Entitlement card must not mean ID cards by back door

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 8th Jun 2005

Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly leader Mike German has called on the government to ensure its proposed swipe card to access services does not set up a slippery slope to ID cards in Wales.

Assembly Minister Sue Essex announced plans to create a swipe card which would demonstrate people were entitled to use specific services, in response to a Welsh Liberal Democrat debate which successfully blocked the requirement to produce ID cards to access Assembly-run services.

Mr German challenged the minister on what the scheme would entail at Question Time today. Speaking afterwards, he said:

"Introducing a swipe card to access services would mean that the government would know where a user had been. While I was pleased that the Labour party agreed they had no intention of requiring the UK government's ID card to access Assembly services, this would be a meaningless victory if the Assembly just sets up its own ID-style card.

"There are crucial issues here around invasion of privacy, or electronic tracking of individuals which concern me and will, I'm sure, concern many other people. The Labour Assembly Government must convince us before it launches its pilot scheme that this will not to set us on a slippery slope which would lead to people being refused vital services because they did not carry a piece of plastic.

"There are also large question marks over the ability of government - whether in Cardiff Bay or Westminster - to deliver large scale IT projects of this kind. A white elephant with a magnetic strip is still a white elephant."