.
IPS release here. ®
COMMENTS
ID card should be renamed "Benefits Card"
..and only used for benefits, coz thats where multiples of 19mil quid is being frittered away every year. Born & bred overseas, but in UK 16 years, I've observed that the primary root of malaise is all to do with the amount of money that is squandered on social services - oh yes - you Poms are so limp-wristed when it comes to tough love... every one with a sob story (illegal immigrants, and lazy locals alike) is the poor fluffy puppy with the sore paw that needs a benefit package i.e. money thrown at them...
curtail duff SocServ payments by 100%...
As for Thales doing the spec for 19mil, well hats off to them... OTOH, with so much bitching about a foreign company doing it, what UK owned company would be better? Why not Reed Elsevier, who run LexisNexis to look over the shoulder of every US citizen?
A system of many layers
Yup, sure does sound scary, or just an integrated network of public gov sector files deep in a silo somewhere
@ Zmodem
You *really* need to read this;
http://www.no2id.net/IDSchemes/whyNot.php
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