NO2ID

In light of yesterday's vote in the House of Lords, it appears that the Government will have to give refunds for cancelled ID cards. However, cancelling the 15,000 existing ID cards is totally unnecessary. There is a false belief by the Government that existing ID cards cannot remain valid as travel documents without the underlying National Identity Register, which will soon be destroyed. However, UK Border Agency immigration officers at UK ports of entry have no access to the NIR, to the passport database or to any other whitelist of valid travel documents. They instead rely simply on their expertise to spot forgeries and have access only to a blacklist of lost and stolen travel documents, which include those issued by other countries. Therefore it is feasible for existing ID cards to continue to be valid as travel documents until their expiry dates without either retaining the NIR or migrating data to the passport database, particularly in light of the cards' advanced security features. Immigration officers in all EEA countries and Switzerland are already trained to recognise British ID cards along with at least 25 unique types of ID cards issued by other EEA member states. The fact that only 15,000 cards have been issued by the UK should not be an impediment to their continued international recognition, given that Gibraltar for example issues around 25,000 ID cards to British Citizens, which have been recognised for many years throughout the EEA despite their rarity. However, if the NIR is destroyed with no migration of relevant data to the passport database, then to facilitate the reporting of lost and stolen cards, there would still need to be a means for the Identity & Passport Service to look up ID card numbers in order to add them to the internationally-circulated blacklist of lost and stolen travel documents. A list of ID card numbers and associated travel document related data could be retained by the IPS solely in hard-copy paper form for such a small number of issued cards. Using paper format would also visibly guarantee that no biometric data is retained from the destroyed NIR. This approach would avoid the need to pay out refunds to existing card holders as a result of an unnecessary blanket cancellation. What are the flaws (if any) in this approach?

When Labour wins the 2015 GE then say hello to ID cards again

If the current ones are designated as invalid a new design is required should they come back that is different from this to avoid impersonation. This would add extra cost and time should the project get resurrected; if they aren't invalid the roll-out can occur with greater speed using the old design...

It's very common for countries to have two concurrent designs of ID cards valid for international travel, so I don't think this is a problem. Look at Germany for example.