One of the biggest reasons for rising costs of government IT is the attempt to adapt to changing technologies in midstream. The potential for that to happen with ID cards seems very high.

The ID cards system is being developed at exactly the same time that personalised mobile phones and smart bank cards are being developed.

Experts at Sun, for example, favour turning a sim card into a multi-person ID and bank system that could be read using a new radio technology under development by companies like Philips, called near field communications.

The financial and practical advantages are clear.

People don't mind carrying mobile phones and they may be less bothered about using them for authentication. Biometrics on the phone would allow people to confirm their identity if necessary to someone like an employer, reducing the costs to business.

But waiting for further advances doesn't fit the political timetable.

This week David Blunkett confirmed a gradual introduction of ID cards, at first they will be voluntary with a database being built for a compulsory system that is finally adopted.

So initially we will have a 'family of smart cards, expensively run by the Government to mislay and lose.

The drizzle-in approach obscures the final fact about the approach of the Government to ID cards which is that it is already underpinned by the fudging one expects from IT projects tied to political objectives and timetables.