The danger with the proposed national identity card scheme is not that it is the death knell of liberty and once in place will spread like a virus until you can't sneeze without the government knowing.

Quite the reverse.

The danger is it will cost untold billions of pounds and do practically nothing at all.

There is clearly a civil liberties debate, but this is not the place for it. My point is purely that the current plan is a missed opportunity of staggering proportion, and shows all the signs of following that well-trodden path to government technology disaster.

The simple problem is that too much politics and not enough thought have gone into it.

In the age of the internet, the concept of an ID card as a tool for tracking criminals is so out-dated as to be almost laughable.

Conversely, a government-backed electronic ID scheme, provided as a service to citizens and enabling guaranteed authentication in all online activities, is both revolutionary in potential and relatively simple in practice (see Computing 29 September).

Instead the government is ploughing ahead at a terrifying pace with a scheme that is at best ill-considered, at worst a pernicious waste of both money and public good will.

A key argument against the scheme is its stated aims are so transparently inadequate.

If ID cards would wipe out terrorism, organised crime and illegal working overnight, then it might be worth it. Instead the citizen is presented with a plan of eye-watering cost and inconvenience, with little benefit beyond the hope that it may help the Home Office do some of its jobs better.

So, the reasoning goes, if the crime argument doesn't stand up there must be something more sinister behind it - a megalomaniac plan for ultimate social control.

If only there were such an intelligence at work! The reality is so much more depressingly prosaic.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on the US in 2001 the Home Office must be seen to do something, not least to avoid accusations of complacency. And this original kneejerk response is now being compounded by an even more myopic rush to get the legislation through.

The House of Commons standing committee last week agreed a timetable of four days for the line-by-line consideration of the ID cards bill. For an issue with constitutional implications, this is unusually fast and means the bill could well be onto the statute books before the general election expected on 5 May.

Why the hurry? Why would the government waste the capital to be gained from waiting until the next parliament and countering the scheme's opponents with the claim of an 'electoral mandate'?

Because New Labour's continued dominance at the polls rests at least partially on the lack of coherent opposition. And continuing to steal the march from the Conservatives on issues like crime and immigration is an effective tactic in the run up to the election.

With the procurement due to start in the summer, all this politicking leaves us with a scheme with all the hallmarks of the classic IT disaster. Its aims are woolly, its basic premise is flawed, and it has a politically-motivated timetable, pre-announced, with no consideration of the technical requirements involved in delivery.

It is unlikely that 'function creep' will inaugurate a Big Brother state.

More probable is that the government will spend fantastic amounts of money on an inflexible and ineffective plan, conceived out of political expediency, achieving nothing more than a vague notion of improved security.

And a useless piece of plastic.

And another fiasco to be added to the already battered reputation of public sector IT.