Britain's biometric ID cards postponed

Technical problems have delayed the British government's trials for biometric ID cards by three months. The failure of fingerprint and iris-recognition equipment caused the delay, Home Secretary David Blunkett told members of Parliament this week. The trial, involving the registration of 10,000 volunteers to record and test biometric ID data, was originally due to launch in February but did not begin until last week. As a result, the length of the project has been cut from six months to three months.

The U.K. Passport Service is running the project with its technology partner Atos Origin, which inherited the deal through its acquisition of SchlumbergerSema.

But at a Home Affairs select committee this week, Blunkett and the U.K. Passport service acknowledged that the system Atos Origin initially delivered had problems and was sent back to the company after a few weeks.

Read Full Story