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The government has started talks with the high street about enlisting it to photograph and fingerprint Britons for the national identity and passport scheme.
Chemists, photographic shops and the Post Office are among the retailers being invited to take the biometric details of their customers as they shop.
The proposal by the Home Secretary came after the government’s figures showed the cost of producing ID cards and passports is £5bn, up £175m on previous forecasts.
Yet Jacqui Smith said the total identity scheme could bring £6bn to the UK economy over the next 30 years, aside to hoped-for cost-savings from high-street processing.
Such facilities will first appear in Manchester in the autumn, when the city’s residents will be able to apply for an ID card and pay £60 in-store to have it processed.
