According to No 2 ID Cards the current government estimate for introducing this impingement on my personal civil liberties is going to be £1.3bn. Lets bear in mind that this is an estimate, and virtually without exception these are far below the actual, final cost to the tax payer.
Why do I make that claim? Bearing in mind that the majority of the cost is going to be for an IT project, and that it will go out to competitive tender, the scenario will play out as follows;
The contract will be awarded based solely on bid price. Which means that the companies will pitch their price to win the contract, not according to how much it will actually cost to build. When this becomes apparent to the contractor and the government then compromises will be made to the function of the sytem. Finally, extra money will have to be forthcoming to bring the system to fruition and further phases planned, costed and paid for to get the functionality that was original specified.
Trust me, I’ve been there.
Link courtesy of Spy Blog.