This article is more than 1 year old

Queen set to outlaw ID cards today

Photos, fingerprints and personal info to be securely destroyed

The bill abolishing the National Identity Scheme is expected to gain royal assent later today.

The Home Office said that it expected the identity documents bill would be passed into law on 21 December. As a result, existing ID cards will be invalid for use in a month's time.

Home office minister Damian Green said the bill's passing will also allow work to begin on the secure destruction of the National Identity Register. "Photographs, fingerprints and personal information that were submitted as part of the application process for an ID card will be destroyed within two months," he wrote in an article for Guardian.co.uk.

Green added that the freedom bill due early next year is likely to outlaw the fingerprinting of children without parental consent, further regulate CCTV and change the rules on retaining people's DNA.

"These measures are only the start," he added. "In the following months and years, we will continue to act decisively to defend civil liberties while protecting the public. I hope we have put the era of ever-increasing state intervention in our private lives behind us forever."

This article was originally published at Kable.

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