"The home secretary indicated on BBC One's On the Record programme that his personal view was that a voluntary scheme would be pointless. " ----------- Xeni Jardin xeni@xeni.net | www.xeni.net | YIM: xeni_jardin ---------------------------------------- Monday, 24 September, 2001, 04:55 GMT 05:55 UK ID cards 'high priority' for government The UK government is considering making identity cards compulsory as part of a crackdown on terrorism. But Home Secretary David Blunkett says he will not be rushed into making a "snap announcement" on cards or any other anti-terror measures. He said: "I'm giving it a fairly high priority in terms of the discussions and the consideration behind the scenes. "There are much broader issues about entitlement and citizenship and not merely security in terms of some form of identity card which we are looking at very seriously indeed." He also maintained that improvements in electronic thumb or fingerprint technology or even "iris-prints" meant the threat of forgery would not make the system redundant. <...>