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From ARRSEpedia

The Identity & Passport Service is an agency within the Home Office which became operational (curiously without fanfare) on April Fool's Day 2006 after the passing of the Identity Cards Act (2006). It is an amalgam of the former United Kingdom Passport Service and the Home Office Identity Cards Programme.

Its function is to provide passport services for everyone resident in the UK and ID cards when (not if) the National Identity Scheme becomes operational. It will also establish and update the National Identity Register database. [Now why does that not fill me with confidence?]

The IPS launched 'Verification by Interrogation' (VbI) in March 2007, in which all first time adult applicants are interrogated in order to confirm the applicant's identity.

To facilitate this new program over sixty interrogation centres have been opened around the country. Eventually 'interviews' may (will) be compulsory for all adult passport applicants - even renewals.

This, of course, is all very convenient: pairing passports with ID cards, as invariably one will be invalid without the other - thus forcing people in to having the unpopular ID cards against their will.

Remember! All this has happened without ANY public consultation or referendum.