Tony Blair stated a strong support for the ID card Act that was initially rejected by the House of Lords in January this year.

The Government had considered the card as essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration, and identity theft. However, the House of Lords required from the Government to give further clarifications related to detailed costs for such a system, a higher security in recording and storing personal data and asked for a change in one of the purposes of the system from 'securing efficient and effective provision of public services' to preventing 'illegal and fraudulent access to public services'.

The 'Identity Project' report of the London School of Economics had also stated that the government proposal lacked defined goals without clearly showing the impact upon terrorism or identity theft and also considered the project as underestimated from the point of view of the costs.

In endorsing the project, the Prime Minister went as far as stating "we need identity cards both for foreign nationals and for British nationals. If we want to track people coming in and out of our country and to know the identity of people who are here, then that is what we have to do." Foreign nationals are not presently included in the Act. As a response to the claims that the ID scheme is a tracking mean, Blair used 'log' or 'identify' as synonyms for 'track', considered as not a very fortunate choice of words.

The Register's columnist John Lettice considers that the so called "ring of steel" promoted by Tony Blair has several failing issues. The e-Borders which is supposed to help the Government know who is coming into the country, and who is going out, even if implemented at all border entry points shows a lot of vulnerabilities. EU citizens will be able to come in and work if they like, and travellers from numerous countries don't require visas. The identity of these travellers is not certain as false documents can be obtained in these countries. Blair's plans to solve the immigration question through the application of IT will meet difficulties on several levels.

Fortress Blair - PM bets on biometric ring of steel to 'fix' immigration (22.05.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/22/blair_biometric_migration_fix/

EDRI-gram: UK ID card scheme - defeated in the House of Lords (18.01.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/ukidcard

London School of Economics 'Identity Project'
http://is.lse.ac.uk/idcard/