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Is This Your Card Sir?

New driving licences form first step to ID cards.

Squall Download 2, Dec-1999/Jan-2000, pg. 6.

Drivers may have to produce their new photo-licence cards whenever police demand to see them if proposals under consideration by the Home Office get the go ahead. Paper driving licences have now been fully replaced by new photo-licence cards with magnetic strips holding details about the driver.

A recent report from a government action team on the issue reveals that police are pressing strongly for powers to check the new photo-licences at the roadside after recently being granted immediate access to the database at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and to computerised MoT records.

The move signals the first major step towards requiring all UK citizen's to carry ID cards, a project which the previous Tory government failed to achieve but which has been enthusiastically picked up by Jack Straw.