UK quashes ID cards as India pushes on with UID

While India struggles to provide every citizen with an identity card, its erstwhile colonist and political tutor the United Kingdom is doing away with the system of personal IDs altogether.

Britain's new government announced on Thursday that its first major legislation will be a bill to scrap a controversial and costly plan to introduce national identification cards. "ID cards will be gone in100 days," home secretary Theresa May said.

May, the UK's parliamentary counterpart of India's home minister, said the government would save more than $1 billion in the next decade by cancelling the cards and the corresponding national registry. The cards contain biometric data, photographs and fingerprints.

"This isn't just about saving money," May said. "It's also about principle ... we did believe there was a liberties argument for not enforcing ID cards on the British people."

Identity cards were first proposed in 2002 by the then ruling Labour Party under Prime Minister Tony Blair as part of efforts to fight fraud, crime and illegal immigration.

The plan drew heavy criticism from civil liberties groups as an intrusion into the privacy of citizens. It also came under fire for its initial costs, which were estimated at more than $6 billion.